How and how much do the dolls know about the other dolls?

Question

Preface: This is coming entirely from the anime’s perspective and yet without the 2013 one, which I've only started watching.

We are introduced to Shinku, Hina-Ichigo, Suigintou, Suiseiseki and Souseiseki in the first season in order of appearance. Bara-Suishou and Kanaria are introduced in the first and third episodes of Träumend, respectively. During episode 1 of Träumend, Shinku explicitly refers to herself as the fifth Rozen Maiden doll, and Bara-Suishou answers to the seventh.

In episode 1 of the OVA Ouvertüre, we learn that Shinku then only knew about three Rozen Maiden dolls at the time of Ouvertüre. However, for some reason, she knows that there should be seven. Also in that episode, Shinku gets to know Suigintou for the first time.

She finds out, that Suigintou is broken and initially does not even have a Rosa Mystica thus concluding that she shouldn’t be a Rozen Maiden. However in the second OVA episode, Suigintou has been restored after defeat and granted a Rosa Mystica, obviously making her a true Rozen Maiden.

In episode 12 of Träumend, we learn that

Bara-Suishou was not an original Rozen Maiden but rather an Enju Maiden being crafted by a different doll maker. It is not clearly revealed as far as I can tell whether she has a Rosa Mystica but she cannot cope with winning the Alice game and thus the other six girls’ Rosa Mysticas, possibly because she is not pure enough. In any case, the situation is restored to a pre-Alice-game situation where only those dolls defeated by Rozen Maidens stay defeated: Hina-Ichigo and Souseiseki (by Shinku and Suigintou).

I conclude from these facts, that Bara-Suishou is quite a bit younger than the other dolls.

Therefore, the dolls must somehow know that there are seven of them but not who they are until they met each other.

• Why did they know that they must be seven?

• How and why did they know the how many-th doll they are?

• How was it possible that none of the six met the seventh proper Rozen Maiden in the over 100 years that they had been living and fighting all over the world, so that they all assumed Bara-Suishou to be the proper seventh?

• Shouldn’t there have been any clues for the other dolls that Bara-Suishou is ‘non-canonical’? E.g. the scene at the end of Träumend 10 where they meet Enju and call him father.

Answer 1

The question "How and how much do the dolls know about the other dolls?" is hard to answer by the anime perspective.

The anime storyline started to differ from the original manga storyline, and the differences became great enough that they can be considered different works.

Not many details are included about the dolls' past in the anime, and the plot offered in both Träumend and Ouvertüre was discontinued, as they were animation original plots, not related to the manga storyline, so what we have seen is all we have to try and deduce answers for that specific scenario.

The second manga series advanced the manga story, and gave more information about the Rozen Maiden's past. And it contradicts and negates the information given by Ouvertüre.

It is revealed that, at first, the dolls all lived together in what they called "The Miniature Garden", altought it was more of a big deposit than a real garden. They spent time together, playing around.

Yet, events happened, and while they expected their creator to be making a seventh doll, neither the seventh nor their creator ever appeared, and as they started to question wether they had ben abandoned and forgotten, LaPlace appeared before them and started the Alice Game.

So, by the manga plot, the six know maidens all knew about each other, because they lived together as sisters before the game began. But they never knew if a seventh really existed.

But the manga plot also does not have a Bara-Suishou. She exists only for the anime plot.

As for the actual seventh doll, the reason none of the maidens met her over the years, is because the seventh doll did not have a real body, so she was not able to properly participate in the game.

Sorry, but since I still haven't finished reading the manga, this is all I know at the moment.