While she wasn't there from the very start, she's still a series mainstay - it's our second heroine, Kirisame Marisa. For an ordinary human, her magic prowess is quite remarkable - her learning ability is nothing but admirable. Do you think she's on the way to becoming a youkai magician? (For some reason, that was my expectation for her when I was only starting out with Touhou.) By the way, she owns and runs a magic shop. A lot of people forget about that, which seems to be true in the series as well... But it has to be more reliable than people give it credit for, surely.
Also, her father makes a direct appearance in Curiosities of Lotus Asia, which is a bit unusual for Touhou. He's just some guy from the human village, apparently. I wonder what happened between him and his daughter. They don't seem to be on very good terms.

Maybe it's because I'm from the west, but I've always had the impression that Marisa was more popular than Reimu among non-touhou fans... or maybe that if someone wanted to throw a touhou reference somewhere that wasn't touhou, Marisa would be picked more often than Reimu. Or maybe Reimu is just a less distinct character design to me and I don't remember her references as much.

I think the magic missiles are a bit out of place in her kit; it doesn't fall into the camp of "lasers" or "space-themed" and I don't remember them having that rainbow coloration that the rest of her magic tends to have.

I'm a bit surprised that there's never been a fanfic or doujin (at least, one that I've come across) that has Marisa as a weird homeless skrunkly that lives in the forest. I think overall, I surprised Marisa tends to be at least somewhat "clean" considering her tendency to get involved in every incident.

Another small thing, I wish her broom got a tiny bit more love. Yeah it's a broom and doesn't need an extensive backstory, but it's an iconic part of her character design and it's the only conceptually magical "vehicle" in touhou (as in, Byakuren's motorcycle is probably magical, but a motorcycle as a vehicle isn't inherently magical).

Yay, Marisa week! We've been blue balled for long enough. Anyway I really like Marisa being the hard working and not as talented one in comparison to Reimu, that and her underdog status make her a bit of a natural protagonist in my eyes.
I also quite like scientific Marisa's, even if she doesn't know what radiation is and has to be taught about dangerous science-y things in canon, I like to imagine a lot of her 'magic' is more tech-y. Although I don't think that's an uncommon preference just going by what I've seen.
>>19537

>Youkai magician
Honestly I like it, but it's also a bit trite. Too common and I've seen it too many times. There is one specific example i like, in the Doujin Bonfire Flower, where Marisa outlives Reimu, and stays around to help the next Hakurei while visiting the shrine every year to pay tribute to Reimu. It also plays into my preference for the hakurei to not be bloodline based and be very disposable.
Although I've had an idea for a comedy where Marisa is close to becoming a Youkai but there are so many safety rails around her she ends up juggling between people instead, with everyone hiding this from Reimu since they don't want to distress her.
Although I also like the opposite idea, Reimu becomes more inhuman, ageless, and absorbed into the role of Hakurei in ways her predecessors weren't, with Marisa wanting to become a youkai to stay with her. Which leads the two to conflict as Reimu is torn between her duty and friendship

>Shop
I like to think her shop is less of a general store, and more of an all purpose mercenary business, with Marisa taking odd jobs to make money. Sort of like in the doujin Dancers of the Boundary.

>Maridad
Anyways I've posted more or less my version of Marisa's back story here >>/others/70629, even if it is a short and shallow retread of two other things I like. In general I really like the idea of Marisa having a dead mother, and in specific I really like the idea of her father being very abusive. Which is funny since the one time I've alluded to their relationship in a proper fic, it was mutual misunderstanding and Marisa not wanting to be a burden.
Anyways, people really underestimate how cruel a parent can be to their child, and although I never explained the reason why Marisa was abused in the scrap I'll do it here: She's a natural Albino, and there's a lot of superstition around that. Sort of like how disfigured or unwanted children would be called the children of youkai, changlings, oni, demons...etc and cast off into the wilderness, Marisa's red eyes and white hair, even if it's just a genetic anomaly, mark her as a half-youkai to her father. But she's still the daughter of her mother, so she wasn't killed as a baby. And the reason why her eyes and hair become golden blonde is the same reason in canon, the forest of magic ended up dying it.

>>19540
I've also headcanoned Dead Mom for Marisa and known I've read like 2 different things that also had that. Is that common?

>>19541
Probably, we never hear about her, in TOUHOU of all series and get her dad instead.

>>19539
>First post is a flith lover complaning about Clean'risa