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Main Profile[]
Marisa Kirisame (霧雨 魔理沙 Kirisame Marisa) is a human magician, and is one of the most important sub-characters of the series (according to series producer ZUN). Her personality is sometimes described as disagreeable, but in some other titles, straightforward. Either way, she is a very self-confident person that likes to stick her nose into every trouble out of curiosity.
During the events of Story of Eastern Wonderland, she made her first appearance as a minion of Mima, to prevent Reimu from reaching her boss, but was defeated. Since then, she has appeared in all but one title of the Touhou series (and some non-Touhou titles too), usually sided with Reimu, but sometimes against her.
She is also known as a hard worker, who's trying to catch up to Reimu with her secret training and magic development. That makes a good contrast to other humans appearing in the series, most of them have some kind of natural born talent (Reimu) or ability (Sakuya). So she is sometimes referred as the "most human-ish human" in the series.
Marisa is the author of The Grimoire of Marisa, a collection of notes about spellcards used by her and other danmaku users she has encountered.
Character Design[]
Name[]
Her full name is Marisa Kirisame (霧雨 魔理沙). Her surname Kirisame (霧雨, lit. "mist rain") means "drizzle" in Japanese. The kanji used in her given name ma (魔) is highly likely to come from the "ma" in mahou (魔法, "magic") and with ri (理) able to be interpreted as "logic/law/theory" (理 kotowari), it can be said that they deliver the idea of her being a magician. In addition, the kanji sa (沙, lit. "small sand") doesn't have an actual meaning, but it's often used in Japanese given names to get the sound/look of "girlishness" (different kanji, but the same idea is used in Minamitsu Murasa's name too).
Marisa is also a female given name with origins in the Romance languages, which is a variant of Latin "maris", meaning "of the sea", but may also mean "manly". If her name was based on this, then it's very likely to indicate Marisa's character being a mix of both Eastern and Western cultures.
Story of Eastern Wonderland had her name written as 魔梨沙 in-game, with the kanji meaning "pear". In that game's attached text files and bad endings it was written as 魔理沙. Since then, her name is still written as 魔理沙, so 魔梨沙 was likely a typo.
Design[]
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 and the silhouette of one in her apron. 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.
During the PC-98 era, her debut appearance in Story of Eastern Wonderland has her depicted with red hair and eyes and wearing a purple witch's outfit with a white bow on her hat. The different outfit color can be explained with the PC-98's limited color space, as purple was often used to stand-in for black outside lineart. However, her appearance changes in Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream into having blonde hair and yellow eyes more similar to her current design. This appearance stays with her for the rest of the series, up until 100th Black Market, where her hair and eye colors are updated. Her clothes are black in Mystic Square.
Marisa's height is that of a girl in her early teens and is in the "fairly short" group.
Relationships[]
Reimu Hakurei[]
Reimu Hakurei is Marisa's friend, as well as her rival when it comes to youkai extermination and incident resolution. Although it was originally Reimu's job to solely handle incidents, Marisa has taken on many of those responsibilities as well, and there were even a number of times when Reimu and Marisa worked together.
When incidents aren't taking place, Marisa can be seen frequently visiting the Hakurei Shrine to hang out with Reimu. The Hakurei Shrine is a popular place of activity where festivals and parties are often held, so from time to time Marisa is shown helping Reimu set up for events.
Occasionally, Reimu and Marisa will engage in a spell card duel, such as in Stage 4 of Imperishable Night, or in the fighting games. She was initially jealous of how Reimu never does any training and yet remains strong due to her innate connection to the spiritual world as a shrine maiden, but has since developed her own techniques to match Reimu's in danmaku battle. In such regards to Reimu's immense powers, Marisa even named and added a time limit to one of Reimu's signature spells, Innate Dream.
Alice Margatroid[]
Alice Margatroid is a fellow magician of the Forest of Magic. They were partners in Imperishable Night, and she was supporting Marisa in Subterranean Animism. In the former, Alice called out to Marisa due to her being "used to" resolving incidents, and offered some of her grimoires as compensation. In the latter, Alice is one of the companions Marisa can have, communicating with her thanks to her dolls. They also met in Perfect Cherry Blossom, Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Touhou Hisoutensoku.
Based on their interactions, they seem to have a rivalry of sorts, arguing who is the best magician (like in Perfect Cherry Blossom), who is more serious dealing with incidents (with Alice complaining how unserious Marisa is or Marisa saying Alice cannot do anything but say her name in Imperishable Night) or just insulting each other in general. However, they seemed to argue less after Imperishable Night. Furthermore, Alice slept next to Marisa at the latter's house in the Magic Team's bad ending, tagged along with Marisa's escapes on the other endings, and even once recommended Marisa's shop to the Three Fairies of Light when they needed some youkai extermination indicating that they seem to be friends. Additionally, Marisa cared for an unconscious Alice after the latter was attacked by Mizuchi Miyadeguchi.
Rinnosuke Morichika[]
Rinnosuke Morichika worked for Marisa's father at his shop as an apprentice in the Human Village before leaving to start Kourindou over eleven years ago before Curiosities of Lotus Asias Curiosities of Lotus Asia: Chapter 20, and he's known her since she was small. Judging from Curiosities of Lotus Asia's 22nd chapter, she must have known him in person since at least around 2001, and the 6th chapter shows that Marisa once eavesdropped on a conversation between Rinnosuke and her father during one of Rinnosuke's rare visits to the Kirisame residence when she was "very young". Marisa thinks Rinnosuke is stiff with her because of her family, but the truth is Rinnosuke keeps his guard up with her because he doesn't want her to suspect when he's lying to her, particularly when it comes to her paying Rinnosuke with items that she collects.
Rinnosuke sees Marisa as something of an annoyance, as she often imposes herself on him, loiters at the store, and takes what she likes from the store without paying. In return, Marisa views Rinnosuke as being unable to admit that he doesn't understand many of the Outside World objects he identifies as part of his role at Kourindou, with his explanations often devolving into wild guesses. Despite that, there still is positive familiarity within the relationship - Rinnosuke created and later gave Marisa the mini-hakkero, and Marisa is the only one to call him by the informal nickname "Kourin".
Because of Marisa's collecting habits, Rinnosuke is often able to get valuable things she picks up for quite cheap, either because Marisa is unaware of its true value, or she has no need for it. However, he does feel somewhat bad about it.
Nitori Kawashiro[]
Nitori Kawashiro knows Marisa from the events of Mountain of Faith. Nitori herself has a fondness for humans and fancies herself as a friend of Marisa's. She sent Marisa down to investigate the new energy source of the sun in Subterranean Animism, and to defeat Takane Yamashiro and her control over the ability card black markets in 100th Black Market. In addition, Nitori and her fellow kappa are seen working with Marisa throughout Wild and Horned Hermit.
Three Fairies of Light[]
The Three Fairies of Light used to live in the Forest of Magic, and knew about Marisa before they'd formally met. Originally, Marisa considered the three fairies to be normal, unremarkable fairies when Marisa caught them playing pranks on Reimu and herself. However, after the fairies became Marisa's first customers at her shop where she liberated their house from Tsuchinoko, Marisa and the three fairies took a liking to each other, and became friendly acquaintances.
Eventually, Marisa began to join in on their games and sometimes even play pranks on them. The fairies are familiar enough that they are shown travelling with and even clinging onto Marisa, to the point that Reimu referred to them as "those fairies that Marisa always had hanging around". Marisa and the fairies sometimes team up to play pranks on Reimu as well.
During the stone cherries incident, Marisa was concern about the condition of the three fairies and went looking for them. She hid a stone cherry she found on the three fairies' house in her skirt thinking it was one of them. Later she attended the Fairies victory part in the three fairies house.
Enoko Mitsugashira[]
Enoko Mitsugashira has known Marisa for a long time and is referred to as "more than an acquaintance" - Marisa first saw her in the Forest of Magic when she was still a wolf, and Enoko refers to Marisa's past as "that little girl who ran off crying into the woods. Their relationship seems to be very good, as Enoko even let Marisa examine her jewel so Marisa, as a magic items expert, could get more information on how to cure Zanmu's curse on Enoko. Marisa continued to investigate without giving up, even if she was teleported to Hell several times due to the trap on the item, which deeply moved Enoko. Marisa believes Enoko's jewel is very valuable, and that maybe if she became even closer to Enoko she would lend it to her.
Mima[]
- Main article: Canon
In the PC-98 games, Marisa is subservient to Mima. She admires her greatly, boasting that "Lady Mima cannot be beaten" in Story of Eastern Wonderlands omake and apologizing to her when defeated by Reimu Hakurei in said game. Mima is currently the only character to be addressed honorifically by Marisa. Additionally, she takes some inspiration from Mima, sharing her attack patterns using magical orbs (as well as using them in her Orreries Sun spell card) and using illusionary wings similar to hers in Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream. However, they are never shown to engage in conversation with one another on-screen, the closest to it being Mima telling Marisa to "train harder" in Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream and Marisa's cheerfulness when she defeats her. ZUN doesn't answer any questions regarding their relationship, but says that Marisa's attitude towards Mima is easy to understand.