What is Marisa's role in Gensokyo?

Being the cutest

Player 2

>>15778710
Qt incident solver when Reimu is ill.

Marisa is cute! Cute!

Kick ass and take spells

>>15778710
production and distribution of illegal drug substances (mainly mushrooms)

Resident gypsy

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criminal

Making Gensokyo into a Yuri paradise.

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Steal from the rich and give to herself.

Also steal from the poor and give to herself.

>>15778710
Being cuter than Reimu

>>15778782
Youmu is so badass, I want to pat her head!

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Beach babe.

Being the cutest pure human.

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>>15778710
Being Nami; you know the 'normal' or 'ordinary' one, of the magicians.

Being Vice-Captain of the incident solving team

>>15778710
Thievery and nepotism. Thievery doesn't need explanation, whereas nepotism stems from the fact that her current power comes from having been acquainted with a magical itemsmith (Rinnosuke) through her parents business.

If not for Rinnosuke's giving Marisa the Mini-Hakkero, she would have been a nobody today.

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>>15778710
Liberator of literature.

>>15778886
>If not for Rinnosuke's giving Marisa the Mini-Hakkero, she would have been a nobody today.
I really feel like this is some angry Touhou 3 character venting

>>15778905
Read CoLA. Marisa is ignorant as shit. She doesn't even recognise the ore that powers her Hakkero. Rinnosuke directly implies the Hakkero is the only reason she's even part of Gensokyo's "powerful personae" roster.

It has something to do with waifu, I assume.

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"Yoink!"

Potion seller

>>15778717
literally this

>>15778918
Now this feels like Rinnosuke venting instead. Do you want to tell us something, "Anon"?

There's a case to be made for Marisa's role in canon-storytelling specifically as a less wise, more brash deuteragonist. There's often a specific characterization in modern Japanese media of a more rural or rustic sort of person, typically being the same sort of less refined and more direct sort of personality that she has in canon works; sorry, manga haters, but they're written by ZUN so they're still primary sources.

I've read ZUN interviews where I seem to remember him not having much to say on Marisa or her characterization - Reimu is his favorite character, I know he stated that directly. So there's weight to the 'player two' theory, especially where the games are concerned... Incidents are pretty clearly canonically resolved by Reimu, even though there's no absolute canon for who-fought-who and when where the games are concerned (for the most part).

Going back to talking on the mangas, Marisa becomes a source for storytelling as a necessity - stories are often more ABOUT Reimu than from her perspective, so Marisa becomes in essence the excuse to observe her; this works in regards to other 'main' manga characters too, especially Kosuzu. Marisa more often travels in to observe the antics of others and is rarely the central protagonist (though exceptions exist).

Gensokyo has an ensemble cast, but most stories relate to Reimu somehow - and Marisa is her friend. It makes for a better story when the main character has a foil.

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>>15779102
>"Anon"

Be the best tomboy.

>>15779226
So she's supposed to be the surrogate to the audience? Since she's more relatable than Reimu. After all, she's just an ordinary magician.

>>15779310
How is a magician supposed to be relatable to a bunch of wizards?

>>15779321
We wizards want to be a little girl witch too.

>>15778710
'Shroom Dealer

>>15778717
This. It's honestly kind of depressing, canonically Marisa hasn't solved or contributed to a single incident. She's a playable character in almost every main game but has less canonical importance than some characters that have never been playable.

Like, wow, dude, what the hell, ZUN.

>>15778710

To raise the crime rate of course!

>>15779516
Aren't all routes possibly canon?

>hasn't solved or contributed to a single incident
You could say that applies to all the other characters too, like Reisen, Sakuya, Youmu, Sanae. Although I think Reisen's ending in LoLK just might be the "true" canon ending, whatever that means.

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>>15778710

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>>15779226
>>15779310
You know ZUN actually explicitly said that?
>As Reimu is quite mysterious, there are all sorts of things I wouldn't be able to explain if she were the only one around. That's why I have Marisa filling the support role by being the player/reader stand-in character, who gives the impression of being easy-to-understand and straightforward.
>That can make her a pretty un-Touhou-like character depending on the circumstances, but I believe that she used to be the easiest character to understand.
>Personally, it's much easier for me to write whenever Marisa's around since I can write any kind of story with her. Her thoughts are simple, while you can never tell what the others are thinking.

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>>15779226
>There's a case to be made for Marisa's role in canon-storytelling specifically as a less wise, more brash deuteragonist.
But Marisa is shown as relying on logic pretty often, as opposed to Reimu who relies on her intuition. And they're both brash.

>>15780641
Marisa confirmed 1D kuso char.

>>15779657
Reimu usually is the main resolver, but it is somewhat a mix of routes considering how much each person knows.

>>15779657
None knows for certain, most of it is just speculation.

>>15779516
ZUN said in an interview that the Marisa B ending of UFO was the canon one, so there you go.

>>15779657
It's heavily implied in some of the print works (especially Aya's) that Reimu ultimately solves every problem but there's enough gaps in the story to allow for the other player characters to do things or influence the overall story (which is also Aya's excuse for not fully giving Reimu credit for every incident even though she has printed that incidents get resolved when Reimu specifically acts). For example I think Scarlet Team is supposed to be the ones who really froze the night in IN even though all four teams claim to have done it.

>>15779226
>>15780641
Has it mostly right, Marisa is a good stand-in for the average person since she's straightforward. She's very enjoyable because she's charismatic and relateable while Reimu is more aloof (although they're both good and flawed).

Another thing to note for Marisa is that she will always be the "Ordinary Magician" and there's a reason ZUN always labelled her like that. Reimu is the most powerful person in universe by far and gets it all through natural talent while Marisa is just supposed to be a simple human who works hard with powerful magic unlike some of the broken characters or even the other Magicians. Keeping a character who is truly human and just a magician is a nice foil to all the broken characters, player or otherwise (Reimu is stupidly OP, Sakuya can freeze time, Sanae is a goddess etc).

masturbate youmu's dick

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>>15779226
>typically being the same sort of less refined and more direct sort of personality that she has in canon works;

She is like this in the games, it's mostly that the translations for the earlier games don't reflect it very well.

>>15778918
>She doesn't even recognise the ore that powers her Hakkero.
Play DDC again. The only thing she even needs the Mini-Hakkero for is Master Spark and its variants.

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>>15780641

>>15781834
Thank you.

>>15778710

She's there as someone the audience can sort of relate to, as opposed to Superman Reimu who can twist steel beams into pretzels and can become invincible at-will. Where everyone else has some type of ability that makes them resistant to being seriously injured on their adventures, Marisa's living on the edge, protected by nothing but her bullet screens.

I do think it would be neat if in one of the future games, Marisa escorts you through a high speed section of a stage near the end of a stage six, firing alongside you before you reach the stage boss.

>>15781563
Within Spellcard Rules, sure. But the Hakkero is Marisa's ace-in-the-hole, and the only reason why youkai agree to Spellcard duels with her, even though she isn't affiliated with the Human Village. As in, they agree because they know she has a Hakkero that can "level a mountain", let alone the youkai in question.

>>15782247

Are you implying that without the Hakkero, Marisa is little more than a glorified fairy on the powerscale?

>>15782509
Maybe not that terrifically weak though that's really her only "capable" offensive weapon at her disposal.

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>>15783901
Yup. That's right. That's why Marisa couldn't do anything back before the spellcard rules existed. She was literally powerless before she got that Mini-Hakkero.

>>15778710
drugs
hustlin
pimp shit
keepin it real

post player 2 marisa with a wizard cap

>>15779226
Marisa has more background fluff than Reimu though.

What do we know about Reimu other than her occupation and abilities? Nothing. We know Marisa has a dad who runs a shop in the Human Village, she's not on good terms with her dad, she's known Rinnosuke since she was young, she has a habit of stealing shit during Incidents and copying other people's spellcards, etc.

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>>15778710
Alice still wants 2 fuck her... I guess