Yoshimura Thi Mai

Yoshimura Thi Mai (吉村・Thi・梅) is a Lily who attends Yurigaoka Girls' Academy. She is a member of Team Hitotsuyanagi. Her Schild is Ando Tazusa.

Personality
Mai is almost always cheerful, spirited, and irreverent. She is distinguished most by her dislike of anything rote and unnecessary, sometimes to the point of acting outright lazy (such as in Full Bloom, where she eagerly takes Miliam's suggestion to hold a mock battle simply because it means less work for her overseeing the first-years' training.) However, she has a keen sense of when it's critical to take action, and never spares effort when it could put anyone in danger.

Though Mai is friendly towards everyone, she cares deeply for her closest companions, in particular Yuyu, who she has known since junior high school. In several Assault Lily stories, she encourages Riri to get closer to Yuyu and advises her on how to do so, hoping that Riri can do for her friend what she herself couldn't.

Mai dislikes drills, but she takes her academic studies seriously, believing that it's her obligation to learn all that she can at Yurigaoka and use it to help her homeland of Vietnam resist the Huge.

Mai is fond of cats, though not nearly as fond of them as Tazusa is. The two of them nonetheless have a cat-centric friendship, particularly in Assault Lily: Bouquet.

History
Mai was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Her father is the chief of the Vietnamese division of Tsukuyomi Engineering, a Japanese CHARM manufacturer, while her mother was a CHARM researcher.

Mai was both athletic and had impressive Magi capacity from a young age, and her parents enrolled her in the elementary school division of Suối Tiên Vườn, a Garden in Ho Chi Minh City. Even when an elementary schooler, she hated training and never took part in it. According to Mai, the Garden staff rarely took her to task because she was remarkable at using her CHARM and making Neunwelt passes with it, despite never training.

Mai's CHARM, Thần Kiếm, was designed by her parents while she was in elementary school, but she didn't use it until she came to Yurigaoka.

Mai was still in elementary school when a giant Cave, far larger than the Caves that usually popped up on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, appeared. Gigant-type Huge poured out of it, catching the staff and Lilies of Suối Tiên Vườn off guard and sending them into a panic. Ho Chi Minh City was devastated by the attack. Among those who went missing was Minh, Mai's younger brother.

Later, the reasons that Suối Tiên Vườn had failed to defend Ho Chi Minh City were deemed to be that the city's Area Defense systems were inferior to those used in Japanese cities, and the local Lilies were below average at executing the Neunwelt Tactic compared to other Lilies worldwide.

This was the impetus for Mai to travel to Japan and study at Yurigaoka, one of the world's finest Gardens. Her goals are to bring what she learned there back to Suối Tiên Vườn, and also to one day search for her missing brother, Minh.

When in junior high, Mai became friends with Amano Soraha and Hata Matsuri, who both transferred to Yurigaoka around the same time as she did.

During Mai's first year of high school, she took part in the Odaiba Counteroffensive as a member of the 5th Division and, together with the rest of the 5th, nearly fought to the death in defense of the New Tatsumi Bridge. She was saved by the arrival of the 3rd Division, and is well disposed towards Serizawa Chikaru in particular to this day.

Later that year, Mai was involved in a hellish battle in which most of the 95th Tsubaki class's legions were destroyed, as part of an interceptor squad. Following the battle, she was also given the task of recovering the belongings of the dead. As she went about this, she met Taniguchi Hijiri and others who had lost most of their classmates, and helped them rise out of despair.

Doll pamphlet
The pamphlet included with Mai's doll includes a few details that, while mostly not directly contradicted in later material, have also never been implied or mentioned again.


 * The attack on Ho Chi Minh City was so devastating due to the inferior performance of their "Huge lure device" (ヒュージ誘引装置). (This appears to have been retconned by the Special Feature on Radgrid, which substitutes this with the mention of Area Defense in a nearly identical context.)
 * At present, Mai's expertise with Shukuchi is remarkable enough that it's attracted the notice of even Lilies from Odaiba, who hold one-on-one combat in high esteem.
 * Mai can't stop goofing around even in battle, so she tends to make pointless and flashy Neunwelt passes just for her own amusement, which puts Shirai Yuyu and Kuo Shenlin on edge.

Anime/game
Yurigaoka allows only a handful of Lilies of junior high school age to transfer in per year, and those Lilies must possess exceptional talent. Mai qualified due to her impressive command over her Rare Skill, Shukuchi, as well as her prowess with CHARMs. When Shirai Yuyu first met Mai, after Mai had skipped training and Yuyu was sent to find her, the other Lily was disgusted by Mai's laziness even after Yurigaoka had recognized her in this way. However, Yuyu eventually came to respect Mai and tolerate her outlook, and the two were friendly rivals by the time the Koshu Evacuation happened.

A fellow member of Legion Álfheimr with her, Mai remained a close companion of Yuyu's from the Koshu Evacuation onward, even choosing to join Yuyu in her decision to fight without a legion after Álfheimr disbanded. According to Banshoya Ena, if Mai hadn't been there for her all along, Yuyu would have been beyond saving by the time Hitotsuyanagi Riri enrolled in Yurigaoka.

Oath of Reconnection
At the end of the story chapter, Mai asks Ando Tazusa to take the Schutzengel's Oath with her and become her Schild, and Tazusa accepts. The two of them vow that they will stay by each other's side forever.

Combat Style
Mai is key to Team Hitotsuyanagi's attack strategy and moves between the TZ and AZ. Her Rare Skill, Shukuchi, lets her use the third dimension to break through the Huge with impunity when making Neunwelt passes and shots.

Family
Mai's father, Yoshimura Susumu (吉村晋), oversees the Vietnamese division of Tsukuyomi Engineering. He's also respected as a scholar, and considered one of the world's greatest experts on the theory behind the CHARM activation process.

Mai's mother, Yoshimura Liên (吉村蓮), is also a scholar who specializes in the famed "Teller anti-Huge effect." Thần Kiếm's ability to weaken Huge is the fruit of her research.

Mai's brother, Yoshimura Akira (吉村明), went by the name 'Minh' (the Vietnamese reading of his given name) in Vietnam. He was said to have been a quite a smart boy for his age

Trivia

 * Mai's hobbies are collecting turtle goods and drawing.
 * Mai's favorite food is bún chả.
 * Mai dislikes training.
 * Mai's character design has gone through a few iterations. In the early novels by Kasama Hiroyuki, she had darker skin and a bob cut with no ponytails, and wore a sleeveless uniform. In some later design sketches, she had a single short ponytail on the left. Since Mai's stage debut in Assault Lily: League of Gardens, her design has stayed consistent.
 * Mai's given name means "rattan" in Chữ Nôm. Her middle name, Thi, is a common middle name for Vietnamese women. Her surname, Yoshimura, literally means "lucky village."
 * Mai's surname may be a reference to the real-world architect Yoshimura Junzo.