Need some help with plot plausability

[clannadman]

There's one aspect of the plot of a visual novel I'm currently working on that it's a little difficult to get my head around. I've spoilered it since it's an important plot element in many ways. The story is set in modern Japan...

The MC finds a young girl lying in an alleyway. He takes her to the ER of the local hospital and she is given a bed since she is ill and malnourished (I'm pretty sure Japan has a national health service?). The young girl suffers from retrograde amnesia, and so she cannot remember much other than her first name. She does not know how she came to be in the alleyway, who her family are or where she's from. She doesn't even remember her own age. A social services worker comes to visit her in the hospital. There are no reports of missing children fitting her description, they don't have a surname to go on, no local orphanages or foster homes have any record of a girl like her. He suggests she will likely end up a ward of the state and will probably spend some time bouncing around foster homes until she finds somewhere. It's at this point that the MC steps up and (still undecided) either sneaks her out of the hospital to live with him, or legally expresses his wish to adopt her (although this would mean that she would go through the system for a few months, and the MC would be subject to many visits prior). For purposes of a speedy plot, I kind of want to get the girl from the hospital to the MC's apartment quickly (so I'll probably go with a comedic 'sneaking her out' scenario). But then, would it become subject to investigation, since he's the only person visiting her at the hospital? Or do they just let it pass?

I really want to make this plausible, but I'm not sure how unidentified children work in the modern system.

[Sapphi]

For purposes of a speedy plot, I kind of want to get the girl from the hospital to the MC's apartment quickly (so I'll probably go with a comedic 'sneaking her out' scenario). But then, would it become subject to investigation, since he's the only person visiting her at the hospital? Or do they just let it pass?

I really hope our stories don't end up being too similar, lol. I'm also writing a story with

a little amnesiac girl that includes some comedic child smuggling.

My thoughts:

Agreed that people would probably come looking for the girl if he snuck her out. He could make it look like she just left on her own, but even still, they would come to him first to ask her whereabouts. At that point, I guess, he could simply lie... but that seems too easy, unless he is a really moral person who hates to lie.

The MC could claim to be the girl's guardian at the hospital from the start, citing her as a troublesome little sister who ran away... but at that point they wouldn't run a check on her and he wouldn't find out the details about her that you mentioned.

If you want to just go with "letting it pass", you could always make the social services people corrupt. Those organizations never have enough money to do all the things they need to do. With a decent amount of cash, the MC could probably bribe them into letting him take the girl off their hands. After all, even if she ends up in a bad situation, the money would help save countless other children from bad situations...

[papillon]

Plausible in modern Japan is going to be very hard to come by. You'd need to do a lot of research (many people with even cursory knowledge will point out some big issues with adoption in Japan) and then you'd probably discover that the realistic approach was no good for your existing plot.

In some ways, trying to make it plausible will open up more problems. Many people will find the situation you're describing potentially creepy/predatory if it feels at all realistic. It's much less creepy to, say

take in a catgirl or angel you found lying around, which immediately sets the stage for a fantastic story (and quietly suggests that the girl is more than she seems and not totally helpless), than to take in a normal human girl, which is going to set off a lot of people's Rape / Molestation alarms.

With a girl who's obviously not 'normal' we can easily believe that she doesn't have a family and doesn't need to get back to them. With a 'normal' girl, just because nobody knows who she is doesn't mean she doesn't have friends, family, parents, etc. It's disturbing to see someone latch onto a young and vulnerable girl in that situation and try to 'claim' her for himself.

I don't know if you're planning a fantasy element to your story at all, but even a subtle one could go a long way in addressing reader expectations. If he finds this girl and takes her to the hospital and then, while they're examining her, SOME sign of 'this is not a normal girl' comes through, then the reader is likely to go along with the MC's desire to rescue her from this environment.

However, that setup would probably have the police coming after you because you are, after all, OBVIOUSLY SUSPICIOUS as the person who was attached to her.

The other option I can see is to go for the 'heartless society' route. Have all your police/medical staff openly dismissive of her because she is an unperson. There's no records, so she doesn't exist. Family ties and bloodlines are very important to some people in Japan; with no family at all, they could consider her to be nothing. They can complain about the cost and the drain to society of dealing with this worthless person, and then be willing to look the other way if the MC makes her disappear. In this case you wouldn't be trying to make it believably realistic for modern Japan, but dramatically plausible to the reader.

In either case, dealing with formal adoption is probably not a good idea.

[LVUER]

Why don't you make the MC is a volunteer that takes care children like that. The MC found out that no other place currently available so he decides to let the girl stays in his house for only several days/weeks (enough to make the plot progress).

[papillon]

As I understand it, the actual situation of such things in Japan:

Adoption is very, very, very rare. It wasn't even LEGAL until recently.
Foster care is rare and stigmatised. People will be upset that you are doing something socially inappropriate. There is a growing need for foster parents and the government is trying to get more people involved.
90% of children without families are put into institutions/orphanages.

My knowledge is, however, very cursory! But many people know at least this much about it.

[gekiganwing]

I think I'd go along with Papillon's first comment, and say that your story might benefit from some non-realism. Let's say that the girl is not exactly human. Instead, maybe she is...

* A person who's recently experienced time travel. Unfortunately, one of the problems with time travel in this imaginary universe is that people lose nearly all their memories.
* A person whose body has been altered by mad scientists. But she was discarded and her memory was wiped because she couldn't shoot fireballs.
* A lab-engineered hybrid of human and animal. Not just an ordinary catgirl, but one who is trying to get away and avoid being taken back to the lab.

...Now as for your setting, I'd recommend placing the story in either a not-quite-realistic place, or a place which you know. Maybe you could set the story in a city close to where you live. Or have it occur in that same city... but twenty years into the future, when health care and social services have changed considerably.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Yeah, I would find him basically kidnapping her to be extremely creepy and I would probably hate him for it. Actually, I would pretty much find even the adopotion thing creepy (and so would everyone in game) unless possibly he was already happily married and even already having a family. A young woman, especailly one who is vunerable and ill, being put in the care of a single man would be highly suspect in any reasonable setting. The other exception would be if he was directly related, like an older brother.

[Dim Sum]

Ignorant of Japan but can work in general settings advice:

Defer to position you know best.

Ex:

-> child: constantly running away from foster home (even dangerous far away home) and back to your house.
-> staff: mental unstable girl that calms down when around MC.
-> parent: argument leads to parents pushing child towards you.

When ignorant of place but desire plausibility over fantasy, push over the top drama bomb button.

Ambitious maker would still try to contact authoritative place though. Even if just online adoption forums just to eliminate fiction.

[clannadman]

I'm not really for pushing it a fantasy/sci-fi direction. Think Usagi Drop. I want a father/daughter relationship in that regard. At first they were family, then I decided against it. Can't remember why exactly. I can think up something that forces them into that situation. I like the idea of a lack of care in general, almost as though she's an untouchable.

[Sapphi]

On the topic of it being creepy:

I didn't think it was creepy at all, but I'm a bad litmus test for creepy in general. When reading, I tend to mentally store away all the evil parts of characters and focus only on their redeemable traits.

That said, how creepy would it be if she asked him to take her? Like, he was kind and personable when he saved her, and all the social workers and doctors are cold and impersonal. During their first interactions, they made a connection, and now she doesn't want him to leave her. "Please... I'm scared... take me with you... ;_;" What kind of person would just leave her there? And besides, if she goes to foster care or an orphanage, who is going to help her find out her true identity? Surely not any adoptive parents.

[Miyuki]

I'd like to agree with papillon's second post. I'm not really sure about statistics or anything, but my Japanese grandmother and her friends firmly believe that adopted family members are like, lesser than other family members, even if they're blood related.

As far as she's concerned genuine affection between an adopted child and his/her parents is very odd and doesn't make sense to her. They should inherit little and share little responsibility for taking care of their guardians. When she found out that one of her Japanese friends had adopted a daughter (they all live in the US now so I can't say anything about the laws in Japan) she actually complained to my mother about how unreasonable it was that they seemed to love each other.

I think it's pretty close minded, but it's how she was raised.

My grandmother was raised by her aunt and uncle and they always treated her very coldly. They fed and clothed her and that's it. It's considered a burden to have to take on another person that you didn't sire/give birth to and they don't worry about making the child know that.

I mean, in manga, people pick up runaways or adopt children all the time. Realistically, I doubt that people can either afford it or are compassionate enough to move past tradition.

Things might have changed since my grandmother lived in Japan, but I doubt it's too different since when it comes to things like family values, Japan doesn't really progress very much.

As for a situation where romance occurs between an adopted child and a parent, I always think of Of Nightingales that Weep, a book I had to read in middle school.

It's about Takiko, a young girl who grows up with a very unattractive stepfather, enters the courts, loses her virginity, loses her status, loses her mother, and then marries her stepfather in order not to be destitute. So to me a relationship is pretty creepy. I think Takiko loved her stepfather in the end, but for the most part I feel like she was just being pragmatic...

I'm not trying to offend anyone if they have more recent knowledge of the situation in Japan, but this is my understanding of it based off of my own personal history. I mean, my last name was gained from a lack of sons in the main line which led to a cousin being taken in and taking on the main line's family name, but as far as adoption is concerned that's about all I know that is commonly accepted. And even then it's done quietly because it's not something to be proud of.

[clannadman]

I realize it sounds creepy to some people. Please understand there's not any romantic route with a child in this game. The idea is that she becomes your adoptive daughter in some form, and it's about learning responsibilities as a parent as well as dealing with the fact that she has a past identity and the amnesia is affecting them all badly.

[Minnfae]

If you're worried that much about realism, I think amnesia would be much harder to depict than the adoption.

[Stainless_Steel]

If you wanted you could try what Sapphi suggest above with it being that the girl pleaded with him not to be left to fend for herself. Then when the issue of her being missing comes up it could be used for comedic effect too instead of it just being creepy.He just needs to decide to not tell the cops about her since either he wants to avoid getting in trouble for what he just did or he feels that it would be wrong to give her up after promising to help her, etc. For example of it not going down the creepy road have the cops come to speak to him about her disappearence while she's hidden in plain sight, like behind the curtins with her feet sticking out, or have her walking around the house while he's showing the officer around so he keeps having to make up lies for why they can't go in the room. Given how much rule of funny it would require it's not very realistic, but it's an option.

[wyverngem]

My advice, and it's not exciting, is that just make it a jump ahead plot. It's quick, no need for explanations, no long drawn out story and no repercussions from your actions.