LogFAQs > #932890636

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Maru

I think despite embodying some tomboy-ish elements and nerd girl elements, Maru is probably more of the "girl next door" than anyone else on the list. She's cute, sweet, not offensive in any particular way, and can easily just be your friend (until you fall in love with her -- and she won't reject you)! She's not quite as friendly immediately as someone like Sam or Emily, but she's not rude or even awkward either. All that being said, being initially nice to someone right away is not the be all or end all for what makes a top tier character. Maru is one of the few universally nice characters to still remain on the list. It's at least worth mentioning.

So let's break down her other core elements one at a time.

Between her style and personality, I don't think many would argue against her being a bit of a tomboy. Most of the female marriage candidates embody some very stereotypically feminine elements to one extent or another. Maru is the only one who feels like 'eh, whatever. I'll just throw on some suspenders.' So if that's the kind of vibe you are into, this is probably the direction you would hone in on.

She definitely has the nerd girl market locked down as well. Maru is shown to be very smart and capable, although she does give in to the trope of having her inventions comically backfire a few times which does feel like a bit of a shame. It's actually hard for me to say whether I'd prefer a version who makes working inventions more consistently, or the comical version that we got. Despite all this she's not really unattactive or anything like that either. She's definitely attractive in her own way. We don't need to wait for that lame scene where she takes off her glasses and magically becomes hot.

I would say the main competition in this regard would be Abigail who is less of a traditional nerd and more of a modern day gamer girl. Abigail isn't really particularly smart and she's not even super into her hobbies, but I could definitely see people going for Abigail over Maru for the same reasons. As for me, I... Almost married Maru, one time. Basically I created a file where I was intending to marry Maru, since she was one of the ones I hadn't married yet. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the end of the first year, I kinda changed my mind and ended up going another route. More on this later, since it would spoil the rest of the list to give more details than that.

Some of her loved gifts are fairly valuable, but not prohibitively so, and they are easier to obtain than some of the ridiculous crap that other characters demand from you. By the start of the second year you should be able to generate a never-ending stockpile of Strawberry to gift her with. But it is more difficult to give up a precious Strawberry or Cauliflower, or even a Gold Bar, during the first year when these resources are more in demand and needed to expand your farm quickly to get ready for year 2. All that being said, getting married before the end of year 1 is quite difficult anyway -- especially with the restriction of no rain in winter -- so it's not that bad if you have to wait until year 2 to start gifting her items regularly.

I think the biggest weakness for Maru, in my eyes, is that she doesn't have as deep or as interesting as a character arc as some of the others. Although this is certainly true for some of the people above her, so this isn't the only quality that I'm thinking about when I rank her. Can't believe I have to specify at this point that I'm not ranking people based on one thing I mention in my write up, but here we are. This is where we've arrived. Anyway, putting her right next to Shane really made me think about this and how it affects my view of her. She definitely lacks any of the scenes or development that Shane exhibits.

At the same time, this wasn't enough for me to put Shane ahead of her. I did already mention at this point that someone's potential as a marriage candidate affects my ranking at this point, and I'd definitely marry Maru before I would ever marry Shane. Does that make her a "better" character? Arguable. Does it place her higher on my personal rankings? Apparently so.

Some of her heart events are a little strange and... almost aromantic, I'd say. Like her 8 heart event, before you start dating, is just a short scene where she electrocutes you and then is like 'oh, I made things awkward.' And then you just leave. Compare this to Abigail's 8 heart event where she invites you to her house to confess to you. Sure, Abigail gets embarrassed as well, but the tone and the scene are very different.



Even after you start "dating," you really only get a cutscene about this robot that she has built, and another awkward scene about Demetrius approving of your relationship. I dunno, compare this to characters like Penny and Emily where you almost explicitly are having sex with them by this point, it definitely makes the dynamic of this relationship feel different. Though, that's not a universal weakness in every person's eyes. If you want someone who is more reserved, and who wouldn't have sex with you until after marriage, Maru is a good choice for those qualities. If you need her dad to approve of you, Demetrius is one of the few cases where this explicitly happens.

Also, I can't find the exact dialogue you get when you gift the bouqet to Maru, but I know she does have some more affectionate regular dialogue that can trigger when you are dating, and does express excitement about wanting to get married after she gets the mermaid pendant. So it's not like she's cold toward you or anything like that. Thankfully there is no spouse who acts as terrible to you as someone like Pierre, for example. After marriage she is actually -very- affectionate, and even her neutral/pissed off dialogue is not that bad (unlike Sebastian for example who can get really pissy and jealous).

Anyway, I could spend all day comparing Maru to the other marriage candidates, but at the end of the day she is her own person. Looking at the rest of the field I do think she measures up very favorably against a lot of them, and I definitely wouldn't rank her any lower than top 10. She may not be the MOST deeply explored character in terms of development or story arc, but she's got a lot more going for her than the random villagers with only seasonal lines and maybe one or two scenes. And the fact that you can marry her as an option, she has lots of good qualities, and no truly major negative qualities, certainly makes her appealing in that regard.