School was fairly standard in Japan, with little variation in age since the system discouraged grade-skipping or holding back students if at all possible.
College life started at about age nineteen and roughly four out of five young people would go on to college. While there were entrance exams to get into most schools, a student could always aim at a more suitable school. Only delinquents and those going into family businesses like ramen stand cook really skipped out of college. Even future monks went to college if for nothing else than to see more of the world.
High school was like a light version of college with students entering at around sixteen and graduating at age eighteen. The high school was chosen during junior high and unless it was a connected school with guaranteed entry, students had to pass an entrance exam to some high schools or otherwise qualify. There were also high schools which specialized similar to colleges in ways such as sports, marine studies, farm studies, college prep heavy on sciences and maths, art focused schools and so on. Most high schools had switched away from the sailor fuku due to the association with fetish wear, most having blazers or jumpers instead. High school was optional, required tuition and only a few percent of students opted out of going to high school.
Junior High was the last mandatory part of school in Japan and served students mostly of ages thirteen to fifteen. Most junior highs stuck with some version of the sailor fuku for girls and military style uniforms for the boys and mostly served as a stepping stone to high school and a more independant teenaged life.
Primary school accounted for six grades of students, starting at around age six and graduating them at around age twelve. Perhaps most interesting was that most primary schools didn’t require a uniform, allowing students to wear mostly what they pleased. The earlier grades tended to be innocent, but puberty and adulthood lurked around the corner of the upper grades. Students not only started to worry about fashion and socializing, but some actually had to figure out if they were going to wear a boy’s or girl’s uniform in junior high.
Ranma was in an upper elementary class that day where the students were having a fairly typical discussion for their ages. Which girls were blossoming and would need to go bra shopping for function instead of fashion.
That Ranma ended up in fourth place was rather mortifying since he was supposed to be one of the guys. There was little denying however the pert mounds on his chest that had left Ranma questioning his gender classification even before this day. Other than a little questioning over whether he was a boy or girl, the class as a whole let the issue drop for now.
It was a question that continued to plague Ranma. His father had gone on and on about being manly, but a few weeks ago he had noticed his son’s increasingly softly curved figure and had commented in surprise that he looked like a girl. To Ranma’s surprise his father had acted shocked at his observation and avoided the topic since then, making the him wonder what his father was hiding.
The question for Ranma was how to confirm which side he was supposed to be on for gym class.
Ranma didn’t want to really compare junk with the other boys, he was quite confident that having Mr. Elephant down there and peeing standing up counted enough. Still, perhaps he should go with the girls for a bit see if he learned anything?
He had an appointment with the school nurse over the issue. While they weren’t medical experts, they could handle a lot of issues common in school, including puberty questions. They also had the bonus of having a low chance of being mad scientists, or at least being nice mad scientists.
A hospital visit to a doctor was questionable. Doctors were expensive and some were just boring. Also a lot of them were mad scientists looking for children to experiment on according to his manga. While they could likely provide answers, it might not be worth the risks and effort involved.
Perhaps go to a temple? Ranma knew some people that were actually trustworthy and knew a lot of things. Maybe there was a charm to keep the boobie fairy away?
Then of course there was the option of doing his own research. The library had free books and air-conditioning, plus his father was allergic to the place, so it was great. It might take some time to figure out what was going on, but at least he’d be able to trust his own answer.
Finally of course he could just not really care about it at this point and continue to enjoy life. Maybe it wasn’t anything to worry about? Puberty was a strange and mysterious thing since adults didn’t really want to explain it, but it was normal, right?
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(Posted Fri, 13 Sep 2013 07:46)
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