Reimu Hakurei

Reimu as she appears in Unconnected Marketeers

### Eye color

Brown or Red (to note, she only has red eyes in fanarts or when possessed by an animal spirit)

## Smash Information

### Notable Supporters

Lyncario, BasedZamasu, Yoshi\_Starstorm, GMP, ItsTruckMonth

**Reimu Hakurei** is the main protagonist of the *Touhou Project*, a series made up primarily of a line of bullet hell shoot 'em up games created by Jun'ya Ota, better known as ZUN. The games are set in a fantasy world known as Gensokyo, a land filled with youkai that was eventually sealed off from Japan through the creation of the Hakurei Border. As the current shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, the primary gateway between these two worlds, she takes on the role of enforcing the barrier and resolving any incidents that threaten the order of Gensokyo. She is charged with "exterminating" troublesome youkai, though she rarely actually ends up destroying them and usually just ends up fighting them until they're willing to stop making problems. Her primary weapons include Yin-Yang Orbs and sealing ofuda. Since the fourth game of the series, she is joined indirectly in resolving incidents by the human magician Marisa Kirisame and a range of other characters depending on the game.

*Touhou* is considered a fan-driven series. From just official content created or overseen by ZUN, the series has spawned over two dozen games (including six fighting games co-developed with Twilight Frontier), various print works, and a number of albums. Fans have used this official media as inspiration for an immeasurable amount of fan content, including numerous arrangements of the series' music, fan games (many parodies of classic series like *Mega Man* and *Castlevania*), doujinshi, several anime, and memes. This content's production has been greatly aided by ZUN being very loose with use of the *Touhou* property. The series began to garner serious attention among Japanese audiences after the 2002 release of *Embodiment of Scarlet Devil*, which was considered a reboot after the five games released before for the PC-98 line of Japanese personal computers. (The era before is usually referred to as the PC-98 Era, while everything from EoSD on is considered to be the Windows Era.) Early fan content would even begin to gain attention overseas, particularly from popular music arrangements such as "Bad Apple!!" by Alstroemeria Records gaining steam in the later part of the 2000s. This led to a niche but dedicated fan base forming internationally, with it persisting even into the current year.

While the idea of Touhou in Smash would seldom receive mentions among the Smash community during the days of *Brawl* and *Smash 4*, the idea was near universally considered too crazy to actually happen. That said, it usually was received positively, if largely for the music. There was also a lot less emphasis on Reimu specifically as the obvious rep at this time. This said, third-party presence in Smash had shown signs of growing after the conclusion of the *Smash 4* roster, with the inclusions of Cloud Strife and Bayonetta in particular seeming to open the floodgates far more. As such, support for Touhou joining Smash began to gradually form in the lead-up to the next installment of the series, *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*. While it's hard to gauge quite when this support began to really get noticeable, there was already an increase of discussion by mid-2018. Despite being acknowledged as a clear long-shot by nearly everyone, the series had actually begun to have a presence on Nintendo consoles between paid fan games releasing on Switch, semi-official collaborations Bandai Namco's *Taiko no Tatsujin* series and Nintendo's own *Daigasso! Band Brothers P*, and even an official release in the form of the fighting game *Antinomy of Common Flowers*. Combined with the lack of shoot 'em up presence in Smash and the series' fairly unique legacy, a serious argument for the series joining took shape. As the main protagonist and consistently one of the most popular among the wide *Touhou* cast, Reimu finally began to be properly pushed as the ideal rep for the series.

The reveal of Joker from *Persona 5* as the first fighter in the Fighters Pass seemed to open the gates far more when it came to third-parties. This greatly helped the momentum surrounding Reimu, and by late 2019 she was gaining attention as one of more popular picks for the game. While still not a frontrunner, she has held a considerable following up until the final fighter slot for *Ultimate*. Even if her chances may not be that high, she's still left a mark by becoming a surprise popular request for the game. Reception to the idea of Reimu joining Smash has been mostly positive on SmashFAQs, although she has garnered a notable amount of people who are adamantly against the idea.

## List of Supporters

* BasedZamasu
* GMP
* ItsTruckMouth
* Lyncario
* OfficialPotato
* SecondChancing
* Yoshi\_Starstorm