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Originally Posted by Sumeragi
Food for thought: Prince Naruhito (and particularly his grandfather, the Showa Tenno) had many of the same problems you just described when growing up. It wasn't because of their having autism,
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Actually, how do we know this?
I recall reading that Japan doesn't treat people for mental conditions to the same extent that we do in the western world. In fact, I've even read that given as a reason, here on Anime Suki, for why so many psychologically disturbed characters in anime never seek out psychiatric help or get treatment in line with certain mental conditions.
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Considering this, we have to think: What kind of childhood did Mashiro have? Could it be that her life was literally only about art (either by her own choice or other's push) and thus she never had the kind of "normal" life consisting of social interactions? If this is so, then one cannot say she has autism symptoms since it isn't that she has an inability, but she never developed those skills which one would have under a normal childhood environment. Autism is fundamentally an inherent problem of impairment of the growth and development of the brain, and I cannot see that Mashiro has a problem in that particular aspect.
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Honestly, I have to beg to differ. While Mashiro has learned a fair bit during the full run of this anime, she keeps falling back into the same sort of verbal misunderstandings that I think most people (even most previously sheltered people) would have learned to avoid by now, if in her position throughout this anime. Her facial expressions are frequently as blank as ever, her preoccupation with certain topics hasn't really changed, and in some other ways she continues to exhibit the symptoms of autism.
To me, it appears that there are overriding patterns to Mashiro's behavior and speech that she can't fully break out of.
I think that there is perfectly legitimate reason to think that Mashiro is autistic. I see nothing wrong with that, and I continue to think that there's about a 50% chance that she's autistic.