Reimari

Reimari is a femslash ship between Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame from the Touhou Project fandom.

Canon
Reimu and Marisa are best friends and have been since childhood. When an incident emerges in Gensokyo, Marisa is the first person to warn Reimu sometimes, so she doesn't neglect her duties as a Youkai Exterminator. In some instances, they investigate incidents together. They often resolve incidents independently, though they almost always meet with each other after the incident.

They first meet in Story of Eastern Wonderland (Touhou 2), where Reimu fights Marisa before the final boss of the game, Mima. Marisa was tasked to defeat Reimu as Mima's apprentice. She seems to have immediately taken an interest in Reimu during that time and "trains" with Reimu by subjecting her to various spells at her expense. Though, from ''Phatasamagoria and Dim. Dream'' (Touhou 3) onwards, their relationship has improved past hostility. Marisa started to drop by Reimu's shrine to hang out after she was introduced and still visits her frequently now. Marisa also stays over for dinner sometimes, which has been depicted in most official manga involving the two thus far.

Official Touhou media often pictures Reimu and Marisa together, usually hanging out and bickering. While Reimu is generally very wary of who sets foot on the shrine's grounds, she makes an exception for Marisa (even welcoming/expecting her in most instances). In one of Marisa's character profiles, it's said that she would die of boredom without Reimu. Hence, their relationship is beneficial to her.

Games
The plot of the Touhou consists of one-off stories with no continuations as they're various incidents instead of alluding to a larger main plot. Regardless of this, there are a few things in common with the good endings when you play as Reimu or Marisa. Often, Marisa will drop by to visit Reimu to chat about the incident and other things casually. The endings in Story of Eastern Wonderland are an exception, where she appears in Reimu's bad endings to taunt her in multiple ways.

A friendly rivalry between the two can be observed when resolving some incidents as Marisa sometimes swipes some incident solving requests from Reimu. The following is evident from their dialogue in the fighting games, where Marisa usually asks Reimu how she's handling the incident thus far and how she’s going to beat her to it (and vice versa). The two often wish the other luck after defeat, showing that these fights are lighthearted and friendly.

In Gouyokun Ibun (Touhou 17.5), they told each other to be careful when pursuing the incident after their respective defeat, as the flooded nature of the area may pose a dangerous threat. This shows that they also look out for each other's safety regardless of winning against the other in battle.

Official Manga
The two are seen working together the most in the Manga, often with Marisa gathering intel on an incident and Reimu actively doing something about it. They are also seen together casually the most in the Manga, sometimes hanging out just for the sake of it.

Reimu gets highly concerned when she can't find Marisa. In most of the official Manga, she immediately makes finding her top priority over everything. She becomes very anxious and frustrated during these times, seemingly only having Marisa and her safety in her mind the entire time.

Similarly, Marisa usually tends to Reimu when she gets herself in troubling situations. Reimu is said to be very bad at taking care of herself, and if it weren't for the people who visit her frequently, something horrible would've happened to her by now. Marisa will usually be the first person to go to the Hakurei Shrine to check on Reimu when she is nowhere to be seen. Marisa is very concerned for Reimu's health and is usually the one to tend to her needs when falling ill. The latter is commonly seen in official manga work involving the two thus far.

Licensed Merchandise
Reimu and Marisa are frequently featured together in promotional art for licensed merchandise. The most significant example is Good Smile Company’s Nendoroid series, where Reimu and Marisa are pictured together in some promotional art. The pair sit next to each other in the promotional art for the Nendoroid Swachoo! Series and have recently been featured together on another Good Smile Company figure series called ''HELLO! GOOD SMILE''.

Reimu and Marisa also have a figurine from Aniplex featuring them both. It depicts them both on Marisa’s broom in an attack-like stance. The figures are connected by a Yin-Yang base (Reimu having the Yang half, Marisa having the Yin half) and can be separated from each other

Games

 * In Marisa's good ending from Lotus Land Story (Touhou 4), Reimu and Marisa go out together similarly to a date to discuss what happened during the incident. Both wore casual attire regarded as "special clothes" to see each other. Similarly in Reimu's ending, Reimu welcomed Marisa when she came to hang out after the incident. The two talked about how Reimu could seal away evil spirits in bottles without hurting them. They were seen going out like this again in Mystic Square (Touhou 5) in Marisa's good ending. The two share tea while talking about the incident in Makai.


 * Reimu and Marisa made a cameo in Shuusou Gyoku (Seihou 1) as extra stage bosses. The dialogue before Reimu's fight alludes to Marisa frequenting the Shrine a lot and being comfortable enough to test out her magic on the premises of the Shrine on multiple occasions. It's insinuated that Reimu is comfortable with her doing so as long as she's outside the Shrine. Reimu nags her about causing a stir while fighting VIVIT. The two bickered with each other before Marisa passed out from exhaustion.


 * In Imperishable Night (Touhou 8), Marisa appears as one of the 4th stage bosses (the other being Reimu herself). Reimu and Yukari Yakumo chase Marisa after she flees halfway through the stage. After casting a non-spell, Marisa shares some dialogue with Reimu. Reimu confronts her about running away. Marisa tells her that the spell card before was meant for Yukari and that the next one is for her. The spell card Marisa casts for Reimu is called Love storm, "Starlight Typhoon"', implying that Marisa had reserved a love-themed spell card for her.


 * In Immaterial and Missing Power (Touhou 7.5), Marisa's pre-battle dialogue with Reimu compared her to the sun and says that the reason why the weather was bad is because she's lazing around. In the same game, Reimu's victory dialogue after defeating Marisa has Reimu telling her to be a "good girl" and take care of the shrine for her while she resolves the incident.

Official Manga
Most Reimari moments happen in the official Mangas as the two are together a lot in these works. The manga is also where Reimu and Marisa work together the most to solve incidents.
 * In Cheating Detective Satori, Satori Komeiji presses Reimu on her careless handling of the possession incident. Reimu kept a level head up until Satori insinuated that Marisa could be the next target of the possession. After that, Reimu suddenly became very concerned and immediately went to look for Marisa. Reimu is seen worrying incredibly for Marisa's well-being and frantically asks for help from Yukari and Satori to look for her.


 * There was a whole section involving the two in the beginning of Wild and Horned Hermit Chapter 37. Regarded as one of the most infamous Reimari scenes in official Touhou Manga, Reimu and Marisa shared dialogue about how heavy it was snowing that day. Reimu encourages Marisa to stay over longer. Marisa eventually does after the two walk outside the Shrine to clear out some snow. This whole section in the chapter was framed as oddly romantic with a very atmospheric background and colored pages to accompany it. The pair were also very tender with each other, even more so than in other chapters. It was here where Marisa referred to the Reimu as being romantic when she was in the snow.


 * Another instance in Wild and Horned Hermit has Marisa receiving the ability of superstrength for a brief period. To test this strength, Marisa decided to lift up a flustered Reimu with one arm, saying, "She's so easy to lift now!". Reimu comedically beats up Marisa after that, presumingly out of embarrassment.


 * In a chapter from Forbidden Scrollery where the two are looking for a vengeful spirit, Reimu and Marisa accidentally intrude on a couple confessing to each other underneath a cherry blossom tree. After realizing so, the two suddenly became very flustered around each other. Reimu donks Marisa on the head after saying that a vengeful spirit couldn't possibly be hiding where they were looking.


 * In chapter from Sangetsusei, Marisa makes her routine visit to Reimu's Shrine. She notes how the Shrine is covered with snow and worries if something could've happened to Reimu for her not to shovel the snow. A worried Marisa then storms into the Shrine after hearing weird noises coming from it, only to find Reimu blissfully relaxing with the heat source provided by Clownpiece. She cartoonishly faints in front of Reimu and wonders why she is even worried.


 * Similarly, in a chapter from Lotus Eaters, Marisa immediately heads to the Shrine after finding out Reimu was bedridden. Marisa frantically asked her what had happened and if she was alright. Reimu weakly explains how she drank too much Shinsu the night before to Marisa and giggles at the end of her explanation. Marisa expresses a massive sigh of relief and tells Reimu she's "really something else."

Written works
On the covers for Strange Creators of Outer World, Reimu and Marisa are the main focus on the front cover for all of the books thus far. Some covers depict the two as physically intimate, an example being one cover having Reimu pulled against Marisa’s chest.

The issues of these books contain a dedicated section where Reimu and Marisa rank bosses. They had an entire section dedicated to reviewing bosses together in one issue. The two bicker in this segment, often Marisa telling Reimu that her judgment of some bosses can be unnecessarily harsh.

Behind the Scenes
It's observed that almost all of the artists that ZUN hired for official Touhou manga coincidently have drawn or shipped Reimari at some point. As an example, the leading artists for Silent Sinner in Blue and Wild and Horned Hermit, Aki Ueda and Aya Azuma respectively, produced multiple fanart and doujinshi of the pairing. Because of this, there is an abundance of moments between the two that can be read as romantic in most official manga.

Benishake (also known as Poprication), an artist well-known for drawing a lot of Reimari, is one of the leading artists in an official work called Grimoire of Usami. This further supports the assumption that ZUN seems to hire artists that have drawn Reimari at one point for official Touhou work.

Fanon
Reimari is one of the most, if not the most popular ship in Touhou. In a shipping poll held by the Japanese fandom in 2016 and 2021, Reimari won both polls. They won by a large margin in 2021 by being 400+ votes ahead of the second most popular pairing (RenMerry, a ship involving Renko Usami and Maribel Hearn). In the western fandom, Reimari is the most written for a ship in AO3, having nearly 200+ works on the pairing.

Reimari’s influence in Japan is nothing short of massive. The pairing has over 15K submissions of manga, stories, and artwork on pixiv.net under the tag “レイマリ”. It has the most number of submissions for a Touhou pairing by far. Reimari also has very dedicated fan artists on pixiv to the point where some artists have made a name for themselves by frequently drawing the pairing (such as Benishake and Yonurime on pixiv). Aside from that, The pair has tons of MMD videos on youtube by searching their Japanese pairing name. These videos usually garner at least 10K views and at most a million views per video.

Reimari’s significant popularity did not extend as much to the western fandom. Most people in the English-speaking fandom only saw Reimu and Marisa as good friends or rivals, some few even expressing outward disdain for the pair being viewed as romantic. Reimari was also overshadowed by other pairings involving the two. The most notable being MariAli (a pairing involving Marisa and Alice Margatroid) was widely considered the most popular Touhou pairing by western fandom standards. However, Reimari climbed in popularity in the last few years and has somewhat overtaken Mariali as the most popular ship in the western fandom.

Reimari being somewhat unpopular among some fans in the west could also be due to people disliking one of them. It would usually be Reimu, as some interpretations depict her as cruel and unmerciful due to her short-tempered and straightforward attitude. Hence, some people often compare the two, saying one is better than the other.

In late 2021, there was conflict regarding the moderators of touhouwiki.net censoring all references towards Reimari in Reimu and Marisa’s character pages as part of significant changes being implemented. Apparently, it’s stated that they did the following as they viewed including shipping references as unnecessary. Reimu and Marisa’s relationship pages were entirely rewritten, looking massively different and shorter now than how they looked previously. The two are sometimes depicted as Yin and Yang in fanworks, with Reimu being the “Yang” and Marisa being the “Yin.” Their character colors also seem to reflect this (One color commonly associated with Reimu is White, while Marisa’s is Black)

Fanfiction

 * Reimari on AO3

Artwork

 * Reimari tag on pixiv.net
 * Reimari (japanese) tag on tumblr
 * Reimari tag on tumblr

Social media

 * Reimari (Japanese ship name) tag on twitter
 * Reimari (English ship name) on twitter

Trivia

 * In the Grimoire of Marisa, it’s revealed that Marisa was the one that gave the name to Reimu’s most iconic spells, Spirit sign "Fantasy seal".
 * In another one of Marisa’s character profiles, she refers to her relationship with Reimu as “大好物”. When translated, the term means something along the lines of “favorite thing”, making Reimu Marisa’s favorite “thing” to mess around with. However, the term is commonly used to refer to a favorite food and is seldom used for describing a person. It’s assumed by the (?) at the end of the word that it was made to be purposely ambiguous.
 * For a brief period of time when you searched Reimu’s name on google, her profile would have Marisa listed as her “partner”. It is unknown whether this refers to the two being in a romantic or platonic relationship.
 * A specific Reimari fanart by the artist buriki has become somewhat of a meme on tumblr in recent years. Usually in the top text, bottom text format.