If fans have followed TheGamer’s Genshin Impact “makes no sense” series, then they’ve probably been anticipating a piece on the game’s most nonsensical character. Anyone who has played the hugely popular RPG for even an hour likely has strong feelings about Mondstadt’s lustful librarian Lisa.
Players may find themselves wincing at her paltry damage and over-the-top voice lines. In contrast, others adore her role as the goddess of anime fan-service delivery. Regardless of the polarized opinions, one can’t deny that there’s a lot about Lisa that simply… makes no sense.
10 Student Becomes Master
So far Genshin is struggling to define the motivations of its protagonists and antagonists as the plot progresses. On the other hand, the game succeeds in outlining how each playable character (and even some future characters) get along with each other.
Much of the group dynamic is uncovered through “friendship” voice lines which unlock as players clear quests with a character. Lisa’s lines reveal that she’s responsible for cultivating Razor’s electro powers and that he’s a very quick learner. The current meta-game suggests that this is an understatement. Razor handily outpaces his sensei in DPS despite her reputation as a strikingly powerful witch.
9 All The “Ara-Ara”
There’s a lot of overlap between Genshin Impact fans and anime fans in general; miHoYo certainly knows their target demographic. For those unfamiliar with the “ara ara” trope, just know that the phrase loosely translates to “my my” or “oh my”. It is the calling card of every seductress-archetype character in every anime. TikToker k.fel demonstrates and lambasts this trope, and many others, wonderfully.
With that weeaboo vernacular added to the lexicon, fans probably already realized that Lisa is the definitive Genshin Impact “ara ara” queen. Players may have even noticed her say the phrase if they play with Japanese dialogue – dialogue which the voice actress herself thought was a little too lewd. How do Lisa’s breathy sweet-nothings help characterize the dedicated bookworm? Easy. They don’t!
8 Never Wakes Up And Never Stops Reading?
If there’s one repeated mistake that Genshin’s writers simply cannot overcome, it’s the reliance on “tell, don’t show.” Creative writing 101 teaches “show, don’t tell” on the first day yet a ton of what’s known about Genshin’s characters, settings, and the plot comes from menu text and cut scene slogs for the purpose of exposition dumping.
Yes, the use of voice lines for characterization was applauded earlier in this piece. But many lines miss their mark. Various characters call Lisa profoundly lazy. But it is also said that Lisa was the greatest student at Sumeru Academia in 200 years. The manga shows her effectively lead a murder investigation and help seal an unfamiliar, ancient curse plaguing a young girl in her spare time. If these are the things Lisa accomplishes after sleeping through most of the day, some coffee should make her the most formidable force in Teyvat. Shouldn’t it?
7 Can Teleport, Chooses Not To
A few of Genshin’s characters feature attack strings with flashy anime warps-behind-people animations, and yes, many of these teleport attacks are just for flare. Kaeya, for example, blinks around in his regular combo even though nothing in his move-set or lore suggests that he should be able to do this.
Lisa’s problem is that it totally does make sense for her to be blinding fast. Keqing, another electro user, has a teleport in her basic combo and in her elemental skill. Lisa’s combo has a teleport as well, but it’s never useful and her skill leaves her immobile. Maybe this is how miHoYo demonstrates Lisa’s laziness? But surely someone so sedentary would prefer teleporting over walking.
6 Moves Like Lightning
Continuing off of the last point, what’s the defining characteristic of lightning and things that move like it? That it moves excruciatingly slow? Of course not. All catalyst users, i.e. mages, in Genshin have relatively low mobility compared to sword or even claymore wielders. Both of those allow players to move in a specified direction while they attack. Klee and Ningguang also rely heavily on animation canceling to speed up their attacks.
Lisa doesn’t just move slowly; however, her basic combo forces her backward, meaning the player actually ends up farther away from whatever they were fighting towards. Lisa’s elemental skill also requires her to stop moving and has some of the lengthiest cast and cooldown timers in the game. Not so lightning-fast…
5 Controls Storms, Deals Measly Damage
A number of characters acknowledge the ferocity of Lisa’s attacks and for good reason. Her elemental skill is arguably the coolest looking spell in the game right now. Razor – who, again, is much stronger than Lisa in combat – freely admits that he’s afraid of the ease with which his mentor can blacken the entire sky.
So why isn’t she near the top of the DPS scale? Sure, in perfect conditions, her DPS is above average, but when accounting for dodging and interruptions, Lisa falls off quickly.
4 Who Needs Venti?
A critical moment in Mondstadt’s history came when Venti (aka Barbatos) overthrew the previous Anemo Archon then tamed the storms and razed the mountains that’d prevented human migration throughout the hills of northern Teyvat. Players begin the game in the middle of a conflict with Venti’s brainwashed pet, Stormterror, whose magic threatens Mondstadt once more.
A glaring plot-hole in this sequence is that, while characters train to confront Stormterror, they’re mentored by other characters who are plenty capable of handling him on their own such as Diluc. Given Lisa’s reputation and the feats she’d already accomplished in the manga, it’d be reasonable to include her in the dragon-slaying entourage. Or at least have her mitigate the problematic storms.
3 The Whowey Decimal System?
The issue here is probably just some mistranslated text that eluded proofreaders. In the recent Unreconciled Stars event, Mona and Fischl ask the player to fetch a journal from the library without Lisa knowing. Rummaging through her notes reveals the book’s location on the shelves…except it isn’t there; it’s on a whole different floor.
The lore explains that Lisa’s many talents include botany, engineering, cooking, and magic. Ironically, she’s the proudest of the job she’s seemingly the least qualified for. RIP the Dewey Decimal system.
2 Rivals Diluc (Apparently)
There’s no shortage of text and subtext hinting at Lisa’s unparalleled strength. She was repeatedly recruited (and declined) to properly captain an outfit of knights. Diluc himself refers to her as the most reliable Knight of Favonius. That’s no small compliment considering his friendship with leader Jean and his contentious relationship with the wider order.
Diluc’s respect for Lisa is displayed in the manga when she gets him to open up about the moment that led to his resignation from the Knights. Knowing this makes the tier list gulf between top-ranking Diluc and bottom-of-the-barrel Lisa that much more bothersome.
1 Opted Not To Be World’s Strongest Mage
In her friendship lines, Lisa reflects on her time at the Sumeru Academia where she saw men driven mad by magic. She also recalls how true polymaths resign themselves to lives of bureaucracy. These sights prompted her to abandon academics despite her frightening intelligence.
What did Lisa do after leaving the school? Naturally, she turned down every opportunity to use her gifts for good and garner glory and instead fell into a life of paper shuffling. Much better than a bureaucrat.
