PsyckoSama (Sam Phoenix) wrote:

I would, however, suggest that you take some time and look up the true lot
of teenage pregnancies in Japan.  From what I recall, Hotaru is actually
understating what sort of social pressures she's going to be under.
   

I know teenage pregency is common. It's true there are alot of them, thing
is, that there are almost as many teen abortions has teen pregencies. There
are very few teen mothers, which Hotaru is going to be, in about 7 months
time.

I've researched. The japanese are expecting standoffish with the negative
details of their culture. Hard to find any numbers.
 

True enough:  pregnancy among teenage girls is not necessarily that 
uncommon; actual motherhood
for unmarried teenage girls is quite rare, as abortion is not viewed the 
same way in Japan as it is in
the USA.  This fact is one of the plausibility problems I'm having with 
this series (another is the entire
idea of Ranma smoking, or Hotaru tolerating a smoker for that matter).

Hotaru knows that she is the reincarnation of a person living during the 
Silver Millenium.  Therefore,
for Hotaru reincarnation is not simply a (possible) part of her 
religious beliefs, but a fact.  The typical
Japanese position on abortion is heavily informed by the belief that all 
that has been lost is one go-
around through life for that soul (with no change in karmic position), 
rather than any concept that a
newly-created soul has just been deprived of its one and only shot.  
Hotaru should believe this
even more strongly than a normal Japanese girl.  So why is she taking a 
stance toward her pregnancy
so different from that almost any other Japanese girl in her position 
would be taking?  Why aren't
Michiru and Haruka making more of an effort to persuade her to be 
"reasonable"?  (You could,
of course, attribute virtually any position to Setsuna with complete 
plausibility.)

Certainly these are points which can and could have been addressed.  
IMHO, in this series to date,
they have been at most lightly skimmed over.  I feel I've been asked to 
swallow a very large
implausibility simply for the sake of a story.  It would be one thing if 
the implausibility were undefendable
on its face (like assuming Sailor Senshi could exist at all).  But in 
this case, we have a fifteen-year-old
girl making a decision utterly out-of-character given her background and 
upbringing, with only minimal
attention paid to why this decision was made.

Suggested fix:  flashback by Hotaru to twinned Silver Millenium and 
present-day experience:  being
told by father, in both cases, that her mother seriously considered 
aborting her, and that society
expected her to, but that her mother persevered both times.  These 
flashbacks probably need to be
in the first chapter, too, right after Hotaru's discovery that she's 
pregnant.

Despite the negative tone of the above, I have been surprised at how 
enjoyable I am finding this
series, which I attribute to your writing skill.




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