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Minamitsu Murasa
Minamitsu Murasa Minamitu Murasa More Alternative Spellings | |
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Minamitsu Murasa in Undefined Fantastic Object
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Nickname |
Captain Murasa (ムラサ船長) |
Species | |
Abilities |
Power to cause shipwrecks |
Age |
Dead/Immortal (Existed for at least 1000 years) |
Occupation |
Captain |
Location | |
Relationships |
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Music Themes | |
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Appearances | |
Official Games | |
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Print Works | |
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Minamitsu Murasa (村紗 水蜜 Murasa Minamitsu) is the spirit of a young drowning victim who afterwards became a notorious threat due to her power to sink ships. She is currently the captain of the Palanquin Ship, searching for the fragments of the floating vault. She meets the heroine as she is completing the preparations to travel to Makai.
Her unique weapons include the anchors she uses, as well as her ladle, which is apparently bottomless, according to an interview with ZUN and her spell card comments in Double Spoiler.
Concept
She is a Funayuurei, the ghost of a girl who drowned at sea. These types of ghosts are famous in Japanese folklore for capsizing and sinking ships, which inspired her character background and Spell Cards. Her ladle goes with the folklore; the ghost would approach you and demand a ladle, and then you would save yourself by giving them a ladle with a hole in the bottom.
Name
Her given name "Minamitsu" (水蜜) means either "White Peach" or "Water Honey", while her surname/species' name "Murasa" (村紗) means "Gossamer Village".
Appearance
Black hair, teal eyes, wears a white and teal sailor suit with a sailor hat and red neckerchief. Also carries a large anchor, along with a Hishaku (purification ladle). During some of her spellcards she turns all green with an "old film" effect on her, most likely her "ghost form".
Story
- Undefined Fantastic Object
- Main articles: Undefined Fantastic Object Reimu A Arc, Reimu B Arc, Marisa A Arc, Marisa B Arc, Sanae A Arc, and Sanae B Arc
In Undefined Fantastic Object, Captain Murasa meets the heroine as she is making preparations for the ship to go to Hokkai, via Makai, where Hijiri is being sealed. Along with Nazrin, Ichirin, and Shou, she is one of the youkai trying to unseal her. Unlike Ichirin, she learns that the heroine doesn't have any particular motive to help the group, and attacks in order to take the fragments of the treasure back. Though she loses out in the end, she had already placed the ship in auto-pilot, so it was too late for the heroine to escape.
Backstory
After her death, Murasa became a spirit, bound to the ocean due to her lingering attachment to the world. Because of her spite, she eventually became renowned far and wide for capsizing ships. Many feared her, and tried to think of ways to somehow restrict her actions, but it wasn't until the monk Byakuren Hijiri was asked to do something about it that the situation changed. Murasa, knowing how famous the monk was at the time, believed she would be able to extend her influence even farther by sinking her, as well, and perhaps even escape her connection to the ocean and attack humans on land.
However, when Byakuren did appear before her on the seas completely defenseless, Murasa sunk her ship easily, prompting the spirit to wonder why. Byakuren then reappeared on the surface atop a shining ship, which she had constructed using the ship Murasa had died on as a design. Moved by the monk's insight and her own sense of nostalgia, she accepted Byakuren's offer to captain the shining ship.
Eventually, after Byakuren was sealed away, Murasa was "buried" into the ground along with her ship. Having been long forgotten, Murasa and the rest of the youkai were pushed above ground in Gensokyo by a geyser - likely due to the events in Subterranean Animism - along with the palanquin ship and the fragments of the floating vault.
Relationships
Murasa has a very strong relationship with Byakuren, as she is pretty much the youkai captain's savior. After reappearing in Gensokyo, she made a pledge that she would return the favor and rescue Byakuren this time. She is a colleague of both Shou's and Ichirin's, though it's unknown exactly how or when they met.
Additional Information
Trivia
- Her stage theme has a distinctive Windows XP balloon hint "pop" around 2:10, which probably got in the recording, as stated in ZUN's Twitter.
- Like Aya Shameimaru in Mountain of Faith, Minamitsu Murasa doesn't seem to have a gimmick/variation based on the playable character (which is something usual in stage 4 bosses).
- In addition to that, like Aya, she has a survival spell card (and she doesn't have it on Easy mode).
- Strangely, "Murasa" is written in kanji in UFO's manual, but is written with katakana when she appears in the game itself. This is not the case with Double Spoiler, though, where her name is flashed in kanji.
- Apparently, Murasa's design was one of the hardest for ZUN to finalize; he states in an interview that there were more rough drafts of her with different hairstyles and clothes than the rest of the cast of Undefined Fantastic Object.
Fandom
- Due to her outfit, fans have made connections between her and Chiyuri Kitashirakawa.
- Within hours of the game's release, crossover fanart surfaced with her appearing as Popeye.
- According to fans, she has similarities to Kagome from the anime series "Inuyasha".
- There is confusion among the fanbase whether she wears shorts or a skirt, due to the way her art is depicted. However, ZUN stated in an interview [1] that while designing the character, he didn't know which was better for Murasa's sailor outfit, a long skirt or a short skirt, which seems to indicate that he always intended her to have a skirt.
- In some fanfics, she is fond of Japanese curry, because curry is said to have been eaten first and introduced into Japan by members of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Even the present-day Maritime Self-Defense Force has it for lunch every Friday in order to remember the day of the week even if they are at sea. (The Japanese Wikipedia even has a page about it: "海軍カレー".)
- Some western fans call her "CAPTAIN MINAMITSU MOTHERFUCKING MURASA!". This is with an unknown reason except that it's epic.
- She has been shown wielding her anchor as a weapon, and this has been the source of parody images comparing Murasa to May from the Guilty Gear series.
Spell Cards
<toggledisplay showtext="Show spell cards" hidetext="Hide spell cards">
Name | Translated | Comments | Games | Stage | ||
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Total: 16 | ||||||
転覆「道連れアンカー」 | Capsize "Dragging Anchor" | UFO | St. 4: E/N | |||
転覆「沈没アンカー」 | Capsize "Foundering Anchor" | UFO | St. 4: H | |||
転覆「撃沈アンカー」 | Capsize "Sinking Anchor" | UFO | St. 4: L | |||
溺符「ディープヴォーテックス」 | Drowning Sign "Deep Vortex" | UFO | St. 4: E/N | |||
溺符「シンカブルヴォーテックス」 | Drowning Sign "Sinkable Vortex" | UFO | St. 4: H/L | |||
湊符「ファントムシップハーバー」 | Harbor Sign "Phantom Ship Harbor" | UFO | St. 4: E/N | |||
湊符「幽霊船の港」 | Harbor Sign "Phantom Ship's Port" | UFO | St. 4: H | |||
湊符「幽霊船永久停泊」 | Harbor Sign "Phantom Ship's Eternal Anchorage" | UFO GoU |
St. 4: L — | |||
幽霊「シンカーゴースト」 | Phantom "Sinker Ghost" | UFO | St. 4: N | |||
幽霊「忍び寄る柄杓」 | Phantom "Dipper Creeping Close" | UFO | St. 4: H/L | |||
錨符「幽霊船長期停泊」 | Anchor Sign "Phantom Ship's Long-Term Anchorage" | DS | St. 5 | |||
浸水「船底のヴィーナス」 | Flood "Venus of the Bilge" | DS GoU |
St. 5 — | |||
「ディープシンカー」 | "Deep Sinker" | DS | St. 5 | |||
時化「ストーミーセーリング」 | Stormy Weather "Stormy Sailing" | SFW | ||||
沈没「強欲な亡者達の海域」 | Sinking "Ocean Region of the Greedy Dead" | SFW | ||||
「舟符「キャプテンムラサの不幸な出航」 | Boat Sign "Captain Murasa's Misfortunate Embarkation" | SFW |
</toggledisplay>
Official Profiles
Undefined Fantastic Object - Settings and Extra Story.txt
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Official Sources
<toggledisplay showtext="Show sources" hidetext="Hide sources">
- 2009/08/15 Undefined Fantastic Object - Stage 4 dialogue; Reimu A ending; Settings and Extra Story.txt (official profile)
- 2009/08/15 Touhou Hisoutensoku - Marisa's VS. dialogue (not named)
- 2009/12/25 Interview on Undefined Fantastic Object with Kyara☆Mel
- 2010/03/14 Double Spoiler - Stage 5 spellcard comments
- 2010/12/25 Oriental Sacred Place - Chapter 12
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