Part 72: Marisa, Nitori, Rinnosuke
ChroniclesMarisa
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her; Akyu comments that "being around her is fun". She's also very whimsical, and always looks out for what's most fun for her.
Thanks to her arrogant personality, she oftern gets into fights with powerful youkai and other important types for entirely different reasons than Reimu usually does.
She specialised in fire and light magic. It is said that no other human surpasses her in terms of pure firepower.
Her special brand of direct magic has few weak points, affecting all it hits equally, no matter who or what they are.
Since her abilities as a magician are far better than one would expect of a human, it is frequently conjectured that she has become a youkai "magician" (one that has learned Shashoku magic.) However, marisa has never said anything about that herself.
By the way, her magic often uses the motif of stars due to the meteor shower she saw during the shooting star wishing club meeting. Ever since then, she's always been fond of stars and meteoric swarms.
Marisa's suprisingly romantic, huh? (<-Random thought).
Although she uses such spectacular magic, the reason why she can is due to her hardworking nature,
Marisa uses monster mushrooms as fuel for her magic, which requires them to be gathered regularly. She then boils them down and blends them, eventually making a solid body as a catalyst. This catalyst is then used in several ways to invoke magic, and the results are noted down in a book...and this process repeats itself over and over again.
It sounds extremely straightforward, but that is the sense you get from both her magic, and Marisa herself.
The ZUN-written book "Grimoire of Marisa" consists of Marisa's written notes about Danmaku. However, her noted are not just limited to its difficulty and such; it also includes Marisa's ideas about the barrages' meanings and motifs, giving us a view of what goes on in her mind.
Speaking of Marisa's magic, her habit of using danmaku that resembles characters from previous games in the series is well-known. There have been lots of jokes about her being a blue mage, and she even says in the manga "Eastern and Little Nature Deity" that she "steals attacks from youkai".
Examples include Love Sign "Master Spark", Love Sign "Non-Directional Laser" and Cold Inferno.
Although to be exact, Master Spark and Non-Directional Laser were not exactly stolen; they were danmaku that originally did not have a name, and Marisa named them herself.
As the spellcard rules are also known as the "Spell Naming Law", there is much importance placed on giving names to one's attacks. Thus, as Marisa gave those spells names, it can be thought that the attacks then became rightfully hers.
Cold inferno looks similar to Servant Flyer, but it is actually a type of cold-based magic. It is the first type of elemental magic that Marisa had prepared, so it is better thought of as her own,
She has also opened the "Kirisame Magic Shop" in her own home at the Forest of MAgic. She calls it her main occupation, but given its extremely poor location for doing business, Marisa not being at home often, and noone knowing exactly what's being done in that shop to begin with, it probably should not be treated as a regular business.
When she goes out, it's usually towards the shrine. However the EDs of the original games often depict her going out to visit different placesl for example, the Scarlet Devil Mansion in "Embodiment of Scarlet Devil" and Hakugyokurou in "Perfect Cherry Blossom". It seems she has a very wide wange of places where she could be when she is out.
When Marisa goes out, it's practically expected that she's committing thievery. Entering without permission is standard for her, and she always leaves the residents overwhelmed.
Although she basically causes trouble wherever she goes, she's actually on good terms with most of the people she meets. Perhaps her fearless attitude helps to cover for her bad parts.
Also, she is the only daughter of the large-scale items shop "Kirisame Items" in the human village. She apparantly broke off relations with her gamily due to disagreements over magic, but the details are unclear.
Rinnosuke understudied in this items shop in the past, and has known Marisa for a long time. The mini-hakkero that Rinnosuke gave to her as a present when she became independant shows how deep their relationship is.
In the PC-98 era, she made her first appearance in the second game "Story of Eastern Wonderland". Her speech patterns, portrait, personality and such are hugely different from now, especially compared to the other characters that appeared in both eras.
Mima from the PC-98 series is the only person she addresses with an honourific, and Mima trains her in return, suggesting a student-teacher relationship between the two.
In FMW, she is the super-type main character, in contrast to Reimu's real-type position.
In actuality, her unit has the typical statistics of a real type, but the stages on her route make it clear. Just look at the special technique learning event that's always expected and associated with SRW. Marisa's route is all about powering through the scarlet mist using force over reason.
We hope you enjoy it.
"It's not magic if it's not flashy. Danmaku's all about firepower".
Nitori
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She's also a hardcore engineer. She approaches anything technology-related with lots of enthusiasm. She seems to be able to take anything artificial to pieces and put it back together.
She thinks of humans as a sworn friend, but she doesn't come into contact with humans in general due to her shyness.
But she became a bit more familiar with humans after meeting Reimu and Marisa in "Mountain of faith" when they entered Youkai Mountain. By the time of "Subterranean Animism" she is able to request Marisa to assist her.
As a member of Youkai Mountain, she's very sensitive to hierarchican relationships. She does her best to avoid a chance to meet an oni, and reported to the mountain gods after okuu was tames. The way she addresses the tengu with respect in "Mountain of Faith" has left an impression on a lot of players.
Although it seems like she was not given orders like Momiji and Aya were, so what role she has within the society is unknown.
As earlier mentioned, she believes humans and kappa are sworn friends, so she treats humans favourably. Although she tried to get in Reimu and Marisa's way, she was just anxious of the dangers that awaited humans who enter Youkai Mountain.
The technological ability of Nitori or the kappa as a whole is not entirely clear. However, she displayed knowledge of nuclear fusion in "Subterranean Animism" and appeared with an optical camoflage suit in "Mountain of Faith" so it would seem to be quite advanced.
Even thouh the optical camoflage suit does not make one perfectly transparent and it breaks easily, it's still an amazing piece of technology.
Kappa are generally understood to have a dish on their head, but as she's always shown with her head covered by a hat, there has been no indication of any such dish on her head as of yet. That, along with the mysterious key she carries at her chest, makes her a character whose outward appearance tends to catch the eye of a lot of people.
She also calls herself "Nitori, the Valley Kappa" but the history or origins of "valley kappa" are unknown.
In FMW's OP, she slips out of youkai mountain to go to Kourindou. She meant to return as quickly as possible, but she ended up with many days of suffering in the Forest of Magic, followed by Youkai Mountain declaring martial law, resulting in a quite a bad time for her.
"Gah, a human!?"
Rinnosuke
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articles in "Curiousities of Lotus Asia" are basically a diary written by him. (Though there are several exceptions).
It is difficult to call him sociable, and he would not be thought of as suited to commerce. However he gets more customers than expected of his location, thanks to the catalogue of special products that Kourindou provides combined with his useful ability. He has many connections among the people of Gensokyo.
His ability allows him to recognise the name and purpose of items with just a single glance. This is a very useful ability in Gensokyo, where items from the outside world often disappear into.
However, his power does not show him the way to make use of these items, so several of the items still end up worthless despite his power.
He is able o tell that game consoles and portables are toys from the outside world, but since noone knew the proper way to play them, they wound up being used as kicking material for games like Kemari...just imagining it seems painful, both for us and their legs, but that was stated in "Perfect Memento in Strict Sense".
At one time, he worked in the Kirisame Items shop in the human village. However, he eventually started a store on his own, believing that he "needed to deal with [items] that nobody would know how to use."
That explains why his items covers an extensive range of products, but he frequently refuses to sell products that he particularly likes, making it questionable just how many of the rare products that Rinnosuke deals have any possibility of being sold to the people of the village.
It has been mentioned that Rinnosuke uses a heater within Kourindou to keep it warm, and the manga "Silent Sinner in Blue" shows the store furnished with electric lights; it seems that he makes use of items from the outside world in his daily life.
He also has in-depth knowledge of magic, and has put forth magical theories. He has also been shown to use his knowledge practically; the mini-hakkero, a powerful magic item, was made by him.
The Kirisame Items shop that Rinnosuke worked in before is also Marisa's real home. He had already set out on his own before Marisa was born, but he still kept in contact with the Kirisame family ever since, and has known Marisa since she was a child.
By the way, Rinnosuke Morichika was the name he gave himself after he opened Kourindou. His name before that is unknown.
His exact age is not made clear, but as he was alive before the Great Hakurei Barrier isolated Gensokyo, he is probably at least century and a few decades old.
In FMW, he appears in the first stage of Marisa's route, in which he remains a key person throughout.
Even then, the character never leaves Kourindou even once, which is very much like him.
"I see. Hearing such things is one of the benefits of being an item maker."