My-Otome (TV)

Arika-chan appears in Mai Hime, near the end of Episode 26 (23:30), just behind Natsuki.

This is the second anime for Voice-Actress Koshimizu Ai (Nina Wong's voice actress) in which her character's hairstyle is mockingly imitated by another (School Rumble being the first, in which she played Tsukamoto Tenma).

Arika is often refered to as Anty by Sergay Wang. This is because the Japanese for ant is あり (ari).

The colors of Arika's otome outfit (pink) and Nina's (green) are opposite of each other on the color wheel.

While many of the characters in Mai Otome are based on previous incarnations in Mai Hime, two characters, Rena Sayers and Sala Gallagher, are actually reused designs from character designer Hirokazu Hisayuki's work in the Playstation racing game, Cyber Formula Aratanaru Chousensha. Both characters also appear in the ending of the OVA Cyber Formula Sin, and Sala makes a cameo as one of the main characters' classmates in another of Hisayuki's works, the TV series, Gear Fighter Dendoh.

The title of Episode 23, "Arika of the Mysterious Valley" (fushigi no tani no arika), is a wordplay on the Japanese title of "Alice in Wonderland" (fushigi no kuni no arisu), which literally means "Alice of the Mysterious Country."

Haruka's Surname (Armitage) is a sly nod to her voice actress, Yuzuki Ryoka's previous role as Naomi Armitage in the movie Armitage: Dual-Matrix. Also, the name of the Aeries Battleship "Suzushiro" is a direct reference to the original Haruka of "Mai Hime."

During episode 25 Miyu jumps into the water. If you have watched Mai-HiME you may reconize the shadows coming at Miyu to be Orphans. If you look carefully you can see Miyu trying to get to a building which looks like the main hall of the Fuuka Academy (the area where everyone hung a ribbon on the rail)

Natsuki's attack is Howling Silver Wolf and she yells "Load Silver Cartridge" to activate it, a throw back to her Child in Mai HiME, Duran.

Rorschach, the place where Natsuki went to get info from her informant in Mai-HiME, is also the place where Nao's informant, (same character btw), spots Nagi meeting with Smith.

On page 115 of the Mai-Otome [My-Otome] Anime Perfect Guide (ISBN: 425313016X), in the Comment section for episode 22 "The Song of Destruction" ("Horobi no Uta"), director Masakazu Obara praises Rie Tanaka's "extraordinary acting performance" as Tomoe Marguerite, while series writer Hiroyuki Yoshino "takes his hat off" to Rie Tanaka and her voice acting.

The book Nao picks up off her face after tripping Arika in episode two is titled "Masoch vs. Marquis de Sade," a reference to the historical individuals who names are the sources of the terms "sadism" and masochism." That she is reading a book essentially about sado-masochism is a sly reference to her nature in My-HiME.

Episode 2 of Mai-Otome is based on the same idea as Mai-Hime episode 4: in the first series Arika runs around without waring any underwear but she doesn't care at all, in the second Natsuki is forced to do that but acts extremely uncomfortable. The direct link can be found in a short dialogue in the Mai-Otome episode between two minor characters saying "Lingerie Burglar?!", which was exactly the case in the Mai-Hime episode.

In the teaser for episode 19,Arika and Midori are discussing Midori saying she is "17 Forever". Yukariko Sensei ( voiced by Inoue Kikuko) then tells Arika that" If Midori wants to say she's Seventeen,then there's nothing wrong with that." ( Words NOT an exact quote). This references a running Gag that Inoue Kikuko uses at Public events,saying her Name and giving her age as Seventeen.

Nagi in Episode 8 is wearing his festival clothing from Mai HiME.

Miyu makes a comment that suggests Arika is a descendant of Alyssa, which would explain why Miyu sees Arika with the glowing hair. This also suggests that this Miyu might be the same Miyu in Mai-HiME, though she may have been altered to be Merciful I.Y.U. instead of Multiple I.Y.U. She also says that she has been around for more than a hundred years, "all these hundreds of years". So this, along with the text seen on Fumi-Shinso's core in episode 16, shows that the Otome are Z-type HiME, and possibly an evolution of the original HiME. Mikoto (the cat god) has the mark of the HiME and Miyu says that she is the last remaining of the higher order power.