List of Touhou Project characters

is the main protagonist of the series, appearing in some role in every ''Touhou'' game to date, and is almost always available as a playable character. She is seen on the cover art of all of the PC-98 games, and is on the title screen for most of the Windows games. From Rinnosuke Morichika's viewpoint, she has good relations with Marisa Kirisame and visits her often. However, she has never fought alongside Marisa, and in ''Imperishable Night'', Reimu fights Marisa for getting in her way. When Reimu confronted Watatsuki no Yorihime in ''Silent Sinner in Blue'', she did not cooperate with her allies.

Despite the fact she has never done any training of any sort, she is fairly strong. Because of this, she does not believe at all that hard work pays off, and hates putting in large amounts of effort. Since her freedom is to the level of the impossible, she has a negative disposition. As she has a simple and straightforward personality, her human emotions are wild, and she often has hasty conversations. She has a strange atmosphere that attracts others regardless of whether they are human or yōkai. Since her job is yōkai extermination, she takes a stern pose against yōkai, but she herself does not have a particular interest in humans or yōkai, and depending on the circumstances, is willing to help, or attack either. In ''Silent Sinner in Blue'', she looked after the fainted yōkai rabbit, and in ''Curiosities of Lotus Asia,'' made a surprise attack on a harmless yōkai who was reading her book, and stole it. Since she likes yōkai extermination itself, when incidents do not occur for a long time, she grows irritated due to boredom. This is a personality that strong yōkai especially like, but since she exterminates yōkai, sometimes without prior conversation or warning, she is feared by the weaker yōkai. It is a carefree personality, but on the opposite side of her impartial nature, she does not see anyone as a companion, and even when she acts together with other humans or yōkai, she is always alone. As she is ruthless in her job, especially in the middle of yōkai extermination, she exterminates the yōkai and fairies she comes across without mercy. She is also similar to Alice Margatroid as she chooses not to show her true power due to the fact there would be nothing being left afterwards if she lost a battle with her full power. She is fairly tall.

Reimu serves the role of the miko of the Hakurei Shrine, located at the boundary between Gensokyo and the Outside World, called the "Miko of Hakurei." The job of the miko of the Hakurei Shrine is to exterminate yōkai and resolve incidents, and Reimu herself possesses considerable power, but since she habitually lives a life of drinking tea and taking naps, she does not have enough training. Gensokyo is sustained by the maintenance of the indispensable relationship of yōkai attacking humans and humans exterminating yōkai, of which the Miko of Hakurei plays a part. Since the Miko of Hakurei is also in an indispensable position of maintaining Gensokyo, it has become forbidden for the Miko of Hakurei to exterminate yōkai and for yōkai to attack the miko, as well as humans coming to the Hakurei Shrine grounds to meddle. However, since the relation of yōkai attacking humans has thus been lost, yōkai have been in decline, so Reimu approved of a request she received from yōkai to establish battle rules for bouts with yōkai to kill time, thus preserving the relation between yōkai and humans in a mock style, allowing strong and weak ones to have fights on equal ground, called the "spell card rules" in the "Spell Naming Law." The customs related to the job have been preserved from time immemorial without fail, and as she follows the custom, she takes an attitude of not worrying about the results.

Reimu's appearance varies slightly between the games. However, she always can be seen with black or brown hair with a red bow (the length of her hair changes between games), the Purification Rod, a gohei created by Rinnosuke Morichika, and a red and white hakama with a long skirt. The hakama is unconventional in its appearance due to the fact that the sleeves are detached, exposing her armpits, which has become the subject of an Internet meme. In 2006, dōjin music group IOSYS, who make ''Touhou''-themed music parodies, released the song ''Tsukiyo wo Kakusanai Teido no Nouryoku?'', which made frequent usage of the line "Waki miko Reimu" (armpit miko Reimu), leading to an unofficial nickname.

Her main abilities are flight, good intuition, and getting along with everyone; even those who were once her enemies. In the games, she is characterized by her homing amulets and yin-yang orbs. In addition to being in all of the Touhou games (apart from ''Shoot the Bullet'' and ''Fairy Wars''), she also appears in ''Graffiti Kingdom'' as "Flying Maiden", a game which ZUN helped to develop. Provided by Wikipedia