WARNING : NEW FAN THEORIES BASED HEAVILY ON CANON, ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
A few days ago I and a few other people, notably KennyMan666 who I collaborated on writing up this little thing with had a conversation on the IRC channel about Mima and mentioned the text of ZUN's Dolls in Pseudo Paradise CD which has a text on track 10 - Reincarnation (Which is Mima's theme):
It's strange that there's a Western-style mansion in the middle of a
deserted forest to begin with. The girl who lived there hardly ever
came into town. But, lately, I've seen a girl who looks like her daughter.
How do I know she had a daughter?
Well, since the girl looks like she did when she was young ...
Often times people associate this text with Marisa being Mima's daughter as the track is Reincarnation and Mima is known to have had strong ties with Marisa being her teacher/boss. However in this text it points more to a strong possibility that Mima is Marisa's mother, having possibly dressed in the same garb and even had blonde hair in life, looking rather similar to how Marisa does before "dying" and becoming a spirit.
While conversing about this text someone brought up the latter CD which was though to have no significance to any touhou characters and simply be a standalone story about a tragedy of 8 honest men in Gensokyo, however the text on track 10 in this one was pointed out as a possible way Mima had died and under further inspection we found some interesting points within the texts of the CD (take note that the world translated into clowns can be interpreted as Youkai):
- One of the 8 honest men is a female with blonde hair
- An old-looking western-style mansion deep in the woods is often mentioned as a place of rest for the 8 honest men
- By the end up the CD all 8 of the honest men are supposedly dead but only 7 corpses are mentioned to have been left behind.
- The blonde-haired woman is seen walking from the old-looking western-style mansion in the woods some time after the tragedy of the 8 honest men by the shrine maiden in the story and is specifically stated to have been one of the 8 honest men.
- Only one of the honest men in the story, the one using the self-description "I, the most beautiful one" in track 3 of the C63 version of the CD, isn't explicitly mentioned to have died, but merely "unable to return to where the others were". It does thus seems likely that this would be the blonde girl.
"I didn't notice when it stopped raining. The shrine maiden had been soaked completely
through, and it was as if she'd melted away into the rain. As I had been watching her,
the rain had become a veritable storm, and
I, the most beautiful one, was taken
captive by the clowns. Just then, the clowns disappeared into the storm,
and I was unable to return to where the others were.
After that, there were six honest men left."
"August X
Today's incident started when I met a
beautiful blonde girl
walking from the old western-style building deep in the forest.
I feel like I've seen her somewhere before, but I just can't
remember every little detail like that. The girl was just idly
sticking out her tongue and bowing her head and wandering towards
the exit to paradise while laughing loudly. Such an odd girl.
Come to think of it,
that girl was the only woman in the eight
honest men, not that it really matters.
Oh, today was just another boring day ..."
"There are eight less people in this paradise, "Gensokyo", and
seven
corpses were kept safe from youkai. Gensokyo has lost these honest
men forever. It's just a change in the population count.
Even this isn't a big piece of news."
A possibility for Mima's "death" may have been due to tampering with forbidden magic or betrayal by her comrades leading to her becoming just a "Spirit", soon after likely being sealed by the shrine maiden considering what she had become. Being sealed up for a bit and the circumstances that perpetrated her death had likely turned Mima into the vengeful spirit you see her as in HRtP and SoEW.
You may also take into account that the Shrine Maiden in these texts also has blonde hair and it is known that Mima was attempting to obtain the yin-yang orbs of Hakurei as well in SoEW, even though they are only able to be used by members of the Hakurei bloodline. It would be a long shot but Mima and by that quite likely Marisa as well may have some Hakurei blood in their veins which would enable them to use the yin-yang orbs. A piece of evidence outside this text that could back this theory up is that both Marisa and Reimu, being fully human, were not affected by the real moon in IN whereas Youmu was affected even though she's only half-human and Sakuya wasn't affected for god knows what reason (Lunarian lol). Given this, Reimu and Marisa could very well have no been affected due to some effect of both being of the Hakurei blood, whereas Youmu was affected because she is not.
On another note this quote from Perfect Memento in Strict Sense about Yuyuko states: "It is said that the color of her skin and hair is quite lighter than those when she lived." This is canonical evidence that ghosts do not look the same way as they did in life, which is another support for Mima having had blonde hair in life and thereby possibly one of the 8 honest men.
You may take note that within the story of the 8 honest men it does not explicitly state anything anywhere about one of them having a child, although this may or may not have occurred at some point and it is almost literally stated that Marisa is a descendant of Mima within the texts of the first release of the CD.
On a final note the texts of this CD may be a wealth of information for more crazy theories so I'm sure there are more wild possibilities that could be backed up by this in some form or other.
