On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, Chas Chas wrote:
I need to know about Kino Makoto's past, the one about her SEMPAI.(Yes, that
one.) What was her relationship with that person? I mean, some says he was
her ex-boyfriend, but some says he was just her sempai whom she had a crush
on. Which one is the truth?
Well, I don't think anyone has really said anything much about it. In
the SC subtitle of episode 25, which introduced Mako-chan, there are a
couple things.
When Mako first meets Motoki, she says something that is translated as
"He's exactly like a sempai whom I loved and was spurned by."
In the translation notes for the episode, it says:
In Japan, the sempai - kohai relationship is an important part of the
social hierarchy. "Sempai" usually refers to a person with a more
senior standing in a given group and "kohai" to a person with
relatively junior standing. In a broad sense, a sempai is "one who
goes before and leads the way."
In business, sempai are the employees who joined the company before
the kohai. In school, they're students in the upper
grades. Mako-chan's sempai was a senior student she fell in love
with.
Sempai are something like mentors to those who come after them. The
kohai frequently address their seniors as "sempai" or use the term as
an honorific. The sempai call the kohai by their name or use an
informal word meaning "you".
I don't know if that helps you any, especially depending on your
feelings about SC, but there you go.
Joel