Marika Tachibana

is one of the main characters of the Nisekoi series. She is the daughter of Gen Tachibana and Chika Tachibana who is introduced as the fiancé of Raku Ichijō.

Appearance
Marika is a fair-skinned girl who is considered to be a beautiful girl in class that people were awed by her beauty and they wonder if she is a model or not ("Ordeal") with hip-length orange hair that is carefully divided into two strands of marigold/marigold cufflinks that she received from Raku Ichijō as a child and orange eyes.

As a child, Marika kept her hair very short, but once she met Raku, she let her hair grow out when he told her he liked girls with long hair. She also changed the way she spoke to get closer to Raku's liking for all the changes she did for him but whenever she becomes flustered or embarrassed, Marika returns to her bad speaking habits and becomes timid and soft-spoken, a far cry from her usual behavior.

She wears a different uniform compared to everyone else's at the school due to her transferring. She also wears a sailor uniform with a long, pleated black skirt that reaches around her knees, matched with a white-grey shirt and a yellow cravat.

In Chapter 299, Marika cuts off the two long hair strands and she is now seen with short hair, but she still has the same flower hair clip.

Personality
Marika is predominantly attracted to Raku Ichijō that she is bold enough to claim herself to be the most suitable girlfriend he can ever have. In fact, among the girls who are attracted to Raku, Marika is the most vocal and upfront as she does not hold second thoughts in her attempts to claim Raku for herself. She does her best to do anything that might appeal to Raku,  noting her sheer dedication for him, even as a child, into  shaping herself to what she conceives an ideal girl for Raku, putting aside the time that would have been spent for her treatment. All this, coupled with the frail physique she inherited and was born with, Marika always tries to keep her composure in front of her friends and only shows her frailty to her aide - Honda - or whenever nobody is around. Yet this would not yield her in doing something as bodacious such as sculpting Raku a huge chocolate statue in his likeness. However, in the face of her mother, Marika is shown to feel desperate and hopeless, obeying her mother's words to the letter even if it meant hurting the ones she holds dear.

Despite this, however, Marika is usually shown in high-spirits, optimistic yet somewhat prideful. She is not afraid of making bold statements to herself and towards others and is rarely shown to lose composure. If so, Marika turns violent, reverts to her vulgar speaking habits and capable enough to throw off Yakuza, Bee Hive and police force members. Back when she was a middle-schooler, Marika is also revealed to be quite manipulative and cunning that she single-handedly was able to beat the ring-leader of the ones who had bullied her and eventually controlling an entire school from the shadows.

Though not apparent, Marika genuinely cares for her friends and is usually delighted by their company. She is also shown to be quite perceptive by the agendas that occur between her friends, such as the fake relationship Raku and Chitoge Kirisaki share, as is her being secretive in this regard as well as other matters. Overall, Marika remained  a loyal and supportive friend,  adamant to her emotions, and a very competitive love rival vying for Raku's affection.

Relationships
"Main Article: Relationships of Marika Tachibana"

Background
Marika was born with an underlying illness that has been passed down from her mother, so Marika spent most of her childhood bedridden and in solitude. At one point, Marika resided alongside her father at Tenku plateau due to the clean environment. There she met the young Raku Ichijō, whom Marika affectionately calls "Rakkun", whereas the latter recognize Marika by the name "Mari". In their leisure, Raku would voluntarily go to where Marika is staying and bring with him objects he gathered from the forest such as twigs and bugs. Raku also gifted Marika her trademark calendula/marigold hairpin.

Marika finds great pleasure in her times with Raku and eventually fell in love with him, asking his father to have them marry in the future. To commemorate this promise, Raku and Marika took a photo together with Raku's father.

Abilities

 * Marika is known to have all qualities that would have made her the 'ideal wife' for anyone. But her ability to carry them out are hampered sometimes due to recurrent attacks of anemia.
 * Singing: Marika is known to be a great singer as she took rigorous classes to train her voice for suit Raku's liking. However, she is a very bad teacher of the same, as she continuously gave up when she was asked to teach Yui Kanakura.
 * Cooking: Marika is shown to be extremely good in cooking, especially if it's for Raku. She had made him a gigantic chocolate statue of himself and even had a cooking contest with Chitoge. Although Chitoge won the last round, Raku thought Marika's cooking was very delicious.

Weaknesses

 * Dislike for Animals: Marika is shown to dislike handling or interacting with animals, as she was traumatised by an ordeal that happened when she was young, where a hamster she owned had babies and ate them

First Year Arc
Marika makes her first appearance in Ordeal when she transfers to Raku Ichijō's school so that she can be with him. She goes on a date with him to make new memories about her in his mind. She presents him to Gen Tachibana (Marika's father), who is shown to be a very nice man despite his intimidating appearance.

Second Year Arc
Marika keeps trying to convince Raku Ichijō that she is the ultimate wife-form.

Due to an unexpected visit of her friend Mikage Shinohara, Marika tells to Raku to pretend being her boyfriend for a day, to fake the fact that she was still trying to get in a relationship with him. After being asked why she were deeply thoughtful all the day, in a Ferris wheel, she asks him about having a kiss saying that's a normal thing for boyfriends, despite his immense shame, he could not stand against, but had not to, because she was trying to see his deep emotions [0].

Third Year Arc
After Raku Ichijō thinks previously about his relationships and his future, he rejects Marika.

After that, she cuts her long hair, her disease gets completely cured and she now looks for a man who is equivalent to her as Raku would be. Toward the end of the series, Marika helps Chitoge Kirisaki confess her feelings to Raku, affirming her friendship with her former rival.

Etymology

 * The name Marika means "ten thousand" (万) (ma), "village" (里) (ri) and "flower, blossom" (花) (ka).
 * Marika's surname Tachibana means "orange, tangerine" (橘).

Trivia

 * Marika speaks with a Hakata dialect when she's flustered, embarrassed or angry. She has tried to stop this type of speaking because it wasn't 'girl-like'.
 * Marika had once claimed to have a distaste towards girls who have long hair in general as this reflects to Raku Ichijō's childhood interest in women despite having long hair herself.
 * Both Marika and Yui Kanakura were forced to get married by their kin and both protested against it (and succeeded) because of Raku Ichijō.
 * Marika has a pet parrot named "Raku-sama" despite her extreme fear of animals which was triggered due to a childhood incident where her pet hamster ate its own babies.
 * Marika has kissed Raku thrice [Twice in airports - After saying goodbye to Mikage Shinohara (on cheek) and before Marika left for USA (on forehead) and once in the end of their first date (on cheek) [3.
 * Marika later admits to Raku that she isn't the "promised girl", but she says she won't give up if he ends his relationship with the girl he chooses.
 * Marika only appears once fully in the first opening of Nisekoi, since the first 13 episodes she just appeared as a silhouette and after the 14th episode the opening changes.
 * Marika doesn't seem to care about her grades unless it has to do something with Raku.
 * In early promotional trailers for the Nisekoi Anime, Marika had brown hair instead of her now, orange hair.
 * Just like Yui Kanakura, Marika always knew about the promise made by Raku ten years ago but just like Yui, she chose to act like she does not remember because both Yui and Marika felt like Raku will not be able to choose anyone other than the promised girl If he remember the events
 * There seems to be an unspoken confusion regarding the flower in Marika's hair pin. In the manga, Raku Ichijō states that the flower is called a "Marigold". However in reality, the flower has two names, it can either be called a "Marigold" or a "Calendula".
 * Marika can break the fourth wall in Nisekoi Chapter 112, as she explained to the "readers" that Migisuke is her "dog".
 * Marika is the only person other than Shuu Maiko who is aware of Raku's feeling towards Chitoge and confronted him about it. Chitoge also suggest that she might know about Raku and Onodera's interest in each other.
 * Despite being the girl Raku showed the least romantic interest to among the main characters, Marika was the key character allowing story advance for Yui and Chitoge (encouraged both to confess) and to Raku himself (one of two people who made him aware of his feeling to Chitoge).
 * Marika has inherited disease that makes her body frail, as are all female ancestors of her lineage. The name of the disease was never mentioned and was toned down as "anemia" by Honda. It was also mentioned to be life-threatening if untreated, but with treatment it is either manageable or curable. The only hospital able to treat the disease is located in Pittsburgh, America, and is owned by Tachibana family.