Marisa Kirisame

**Marisa Kirisame** (霧雨　魔理沙 *Kirisame Marisa*) is an ordinary human magician who specializes in light and heat magic and currently resides in the Forest of Magic. She has a compulsive mania for collecting things, and is considered to be the deuteragonist of the *Touhou Project* series along with the main protagonist, Reimu Hakurei.

## Appearance

In general, Marisa is depicted with blonde hair and yellow eyes. She wears clothes with a black and white color scheme, consisting of a black vest and skirt, white waist apron and undershirt, and a black witch hat with a white bow. Her hair is commonly braided on one side with a bow on the end. She sometimes wears dark blue clothes instead, such as in *Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom*, *Subterranean Animism*, or the fighting game spin offs from *Hopeless Masquerade* onwards.

Her exact appearance varies slightly between games and print works, such as having differently colored hat bows, varying hair lengths and style, and different aprons. In *Embodiment of Scarlet Devil*, she wears a white full apron with a black undershirt. In *Perfect Cherry Blossom*, she wears a pink capelet and has no braid. In *Phantasmagoria of Flower View* and *Ten Desires*, her bows are purple. She wears dark blue clothes with a blue capelet in *Subterranean Animism*. Her outfit in *Undefined Fantastic Object* has a brown apron with an 'M', brown hat bow, a red bowtie, and she carries a wand. She wears a crescent moon accessory on her chest in *Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom*. She has pink scarf and gloves and has snowflake patterns on her apron in *Hidden Star in Four Seasons*. In *Wily Beast and Weakest Creature*, she has cat-shaped patterns on her clothes. In *100th Black Market*, Marisa has pale blonde hair and red eyes. Her hair flows loosely without any bows in her hair. The three rows of buttons on her outfit have been updated to be more colorful, with the upper row being yellow, the middle row being green, and the bottom row being blue. She also now has a red bowtie on her outfit.

## Personality

Outwardly, Marisa is an outgoing and informal person. She socializes with many inhabitants of Gensokyo and is friendly to both human and non-humans individuals, although still remaining wary around youkai. She's quick to act if she hears or sees anything interesting; sometimes doing dangerous things to satiate her interest at the time. An example is when she follows an eagle on a whim in the middle of a blizzard. She speaks in an informal manner and typically uses the sentence ending particle *ze* (ぜ). "Ze" used at the end of verb stems delivers a "boyish" and "impolite" sound to the listener/reader. *Ze* is mostly used in a context to express one's will to act (similar to "let's" in English), and using it in other cases sounds somewhat unnatural, perhaps "phony" or "showy".

In the past, Marisa was known to be a habitual liar, such as when she claimed to be Reimu Hakurei to avoid being troubled by Flandre Scarlet or when she blamed various crimes on Alice Margatroid to get Reimu out of the way. However, she puts no effort into actually deceiving anyone as her lies are extremely obvious. Over time, this tendency to lie has decreased and she's more likely to tell the truth to others. By the time of *Wily Beast and Weakest Creature*, she willingly tells Saki Kurokoma to come to her place and emphasises that it is not the shrine, although this could be because she was possessed by the proud Eagle spirit.

She has a mania for collecting things and exhibits knowledge of various valuable and/or magical objects around Gensokyo. She has been frequently seen foraging (or looting) in many places for various materials, be it mushrooms, parts of a dragon, or just whatever she thinks looks interesting at the time. That said, her hoarding habit does result in her not knowing or forgetting what objects are in her house.

Though she goes to great lengths to hide it, Marisa is a hardworking individual who frequently seeks to better herself and seeks to be known as a great magician. She takes pride in her magic and youkai extermination capabilities, claiming to be "the number two in Gensokyo". She does indeed care for the sake of Gensokyo and its inhabitants, but conceals it with her rowdiness. In many cases, she is the one who would push Reimu to investigate potential incidents.

## Abilities

### Strength

Marisa is a normal human with no innate abilities, but her true strength lies in her ability to use one of the highest classes of magic power that humans can use – an unusual feat perhaps only possible because of the effects of the Forest of Magic. She's also faced very powerful humans and youkai and was able to solve a number of incidents in various scenarios, all being high achievements. However, her existence is closest to an ordinary person; she was born without any innate abilities (unlike Reimu Hakurei) and has been compared to "humans of a level close to us" by ZUN. As a result, the interpretations of Marisa's power can go to extremes. She has an attachment to power and has self-belief in ostentatious display of power. She always finds opponents to fight and plays by finding faults. However, she's actually a hard worker, and her power is the result of her secret training. For example, Marisa appears to have developed an innate resistance against poisonous substances, due to her gathering of mushrooms and living in the Forest of Magic.

Despite her small size, Marisa is surprisingly physically strong. In chapter 16 of *Curiosities of Lotus Asia*, she carried out a big computer out of Kourindou in her arms. In *Forbidden Scrollery*, she was shown jumping over the walls of the Hieda mansion and was seen climbing youkai mountain manually (instead of just flying). In Marisa's otter route of *Wily Beast and Weakest Creature*, Urumi Ushizaki tried to drown Marisa using her stone baby but ends up being amazed that Marisa is able to hold onto it despite its weight. She was also able to lift Sunny Milk and hold her up at waist height with only one hand, and without putting any apparent effort in doing so.

### Using magic

Marisa has trained herself in magic that specializes in light and heat. She's an Eastern magician who takes a Western approach to magic, the opposite of Patchouli Knowledge. Her magic has tremendous power and few weaknesses, but it has few non-destructive uses, so she uses it for flashy youkai extermination more than anything. Her magic makes for a good danmaku show, but this is made possible only through her strenuous honest effort in creating layered effects. The majority of her spells rely on power over finesse and are themed after stars and other astronomical phenomena. According to *Perfect Memento in Strict Sense*, it's strange for a human to have mastery of magic of this level.

Marisa picks and collects various exotic mushrooms that live in the Forest of Magic. She boils them, crushes them, dries them, and furthermore mixes them, making strange chemicals or medicine. By heating them, submerging them into water, or by throwing things in directly, through trial and error, she finds a pattern from which magic-like materials come forth. Success or failure, she records the details of each experiment. In her house, there are a ton of various handmade grimoires.

Prior to starting her research in *The Grimoire of Marisa*, Marisa did not use complex slave-type attacks, as she was only capable of using slaves that circle around her (her guest appearance in *Shuusou Gyoku* notwithstanding).

## Trivia

* She debuts in Wuko: Multiversal Savior, where she, Reimu and some others become good friends and allies with Wuko.