Marisa kirisame



Marisa Kirisame 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 every title but one 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.

[ edit ] Fun Facts
Marisa's lesson*Marisa's lesson of how to "Spark"
 * The characters for Kirisame literally mean "drizzle" or "misty rain". Marisa doesn't make much sense though... the first character means "magic", the second "logic" or "reason", and the third "sand". There is large amount of speculation on the extremely controversial theory that "Marisa" is, in fact a given name with possible origins in the romantic language family. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Marisa However, the Western name theory does have a lot of logical backing, as Marisa is a mix of Eastern and Western culture, plus Western names aren't unheard of in Japan.
 * Speaking of rain, "drizzle" is Marisa's associated weather in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.
 * Marisa has a large number of fan pairings, most commonly being with Alice Margatroid, Reimu Hakurei , and Patchouli Knowledge , though pairings with Sakuya Izayoi , Flandre Scarlet , Kawashiro Nitori , and sometimes Rinnosuke Morichika are also popular. This has led to to an image of Marisa being something of a player.
 * As Reimu is often referred to as red-white or "the red-white", fans frequently call Marisa black-white or white-black in parallel.
 * Marisa is one of the most frequent characters to appear in the Touhou series, second only to Reimu.
 * Marisa has 6 theme songs (excluding remixes), more than any other character in the series.
 * Despite her self-indulgent personality and lack of concern for her fellow man (or more likely because of these things), Marisa happens to be one of the most popular characters with fans, winning a 2005 Touhou popularity contest.
 * Concentrate your mind
 * Mutter the spell to Mini- Hakkero tenderly
 * Aim at someone you don't like
 * Now unleash your annihilation of love!
 * -ZUN


 * Marisa has appeared on the covers of Story of Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream , and Lotus Land Story.
 * In the game Shuusou Gyoku of the Seihou series, Marisa shows up as the first boss of the Extra Stage. However, she is sporting wings akin to Flandre Scarlet as well as a technique that allows her to duplicate herself. Shuusou Gyoku also predates Embodiment of Scarlet Devil by two years.
 * A SJIS interpretation of Marisa appears at the beginning of the third stage of the shoot-em-up 【 ⊂二二二（　＾ω＾）二⊃　ブーーーーン！！！！ 】.
 * She is known for "copying" attacks from enemies she has fought, namely Non-Directional Laser from Patchouli and Master Spark from Yuka Kazami . Additionally, the green projectiles that she fires as a playable character seem to have been lifted from Reimu (see SoEW ) and the overall astronomy theme to her magic seems to have been learned from Mima (see SoEW when Marisa served Mima - Mima used Orreries Sun during the last boss fight). Moreover, she used Alice 's artful sacrifice as reference for her Shoot the Moon spellcard.
 * Marisa has a hobby of collecting things, whether they already belong to someone or not. It is stated that she never throws away anything she collects, which results in her house being the messiest in Gensokyo. However, she seems to collect items without knowing their true value; Rinnosuke once finds an ancient sword, namely the famous Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi in a pile of scrap metal she owns.
 * Marisa is always depicted in her game sprites as riding on her broom when she flies (typical witch behavior). Whether she actually needs her broom to fly or if it's just for show, nobody knows.
 * The fuel for most of her magic are phantasmal mushrooms, and the fan-made game Super Marisa Land features many, many Super Mario styled mushrooms.
 * Despite being a western style magician and fitting the classic image of a witch, Marisa's most precious item is an eastern style Hakkero : a mini furnace in the shape of an octagonal block with the eight trigrams printed in a circle on its front. Despite its small size (it fits easily in the hand), it is a potent source of magical energy and has the firepower to burn down a mountain. Marisa usually uses it like a normal furnace and treats it with good care. It is the only treasure Marisa collected that is used and taken care of on a regular basis. Marisa is frequently depicted using the Hakkero to power her Master Spark. The original Hakkero was an item in the Chinese classic "Journey to the West", where it was used by gods to create spiritual medicine.
 * Marisa may be somewhat of a math genius; in Mountain of Faith she utters the line "I could recite all the digits in pi before I got there." However, considering that pi has a literally infinite number of digits which never end or repeat in any pattern (really, it's endless), it's likely just an expression to say "at this rate I'll never get there." She also knew the number of times she had eaten bread off the top of her head when she originally confronted Remilia.
 * Marisa holds the distinction of being one of the very few characters in any Touhou game who is known to have a living family. They've never been mentioned by name, or even within any of the game dialogues, but it is implied in Perfect Memento she is the only daughter. Also according to 19th chapter of Curiosities of Lotus Asia her father, at least, is alive and is living at the Human Village.
 * In Imperishable Night Marisa survives looking at the full moon, which should drive normal humans insane. When Alice asks if she is all right, she says that it's all right since she is insane to begin with. She might well be joking, since Reimu and Sakuya maintain their sanity looking at the full moon too. It could be that humans who are strong-willed enough can overcome that influence, or something along those lines. Other fan theories suggest that Sakuya may be Lunarian, Reimu's natural magical aptitude may shield her, and that perhaps Marisa should be taken at her word.
 * In both Mountain of Faith and Subterranean Animism, Marisa lacks her signature bomb move, Master Spark. However, true to ZUN's word, Marisa has Master Spark as a bomb once again in Undefined Fantastic Object.
 * Marisa often refers to herself as "just an ordinary witch". This is often her character title in the games (i.e. Imperishable Night ). Deneb the witch of the Ogre Battle games refers to herself in a similar, yet opposite manner: "I am a witch, but not just an ordinary witch!" She appears to make a reference to this in Perfect Cherry Blossom's third stage, when questioning whether or not Alice is an ordinary human.
 * In Touhou Hisoutensoku one of her alternative color palettes gives Marisa a purple attire and red hair similar to what she wore in the PC-98 era. Another alternate color resembles Ellen.
 * Excluding the fighting spin-offs and Double Spoiler, Marisa's face has appeared on all of the Windows game icons so far. This includes Shoot the Bullet , in which she doesn't actually appear.
 * There have been several hints that Marisa might become a youkai magician in the future; Akyu comments on the possibility in her Perfect Memento article, and in Undefined Fantastic Object, she becomes evasive when Minamitsu Murasa points out that she's human after Marisa expresses interest going to Makai "as a magician" (though this could be explained by Marisa having tried to claim she was already a youkai).
 * Marisa is one of only two characters to change the music of the stage to her theme when she appears as a midboss, as opposed to when she shows up as the full boss of the stage (In Imperishable Night's Stage 4). The other is, of course, Reimu, the other Imperishable Night Stage 4 boss.
 * Given Marisa's large affinity with stars, fans sometimes parody her crossing over with Jotaro Kujo of Jojo's Bizarre Adeventure, although to a MUCH lesser extreme that Youmu and Sakuya get crossed over with characters of that series. This seems to be a result of Jotaro's stand being called "Star Platinum", ZUN's rather heavy ammount of references to that series already and Marisa in some works even quotes Jotaro's catchphrase "Yare yare daze".

[ edit ] Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red

 * Main article: Article and Interview: Marisa 

Since the events of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, there have been a series of sneak thefts at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Aya takes a photograph of one of the thefts in progress. The criminal is Marisa Kirisame, who simply walks inside and grabs whatever books she wants. Apparently, due to her confident demeanor, no one inside the mansion tries to stop her. When complained to, Marisa argues that since her lifespan is shorter than the lifespans of the youkai in the Mansion, she's just "borrowing" the books and they can have them back when she dies.

The interview takes place two years after the article, and is mostly Marisa complaining about Aya's newspaper.

[ edit ] Perfect Memento in Strict Sense

 * Main article: Perfect Memento: Marisa Kirisame 


 * Marisa lives in the Forest of Magic. She goes to Reimu's shrine often, but is rarely seen in the Human Village.
 * She is the only daughter of the proprietor of a secondhand shop in the village, but seems to have fallen out with her family.
 * She runs the "Kirisame Magic Shop" from her house, but rarely has any customers.
 * Marisa's specialty is light and heat magic. She says "It's not magic if it's not flashy."
 * Her magic is fueled by phantasmal mushrooms, which she boils into a soup and then dries out into blocks of magical 'fuel'.
 * She performs many experiments with this fuel, hoping to discover a magical reaction.
 * Marisa doesn't do much retail business, but rather contract work such as firework shows and youkai extermination.
 * Her magical powers are not very versatile, but in sheer destructive power she is unmatched among humans.
 * Her side occupation is burglary, particularly of books. She seems more enthusiastic about this than her other business.
 * Marisa uses a number of tools in the course of her magic, most notably her Mini- Hakkero reactor, and records of her magical experiments.

[ edit ] The Grimoire of Marisa

 * Main article:  The Grimoire of Marisa: Marisa Kirisame's Spell Cards 


 * Insert Summary Here