Mao

Mao (マオ) is one of the supporting characters of Hinamatsuri series.

Background
Mao is one of the child Espers the Future Organization has under their control. She was the first Esper to be created, via cloning of the original Mao.

Appearance
Mao is a young girl with reddish brown hair. As a child, she uses a makeshift outfit made with leaves found on the desert island, and normally carries a spear for hunting and cooking.

As a teenager, Mao dons a kung-fu outfit, which she never changes due to it serving as advertising for the Superhuman Fitness group she belongs to.

Personality
Mao is shown to be kind, and good natured. She is dependable enough that Ikaruga considered her useful enough to retrieve Hina; as proof of that, she managed to survive on her own in the island using her powers in ingenious ways.

However, Mao is also shown to be insecure about herself, being unable to act on her own unless she feels someone is telling her what to do (be Ikaruga or Hitomi). After the events of the island, her loneliness complex increases, and makes her extremely interested in having and keeping friends.

Pre Timeskip
Mao is first sent to the past by a request of Ikaruga, who asked the Esper Organization for help in retrieving Hina back to the future. However, she is mistakenly sent to a deserted island instead of Japan, and the beads she brought along with her all get lost in the sea.

Stranded in that island without anyone to call for help, Mao decides to wait until the Organization contacts her, attempting to interpret her wait as "vacations". Because of how much she misses Hina and Anzu, she creates two dolls representing them, using coconuts she found on the island.

Mao lives in the island for about a year, pretending the dolls are her friends, hunting, building a shack, creating makeshift clothe and playing by herself. However, she eventually realizes she is just in a survival situation and after a mental breakdown she throws aways both dolls, deciding to finally leave for Japan in a raft.

After a dangerous journey along the wild sea, Mao arrives, not to Japan, but to China. She survives on her own via begging and living in the trash until the members of Superhuman Fitness meet her and, believing her esper powers to be martial arts, decide to give her food and refuge.

Post Timeskip
Having heard of her prowess and believing her to be the same as Hina, Atsushi Yamamoto travels to China in order to recruit Mao for her Rocksion band. He is kept away from her by the members of the Superhuman Fitness group, until they coincidentally meet in a bar and they talk. Realizing Atsushi knows where Hina is and remembering her mission, Mao decides to escape from her benefactors and travel back to Japan with Atsushi. The other martial artists try to stop her from leaving, as her abilities bring great wealth to the group, but Mao defeats them all with her martial arts (actually just using her Esper powers in conjunction with her movements).

Seeing that they cannot stop her, the leader of the group challenges Mao to defeat a metal spinning doll if she wants to leave. Mao blasts the doll effortlessly with her powers, and so is sent to Japan along with Atsushi and Baldy, to establish another branch for Superhuman Fitness.

Once back to Japan, Mao reunites with her old acquantainces from the future. She encounters Hina and Anzu, who then remember her, and meets Ikaruga again on a Live Show, feeling conflicted at what a plentiful life her previous boss was having while she was suffering on the deserted island and on China. Mao´s Superhuman Fitness lessons quickly gain followers and adepts and she starts becoming famous.

After an incident with her dolls, Mao reveals to Atsushi and Baldy that she has Esper powers, and they both accept her.

Mao also befriends Hitomi due to Hitomi working as an advertising agent for the group, and develops an obsessive relationship with her via text messages.

She joins the meeting along with Hina, Nitta, Hitomi, Anzu and Haru on which Haru reveals to them the story of the future and their involvement in the Great Civil War that then transpired. It is then revealed that Mao is the original Esper Child, who was unwillingly cloned by Atsushi scientists from the original, grown up Mao, causing strife between them both. Much like the rest, she decides to not help Atsushi with his Rocksion dream, believing that way that undesired future will not come to pass again.

Once Hitomi´s true background is revealed and she resigns from her position, Mao tries to defend her on Live TV to no avail.