Reimu Hakurei

**Reimu Hakurei** (博麗　霊夢 *Hakurei Reimu*) is the main protagonist of the *Touhou Project* series along with the deuteragonist, Marisa Kirisame. As the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, she manages the Hakurei Border of Gensokyo and exterminates troublesome youkai.

## Appearance

Reimu is of moderate height. In PC-98 canon, she is depicted as having purple hair and eyes, and she wears a large red ribbon at the back of her head, and red tubes on her sidelocks. From Story of Eastern Wonderland to Mystic Square she wears an outfit like a traditional shrine maiden uniform, with a red hakama over a white kimono.

However, her best known design is that of the Windows era. She has brown-black hair which varies in length and style between games (tending towards long and loose in later works), and her eyes vary from brown to red to even blue depending on the game, but she still wears a red ribbon and matching tubes on her sidelocks. She's still seen in her "shrine maiden uniform", but it now bears little in common with the standard uniform beyond the red-and-white colour scheme (which ZUN has acknowledged). This uniform consists of a red skirt (rather than the standard hakama), a sleeveless red top with a white collar, tied with a ribbon whose color varies across games, and a pair of white detached sleeves which exposes her sarashi. Due to the color scheme, she's occasionally called the "red-white shrine maiden". Her shaman clothing and her purification rod came from Rinnosuke Morichika, but it's unknown who designs them.

## Personality

Reimu Hakurei's personality is typified by her desires, such as the desire to be wanted, to have good food, and to find happiness. Her biggest internal conflict comes from balancing her duties as the Hakurei shrine maiden and her own desires, though she does not seem to prefer acknowledging many of her internal conflicts.

Her duty as the shrine maiden gives Reimu a sense of purpose and identity, however, it conflicts with her desires in that it distances her from others and has her dealing with incidents and other related problems on a frequent basis. Despite her duty making it seem as though she antagonizes youkai, in truth, she wishes for peace between humans and youkai.

Reimu is generally a joyful and airheaded person. She’s also incredibly prideful and quite arrogant due to it. She’s often seen in a good mood until her routines are broken by some outside influence, be it a youkai or the like. She is quick to anger, but she’s also quick to forget.

## Abilities

### Ability to float

While many inhabitants of Gensokyo are capable of flying, Reimu's ability extends beyond that; she is someone who excels at floating through *life*, displaying a level of oneness with her surroundings that has been compared to a hermit. While she "goes with the flow" Reimu displays superhuman instincts and incredible luck, naturally ending up on the path of least resistance through most situations; conversely, when distracted or acting with impure motives she quickly loses her edge. On one occasion observers saw Reimu dodging an attack "like she was made of air" while Reimu herself saw the attack swerving to avoid her; on another Reimu unknowingly walked across a river without getting wet, by stepping on fish that swam beneath her feet. This also makes Reimu's techniques extremely hard for Marisa Kirisame to learn from, since even Reimu herself has trouble explaining what she's doing. The ultimate expression of this ability is *Innate Dream*, which allows Reimu to float away from reality and become impossible to attack; this was considered too powerful for use as a spell card until Marisa gave it a name and time limit.

### Aura manipulation

It's stated in the omake.txt (おまけ.txt) of *Embodiment of Scarlet Devil* that Reimu can control the natural spirits of living things, an ability which isn't listed in any source afterwards. No clear instance of this ability has ever been displayed.

### Powers as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden

As the Hakurei shrine maiden, Reimu can handle the Hakurei Yin-Yang Orbs, and is trained in youkai extermination techniques as well as standard duties like performing blessings. Reimu is also capable of channeling Gensokyo's gods, but she isn't well-trained enough to do so reliably.

## Trivia

* Reimu, Alongside Marisa and the Touhou Project Universe, first debut on Wuko: Multiversal Savior, where she, Marisa and some others become trustworthy allies of Wuko.