| Marisa Kirisame | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Series |
Touhou Project |
|
Debut |
Story of Eastern Wonderland (1997) |
|
Console of origin |
PC |
|
Species |
Human |
|
Gender |
Female |
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. Her motto is: "It ain't magic if it ain't flashy. Danmaku's all about firepower," and she has a compulsive mania for collecting things. She is considered as one of the protagonist of the Touhou Project, with the other protagonist being Reimu Hakurei.
Description[]
In Story of Eastern Wonderland, Marisa is depicted as having red eyes and red hair, wearing a purple witch's outfit with a white bow on her hat. However, her appearance quickly changes with Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, where she has yellow eyes and blonde hair, which stay with her for the rest of the series. In Mystic Square, her outfit changes from purple to black, which also stays with her for the rest of the series, and her hat gains faint pink frills.
In Embodiment of Scarlet Devil onwards, she wears a faint pink apron on top of her clothes. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, she gains a faint pink shirt under her black clothing. Marisa's appearance changes slightly with each release, such as a change in her hat bow's colour, a change in her ribbon's colour tied to her braid or a change in hair style. Also, in most of the games, she carries a broom with her.
As of Ten Desires, her hat's bow is purple, she has a purple ribbon tied to the braid on the left side of her hair, her shoes are maroon coloured with small purple ribbons on them, and she has a red ribbon tied to her neck. In Hopeless Masquerade, she uses dark blue clothes instead of her normal black clothes, she now uses dark blue boots instead of dark shoes, her hat's bow is white and she doesn't have her usual braid on the left side of her hair.
Personality[]
Marisa is very straightforward and informal with everyone. She can be condescending, as if trying to make fool of others and often has difficulty expressing sympathy. She is quick to act if she hears anything interesting. Marisa is also a habitual liar, but she makes no effort to actually deceive as her lies are extremely obvious.
She has a mania for collecting things, and may have hoarding disorder. She is unyielding and unco-operative. As a hard worker, she is very diligent, but she doesn't like others to know that.
Unlike most characters, Marisa is known to speak in a distinct speech tone. The most typical and known example of this is the use of the sentence ending particle ze (ぜ). "Ze" used at the end of the verb stems, delivers "mannish" and "impoliteness" sound to the listener/reader. Ze is mostly used in a context to express one's will to act (similar to "let's" English), and using it in other cases sound somewhat unnatural, perhaps "phony" or "showy". While she does speak in a rather "manly" tone, she doesn't speak in a "rough" and "masculine" language, but in an "impolite/casual" and "boyish" one.
Ability and strength[]
Marisa is a normal human with no innate abilities, but her true strength lies in her ability to use one of the highest class of magic power that humans can use – an unusual feat. 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's been compared to "humans of a level close to us" by ZUN, and was born without any innate abilities (unlike Reimu Hakurei). As a result, the interpretations of Marisa's power can go to extremes.
The attached text file for Imperishable Night says "Since the player characters are of the Last Boss class (But Reimu and the gang are stronger than that last boss class)..." Marisa is likely to be stronger than the last boss class, but it is unclear whether or not this is limited to just danmaku battles or if it also includes unrestricted combat ability.
In her previous fights, although she was sometimes able to defeat powerful foes such as Remilia Scarlet and Yuyuko Saigyouji, there were also times in Phantasmagoria of Flower View where she was defeated by Cirno and Mystia Lorelei, among others. In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, she defeated many youkai and human opponents, but not overwhelmingly. Also, the story of that game ends with her being defeated by Tenshi Hinanawi giving forth her true effort. In Fairy Wars, she let her guard down when fighting Cirno, but Cirno still appeared to be "defeated", where it also tired out Marisa.
Concerning her resolution of incidents, ZUN has said that "Even when Reimu and the gang are defeated, they challenge again however many times they want, but on the youkai side they don't challenge again after being defeated, and are not attached to the results of winning or losing... to say it clearly, it is assuredly an inconsequential thing^^;" Whether they win or lose is not important, and it is unclear how many tries she needed to defeat the last bosses.
Using magic[]
Marisa's has trained herself in magic that specialises in light and heat. She's an Eastern magician who takes a Western approach to magic, the opposite of Patchouli Knowledge. Although she's unable to use magic other than for destroying stuff, this destructive power is tremendous. It has few weaknesses, being equally effective against human or youkai. When she uses the Spell Card system, she uses flashy magic to make displays whilst exterminating youkai without regret. Her magic makes for a good show for danmaku, but this is made possible through strenuous honest effort of layered effects. The majority of her spells rely on power over finesse, and are themed after stars and other astronomical phenomena.
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 to when magic-like materials come forth. Success or failure, she records the details of each experiment. In her house, there are a tonne of various handmade grimoires.
She isn't seen as a hard-working individual by others, so it'd seem that this hard work in performing these magical experiments is something done honestly and hidden. But, since the aforementioned was recorded in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, people around her may've found out about it. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, it's strange for a human to have mastery of magic of this level.
Also, Marisa is able to wield other kinds of magic other than light and heat magic; her best spiritual affinity being with water. In Imperishable Night, the magic to stop the night might be Marisa's; she worked out magic for the sake of organising a dishevelled room, but ended up making it even more disorganised, and she hasn't had any success in it so far. In Mountain of Faith, "Cold Inferno" – an elemental magic – was introduced. She also uses magic to summon hot spring veins, as well as magic to change people's clothes in an instant.
Fly in the sky[]
Marisa is almost always depicted as riding on her broom when she flies in the sky. In the fighting spinoffs, she rides a broom only during assault skills like Witch Leyline and Stardust Reverie, while for all other occasions such as her intro sequence and her midair dash and flight, she flies without a broom. However, the graphics in those games were drawn by Twilight Frontier, not by ZUN, so this doesn't firmly confirm that Marisa is able to fly without a broom.
Perfect Memento in Strict Sense states she uses the magic broom to ride around on because she believes it's an essential tool for a magician. It was originally a normal broom, but sprouted leaves as a side effect of Marisa using it for magic. Whether she actually needs her broom to fly or if it's just for show is unconfirmed.
The speed at which she rides a broom to fly is potentially the fastest for a human; this fact being echoed in the games. Although ZUN has mentioned that Aya Shameimaru is the fastest in Gensokyo, it has never been confirmed that Aya is actually faster than Marisa, as the two never contested with each other in terms of speed.
In Fairy Wars, her broom is nowhere in sight; it is possible that Makoto Hirasaka may've simply chose not to draw the broom into the sprite or has forgot about it. She was, however, seen with one in her article with Cirno in Symposium of Post-mysticism about this fight.
Learning other people's moves[]
Marisa's Love Sign "Non-directional Laser" was copied from Patchouli Knowledge's regular attack from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil as confirmed by ZUN. Other than that, there's also others that's suggested to have been stolen: the Love Sign "Master Spark" that resembles Yuuka Kazami's laser from Lotus Land Story, her Orreries Sun that resembles Mima's, and the Cold Inferno that resembles Remilia Scarlet's familiar in Imperishable Night. However, there's no official evidence of imitation that this is the case.
It's unknown if Marisa is inherently talented at imitating others' moves, or if she simply manages to do so due to sheer effort. She uses her mini-hakkero to use the Master Spark, while Yuuka uses her version of the laser through other means. Thus, her copying of the master spark seems more analogous to a person copying a fire-breathing dragon by using a flamethrower rather than a person copying a fire-breathing dragon by breathing flames merely through observation. Marisa also states she can't imitate Kaguya Houraisan's spell cards because they use special items that she doesn't possess. In that case, it's analogous to a person being unable to copy a fire-breathing dragon because there are no devices on hand.
It's unlikely her implied tendency to copy other's moves is abnormal, as magicians such as Marisa build upon the work of others. Marisa claims in The Grimoire of Marisa that it's "magicians who build on observation", while Patchouli Knowledge uses the pride of magicians to add their own original touch to another's work while preserving and respecting the original. Magicians seek the truth according to Patchouli. They act like researchers in this sense, building upon the work of others. However, other magicians such as Patchouli and Alice Margatroid haven't been depicted using imitations as blatant as Marisa's for spell cards.