I mostly wrote this because I'm sick and therefore have more free time than I know what to do with and also because I suddenly felt the urge to essay something. I was failing (not "playing" because that would imply I have some degree of competence at it) Touhou at the time so why not this, you know? Massive TL;DR here; you have been warned.
As the protagonist of the doujin-series juggernaut that is Touhou, it's difficult to traverse the internet without seeing her name at least once. She is undoubtedly a popular character, beloved by many, and it's no stretch to say that she's just as iconic as the series itself. That isn't to say she doesn't have her share of detractors. Despite ranking first in the last three (Japanese) annual character popularity polls, there are many who are indifferent to or even outright dislike her, particularly in western circles, where characters like Marisa and Remilia have garnered significantly more fans. However, regardless of whether you love her or hate her, it is undeniable that to know Touhou is synomymous with knowing Reimu's name. It is my intent and desire to try and analyze this character in an attempt to achieve a greater understanding of her, as well as the series as a whole. Discussion, criticism and argument are gladly welcomed and encouraged.
Now, as with many characters in Touhou, Reimu's character has a wide variety of different fan-interpretations, many of which are radically different from one-another. This, of course, is attributed to the uncountable number of derivitive works that exist for the series. It's only natural, of course. Although a large amount of supplementary materials for the series exist expanding on character personalities and characters, these materials didn't start popping up until after Imperishable Night, the eighth game in the series, whereas Touhou's popularity really kicked off after the release of Perfect Cherry Blossom, which was the sixth. Even before the sudden boost in popularity, the series has existed for a long time prior to that point, and due to the nature of the shoot-'em-up genre, there was never an opportunity to flesh out and expand on the characters, so fans were only give a bare-basic outline of who they were. The PC-98 games further muddle the water, since characterization was never a priority back then, and Reimu's personality in particular shifted from game to game. She only gained a "standard" personality starting from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, the sixth game and first game of the Windows series, which in turn completely ignored all prior characterization up to that point, essentially giving Reimu a clean slate, a trait shared by other "carry-over" characters, such as Marisa and Yuka. All this gave fans the opportunity to create a number of interpretations, some of which became so popular that they became deeply-rooted in the fanbase' minds. So much so that even when series creator ZUN started releasing more character/dialogue-oriented written works which gave the characters more solid personalities, the fan interpretations remained strong, to the point where in the minds of many fans, those interpretations override the canon characterizations created by the original creator. In the case of this character analysis, I will ignore all of these fan interpretations, instead choosing to delve solely into how ZUN portrays her. I will also ignore the PC-98 era, since ZUN obviously did so as well. Of course, despite this, a lot this is my own personal interpretations of the character, which is inevitable since I only have my own views to work on. As such, I don't expect anyone to agree with my views.
One more minor detail is the concepts of "time" and "age". While ZUN has stated on at least one occasions that the characters do in fact age, the exact progression of age has never really been made clear throughout the series. This is especially odd since time very clearly progresses in Touhou, with characters making references to "xx year(s) ago" at various points. Despite this, the characters' ages are very difficult to pinpoint, and it's very difficult to tell if they're even aging at all. For the most part, the series is quite static as far as character development and maturity goes, with most of the characters being no different from how they were years ago, mentality-wise. While logically, Reimu should by all means be at least in her later teens, the series and ZUN himself continue to treat her as a child, which is made further perplexing when one compares her to otherwise immortal/exceptionally long-lived characters such as Remilia or Alice. ZUN, himself, seems to be particularly averse to her becoming "too old", and it is unknown how this affects her aging. Since this is an analyses of the character as ZUN writes her, it, too, will treat and refer to her as a child. However, as this is a relatively minor point, and this is an analyses of her character rather than the physical age progression of humans, I expect this to be not really affect anything too much. And so, moving on to the analysis proper...
As far as Reimu's character profile goes, there is very little change in-between games. Particular notes are that she is incredibly easy-going, treats everyone the same, and that she is neither cruel nor kind. A very fair and unaffected person. She has been noted a few times to be a somewhat lazy person, one who dislikes training, and that as she personally believes that hard work will not be rewarded, she never puts forth a very large amount of effort. She's not particularly close to anyone, and generally lacks interest in people as a whole. Aside from her abilities as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, her personal ability is the power to fly, which seems to mean something very different for Reimu compared to others. People are apparently drawn to her, regardless of their opinions of her. She's a highly honest and emotive person, and always says and shows precisely what is on her mind. Because of this, it is easy to tease her or get a rise out of her. She posseses a highly simplistic, sometimes air-headed mindset, yet she also possesses an otherworldly air that makes it difficult for others to understand her. Her sense and values are completely different from normal humans, and she is not bound common sense. Perhaps as a result, she's highly optimistic, and rarely believes that things may go wrong. Although she can seem wise beyond her years at times, at others, she is shown to possess a rather bizarre thought process, while still maintaining a certain childishness and curiosity. The list goes on, but these are her main points. Outwardly, she's a pretty normal girl, one who can be cheerful, annoyed, angry or bored, depending on the situation.
Her easy-going nature is almost always among the first things that anyone notes about her. She lives purely in the present, without any particular interests, and simply moving through the days without a care in the world. When an incident occurs, she will take care of it without the slightest hesitation and resumes her daily life. In a sense, she never goes anywhere, always staying in the same place, never changing, never desiring to change. Yet, freely flows like a breeze, unaffected by anyone or anything. She's pretty simple-minded. After all, a person who spends most of the time sitting in their shrine watching the clouds without a single thought in their mind can't be called anything other than simplistic. Although she'll express annoyance or anger at situations placed before her, once the source of her ire disappears, she'll continue on as if nothing ever happened. She never dwells on anything. This also extends to her relationships with people. Although she has many acquaintances, none of them are closer to her than anyone else. In particular, Marisa is frequently portrayed as her closest friend, but Reimu has never once treated her any differently from anyone else. She's fair-minded, and doesn't treat anyone any better or worse than anyone else. This also extends to enemies; although she is stricter towards youkai, she won't hesitate to defeat humans or even gods who present themselves as her enemies, but will immediately drop all hostilities afterwards.
While becoming friends after defeating an enemy is nothing new in fiction, Reimu's case is rather unique; she doesn't become friends with them, but simply stops regarding them as enemies. Furthermore, the "defeat means friendship" card only comes into play once the protagonist gains an understanding with their opponent and becomes empathatic to them. Reimu, on the other hand, seems to actually lack empathy. She's entirely disinterested in people and their situations, and only stops treating enemies as such when the incident they are causing is resolved. However, she will immediately see them as enemies once more when they start up trouble again. Her sense of detachment is quite extraordinary considering her character archetype, and what's even more interesting is that she fails to develop or change over a period of time.
For a simple example of her detachment, in derivative works, it's not rare to see Reimu portrayed as a money-grubber whose so-called "poverty" drives her to extreme avarice. However, it has been noted several times that Reimu's view of the world is different from those of others; money has never been shown to be particularly valuable to her. In the words of Rinnosuke in Curiosities of Lotus Asia, to Reimu, money is no different from any other slips of paper. She understand that they hold value to human society, and also understands that she needs money to live, but she, herself, holds no real value over it. While some would note that she has attempted to steal treasures on various occasions (Perfect Cherry Blossom, as well as Reimu A's scenario in Undefined Fantastic Object), note that "money" and "treasures" are two different things. Precisely what "treasure" means to Reimu has never been explained, but as far as UFO's concerned, while treasure is apparently indeed something that would be nice to have, she won't be too disappointment if there isn't any either. Ultimately, it was probably just a whim and just as quickly forgotten.
(Strangely, the one thing that Reimu DOES seem to hold some attachment for is her shrine, as she cried when it was destroyed for the second time in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. However, this may simply be due to the fact that without the shrine, she wouldn't have a home, as well as the amount of time it would take to rebuild it for a second time, seeing as how she didn't cry the first time it was destroyed.)
To further expand on this subject, earlier, I called Reimu a simple person, and this is really no exaggeration. She freely admits to being empty-minded most of the time, without a care in the world. On top of that, her optimism is well-documented. She always flies in headfirst into any and all incidents regardless of the odds or what may occur. It's not that she's courageous; to begin with, she has no attachments to life from the start, so even dying probably wouldn't affect her much. To be courageous, one must have fear; to face that fear head-on is to be brave. If one doesn't have a concept of fear to begin with, one can't be brave. Thus, Reimu's pretty much not afraid of anything.
In a sense, she is actually quite pure. Now, "pure" does not mean that she is innately "good" or anything. "Pure" in this case is meant to show how completely unaffected she is. No matter what happens or what obstacles appear before her, she will breeze through without the slightest care. Although she'll get angry or irritated, the end result still won't change; she's incredibly straight-forward. Nothing and no one can colour her; she is defined solely by herself. She's not grounded by "common sense" or "logic". She's solid, yet at the same time transient. In a sense, her greatest ability, "Fantasy Heaven", is quite perfect for her, in that it defines her so well. She floats away from everything, becoming completely unaffected by anything, absolutely untouchable, yet capable of affecting her surroundings as she pleases. Her purity gives her a kind of complete freedom that no one else has, unbound to anything, unable to be bound to anything, whether it be to the physical or even to life itself. Her power truly is to "fly freely".
It's not as if this is a good thing. Being "pure" also means not only that no one can truly understand her, but also that she can't understand others. In the first place, she's not interested in understanding anyone to start with. In a sense, it might be said that she is completely alone at heart, something ZUN has noted at least once. However, she fails to realize this, and probably wouldn't care if she did. While it ultimately depends on one's point of view, such an existence is neither good nor bad. I have said that she posseses a certain freedom, but at the same time, there is no one with heavier shackles. Because she is the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, she is the only person in all of Gensokyo with a strictly defined role. She is the only one with a true "duty", and from the day she was born, the only road for her was already laid out in front of her. Her purity may give her unrivaled freedom, but it's also another shackle as well: She apathy to her own situation makes it so that she will never try to escape her fate. She will never complain because she has no complaints. Is such a contradiction to be pitied or envied? In the end, that, too, is up to interpretation.
Interestingly, despite her detached persona, she possesses a surprising amount of curiosity. Her extremely different viewpoints allow her to see things differently from others, and thus reach conclusions no one else does. It's no surprise that with all her gifts, she's also quite bright intelligence-wise. At the same time, she's still young, and quite naive at that, so there's much she doesn't know. She is known to be a frequent visitor of Kourindou, and she tends to be highly curious about the various odds-and-ends that appear that, showing a large willingness to learn, and listening to whatever Rinnosuke has to say (so long as he has anything worth listening to). However, her curiosity rarely lasts, and once she's adequately satisfied with what she has learned or fails to learn anything at all after a while, she'll completely lose interest soon after, much like a child.
On that note, although her detachment is well-documented, what does that mean for her status as the series' main heroine? Is she a good guy or is the only reason she does the thing she does due to her duty as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden? But it's wrong to say that she is defined solely by her duty, because along the way, she has done a number of "extra" things that have nothing to do with her role. The introduction of the Spell Card System, for example, is the most obvious one. She had repeatedly solved all incidents prior to that point with little trouble, so there shouldn't have been a need to evoke such a rule, should there? The only ones who were in a difficult position were the youkai who were meant to start the incidents; although the Hakurei Maiden was free to stop them as she wished, that wasn't the case for the instigators. The Hakurei Shrine Maiden was a necessary part of Gensokyo, and defeating her was strictly out of the question. Although certain mavericks might have challenged this rule out of ignorance or apathy, ultimately, the entire situation was, from start to finish, within the Hakurei's favour. The Spell Card System exists to give those youkai a fighting chance. Although they still can't go all out against Reimu, she can't go all out against them either. Rather than a contest of power, the ongoing "war games" between Reimu and the youkai became precisely that, a game, with rules both sides are bound to. Thus, even if Reimu lost, it wouldn't affect Gensokyo as a whole. And while many argue that Reimu never loses, it has been noted on several occasions that Reimu DOES, in fact, lose occasionally. While she does like to win, to Reimu, a loss doesn't really matter much, and since she never goes all-out to begin with, she doesn't really lose face when she loses either. Thus, the only ones who had anything to gain from the Spell Card Rules were the youkai. But why was it necessary to introduce such a concept in the first place? This can be attributed to another unique trait of Reimu's: Although her empathy is questionable at best, she does possess a sense of sympathy. She was sympathetic to the youkais' dissatisfaction with the former scheme of things, and changed things so that things to fix that.
But perhaps this isn't the best example, so let's try another one. During the events of Silent Sinner in Blue and Cage in Lunatic Runagate (the latter of which was personally penned by ZUN), Reimu saves a youkai rabbit that happens to collapse nearby and spends the night nursing her back to health. As a youkai hunter, she obviously had no reason to do this, such an act being the direct opposite of her job. Although it wasn't a particularly major event, it did show another side to Reimu's character. Presumably, she would do the same for anyone, regardless of who they are or their species. Although Reimu's personal on the matter are never addressed, it was still a very interesting event nonetheless. Did she do it out of kindness or a sense of morality? Personally, I don't feel this is the case. I believe that concepts of "kindness" and "right and wrong" hold no meaning in Reimu's simplistic throught process in the first place. She saw someone who had collapsed and decided that nursing her back to health was the thing to do. It's no different from feeding someone who's hungry or beating up someone who is causing trouble. In other words, she just wanted to. That's all. Of course, she ended up trying to steal the youkai's scarf thing afterwards as payment, but she didn't seem too broken up when it was taken back.
I believe this has much to do with the "otherworldly air" that Reimu is stated to have. Indeed, she often exhibits entirely separate values and views from others. In Reimu's mind, "right" and "wrong" clearly don't have much meaning. For the most part, she simply does as she pleases, and it's just that what she pleases happens to be beneficial to her surroundings. Thus, despite her neutrality, she's also a surprisingly altruistic person. The altruism isn't a result of the so-called "goodness" in her heart, but simply depends on what she wants to do. This ties in well with the "purity" aspect of her character; she's not chained by concepts such as "right" or "wrong"; it's just that "right" happens to coincide with most of her actions. She's really just doing whatever the hell she wants, whenever she wants.
Oddly, despite all her... "unique" characteristics, no one ever really notes anything to be "off" about her. Not just the characters, but us as well. Although she is certainly not normal in any stretch of the word, the words "strange" or "creepy" is never one that enters one's mind when they think about her. A child who has absolutely no attachments to anything, whose very being seems to be one borne entirely out of fantasy... Ordinarily, someone like that would automatically go into the "Creepy Child" page in TVTropes, yet this isn't the case here. Perhaps it is because of how "natural" she is. It's not as if she's a bad person, and as long as you don't piss her off, she's quite harmless. And in the series proper, it seems just about every character likes her. It seems that pretty much everyone visits her occasionally, and even though she's always stopping their plans, none of the former villains ever hold a grudge against her. It's not even restricted to named characters either. Hell, when she was about to fall into a river without noticing, fish rose up to form a bridge under her feet, and celestial birds seem to like her well enough too. Wild rabbits approach her without the slightest bit of care, so it seems animals like her a lot. And on our end, it can't be a coincidence that Reimu's popularity started to rise once more and more supplemental material fleshing out her character more and more either, even going so far as to eclipsing former unstoppable juggernauts Marisa and Sakuya. Of course, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like her either.
In conclusion, while I made it all seem very deep and complicated, the way I see it, Reimu is really just a very simple girl. Of course, she has things she likes and dislikes like everyone else, and she'll freely express how she feels no matter what. Her thoughts, actions and way of life are all very simple and easy-to-understand. She's just an easy-going girl living in the present without really thinking much about anything. While she has a lot of mysterious qualities, and it's hard to tell exactly what she's thinking, I believe that is simply how she is. So why did I write all this? First and foremost is because I like Reimu. I wouldn't be able to write this if I didn't, so that much is obvious, and I simply wanted to spread my interest in a character that I like to others who might share my interest. I can't say that I am "correct" in my views of her, and my views might very well change the moment I finish this paragraph, but I don't think I'll ever stop liking her. That's all.
