#touhou pmiss

[touhoukitties]

Hieda no Akyuu

[pixelkip]

You know what. Why do we as a touhou fandom not talk about the fact the pc98 songs are canon. They exist. In canon. Akyuu has them documented and has probably heard them. Someone within touhou's universe wrote them. Reimu could probably actually listen to her own theme. Were the songs actually written about the events of those games?? Was eternal shrine maiden written about reimu?? Was love colored magic written about marisa?? I'm going insane

[sukimas]

The whole dragon god of Gensoukyou plot point being essentially dropped from importance in Touhou is probably because ZUN's pulling less from Kwaidan's Hourai and more from his own ideas when worldbuilding nowadays. On the other hand, he came up with his own, unrelated Important Dragon, so it all evens out, I guess?

[kirbymongerr]

Ever since Clarste stopped answering asks I have become the most knowledgeable touhou poster. All others are clad in the folly of fanworks, I alone maintain a pure mind, free of thinking about Aka Yakumo or that the characters are getting older and Akyuu is about to die. I am unsullied, full of only righteous wisdom- I sound like if Zamasu was a touhou nerd

[redstarpika]

when i say "engaged with" i mean: when you first learned of touhou, what was the thing you decided to engage with first. (example: "I saw a touhou character in the wild, so I decided to read Wild and Horned Hermit to learn about it. Therefore, I engaged with the official manga first!")

[inversionimpulse]

I've mentioned a few times by now that my interpretation of Yukari Yakumo is that she's secretly still a human being, so I guess I could probably stand to actually explain it.

So, this is what the Perfect Memento says about Yukari. The actual canonicity of PMiSS is in flux, I think, it was written in a much earlier era of Touhou when ZUN seems to have had a somewhat different vision of things and not all of it has remained consistent even accounting for that it's deliberately inaccurate, but we'll ignore that for now. Making strong assertions about something as clay-like as canon in Touhou is a losing game, in any case.

Akyuu's claims seem to check out. We can, actually, independently verify that Yukari does not collect fear from Gensokyo - most characters seem to be only vaguely aware of her at best (and the more they know her, generally, the less they respect her) and in Forbidden Scrollery we see that the human villagers are so unaware of her that showing up to a ghost story circle and telling a story about very specific identifying features like her gaps only provokes confusion.

On the other hand we haven't been shown any of her activities in the outside world. We cannot verify that she collects fear there. More importantly, Akyuu can't verify that.

A youkai that never attacks humans is by definition not a youkai. The youkai Yukari does not attack humans in Gensokyo. Therefore Yukari is attacking humans somewhere else.

That's the logic here. Akyuu is faced with two facts that don't fit together, so she invents something that resolves them. But she doesn't know anything. This may not be true, and if it is, it's of no relation to Akyuu's claims.

We could formulate this problem differently, if we were inclined to.

A youkai that never attacks humans is by definition not a youkai. Yukari, who claims to be a youkai, does not attack humans. Therefore Yukari is not a youkai.

That she's human specifically is a particular leap of mine because I like the idea. I like what it says about Yukari as a character and about her particular situation. And we know from Sakuya that humans can be immortal without ceasing to be human. But looked at with as close to dispassion as I can manage, the evidence is probably weighted more in the direction of her being the Hakurei God. Depending on how you interpret certain dialogue in Missing Power, she comes within an inch of outright saying it, even.

There's also that Yukari and Reimu have long been shown to have different expressions of the same essential powers over borders, boundaries, and other distinctions. This would tend to support the idea that Yukari is the Hakurei God, but I like to fit it into the "Yukari is human" hypothesis by just saying that she's the shrine maiden of the Outside World's Hakurei Shrine. After all, we know it exists, and based on what Rinnosuke saw of it - assuming Yukari's telling him the straightforward truth about what he saw - clearly someone's taking care of it.

Regardless, by presenting one interpretation, Perfect Memento also provides the evidence and uncertainties that make up that interpetation. In doing so, it opens up entirely contradictory interpretations. The wonderful thing about the arts is that the same material can be taken so many different directions. We are obliged to admit that [1 + 1 = 2], but nothing compels us to submit to [youkai ^ !fear -> elsewhere] when [youkai ^ !fear] could mean any number of other things.

[occasionaltouhou]

do you have any insight on the lesser known touhous? maybe someone like sekibanki ? I’d love to hear what you think about touhous you normally don’t get the chance to talk about

I ALSO WOULD LOVE TO GET TO TALK ABOUT MORE OBSCURE TOUHOUS. sekibanki is very interesting but in a similar way to the other early stage bosses in ddc. the goal of the antagonists of ddc is to overturn society and so the first three youkai you meet are like. the classics. they're the most youkai-like of youkai. but not only that, they're both western and japanese at the same time; youkai who could easily fit into either setting with a slight tweak of their species name (mermaid/ningyo, rokurokubi/dullahan, werewolf/...werewolf)

on top of that, they're abnormal, gensokyo-specific instances themselves. you begin with a freshwater mermaid, and move onto a village-dwelling youkai, and then a forest dwelling ex-human youkai. in picking fairly generic youkai for his opening cast, zun nonetheless added enough twists on them to make them relatively distinct entities. and then, of course, he added in the casual mention that they actually know each other, and that was enough for people to take that and run with it.

as for banki herself... the idea of a youkai-like youkai, especially one as famous as a rokurokubi (she's hardly in the same level of obscurity as chiyari, after all), who lives in the village is interesting in itself, but as another lens of looking at the dynamic of the village and the youkai. we know that youkai visit it, we know it's known that youkai visit it (thanks to pmiss), but at the same time there's been a gradual shift away from that tidbit of lore in fs and le. sekibanki seems to me as not quite a compromise as a subversion; a youkai who lives in the village, but who nobody knows is a youkai. i wonder what she does? i wonder how she lives? i wonder what her reputation among the villagers is? youkai are usually antisocial beings, so i wonder how well she escapes that? or does she still have the reputation of a strange loner?

actually now i think about i think it'd be neat if banki showed up in lotus eaters at some point. but that'll probably never happen now that the cast's fully established. alas!

[spear-gsun]

Thinking about the art by Monoji Tsukuri in PMiSS Their way of drawing the characters is so nice, sad that it doesnt seem like they ever worked on touhou stuff again

[anomalocaris2hu]

Heaven in Touhou and its Relation to Buddhism

I've been reading a lot about Buddhism lately, and I'm finally coming to an understanding of how that informs the depiction of Heaven in Touhou Project. First, I will summarize some of the official descriptions of Heaven within Touhou, and then cover the elements of Buddhist cosmology that influenced those depictions.

Some notes on terminology. I prefer the Sanskrit forms of words to Pali when possible. Exceptions are when the Pali form is overwhelmingly used. I will give the Chinese/Japanese translations of Buddhist terminology in parentheses. Translations of Japanese text from Touhou is my own original translations rather than taken from the wiki or other fan translations.

Finally, a warning. I am not a Buddhist and am approaching the religion from an academic perspective. Therefore, I will not endorse the religion, nor will I explicitly attempt to refute it. Take everything in this post as a summary of Buddhism based on my own readings, and check out the references as they are written by actual scholars who study Buddhism, or practicing Buddhists.

Heaven in Touhou

Heaven in Touhou is constantly referred to as 天界、the first character meaning "heaven" or "sky," translating the Sanskrit word deva meaning "god," and the second character meaning "world" or "realm," translating the Sanskrit word loka meaning "world" in most situations.

Most of what we know about Heaven comes from the story of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. In general it seems to be based on the Buddhist concept of the devaloka, but is not equivalent to it and not completely accurate to Buddhist cosmology.

In Tenshi's story in SWR, Tenshi states:

天界は成仏した霊が住む処

"Heaven is a place where spirits who have reached nirvana live." As we will see, this detail contradicts with established Buddhist dogma, and is something that serves to distinguish Touhou's Heaven from those of Buddhism.

Heaven being the destination for souls released from saṃsāra has consequences important to the world of Touhou. In a footnote to Yuyuko Saigyouji's article in PMiSS, Akyuu describes the situation in heaven:

＊４　天界は輪廻転生を断ち切っ��者が行くので、現在飽和状態である。

"Since heaven is the place that individuals who have broken free from saṃsāra, it is currently overcrowded." This is backed up by Yukari's route in SWR, where Yukari states the same thing, as well as Youmu's route.

Denizens of Heaven are referred to as celestials（天人）in the fan translations of Touhou, as well as in most translations of Buddhist literature. According to Akyuu in PMiSS,

天人は修行を積んだ仙人が、不老不死を得て生きたまま天界に行った天人と、死後、成仏して天界に行った天人が居る。

"Celestials are either hermits who have achieved immortality and ascended to Heaven, or to those who reached nirvana and went to Heaven after death."

Akyuu also describes the location of Heaven more precisely:

天界は雲の上に存在すると言われるが、本当はそうではない。冥界の中に存在し、冥界の遥か空の上に存在するのである。

"It's said that Heaven exists in the clouds, but in truth this is not the case. It actually exists in the Netherworld, and more precisely is located far above the sky in the Netherworld."

The last important detail about Heaven we are provided is the existence of a location within it known as bhavāgra or 有頂天 (uchouten). In Yukari's story in SWR, this is said to be where Tenshi lives. In fan translations you will often see this spelled Bhava-Agra or Bhavaagra.

Heaven in Buddhism

Buddhist cosmology is complex and differs from sect to sect. I will follow the description of Gethin, which is based on the Nikāyas and the Abhidharma [2]. The Three Realms doctrine is also expounded by Yogācāra [4]. The jargon will be coming fast here, so please turn to the glossary at the end of the post if needed. See [1] for a fuller picture, as I will omit details for the realms and worlds that aren't considered heavens.

Three Realms and Six Paths

The three realms or dhātus are

Ārūpyadhātu or Arūpaloka（無色界）- The "formless" realm, a non-corporeal realm where one who has attained an arūpa āyatana is reborn.

Rūpadhātu or Rūpaloka （色界）- A realm of forms, where beings who have attained dhyāna are reborn.

Kāmadhātu（欲界）- The realm of desire. This includes the Six Paths where beings are reborn based on their karma.

The Six Paths (confusingly also called realms) are

The Path of Deva（天道）- Rebirth as a deva, who lives a life of pleasure but is unable to practice the dharma due to being distracted by their pleasurable life.

The Path of Humans（人間道）- Rebirth as a human being, who experiences both pleasure and suffering.

The Path of Asura（修羅道）- Rebirth as an asura, a demi-god who experiences pleasure but also constantly fight among themselves or against the devas.

The Path of Beasts（畜生道）- Rebirth as a non-human animal, considered to consist of more suffering than life as a human.

The Path of Preta（餓鬼道）- Rebirth as a preta, who live in constant agony experiencing extreme hunger and thirst.

The Path of Hell（地獄道）- Rebirth in a naraka, a hell where one is tortured until one's negative karma is exhausted.

In non-Japanese sources, I think it's common for the Asura realm to be placed above the Human realm. Only the Path of Deva is considered to be a kind of "heaven," but sometimes the Asura and Deva Paths are combined to give a Five Path system.

Whether the three realms are referring to psychological states or actual locations (or in the case of Ārūpyadhātu, non-locations) one can be reborn in is debated in the academic literature I could find [3]. At the very least, the Six Paths are often described as physical locations, e.g. the devas have their own world they live in which is separate from that of humans, but some of the worlds can overlap. Humans and preta experience the same world, but the way they perceive it is vastly different.

The highest abode of the formless realm is bhavāgra, sometimes translated as "the peak of worldly existence" or "the peak of cyclic existence" [5]. It is the highest mental state one can attain; to go any further is to reach nirvana. In Touhou, bhavāgra is the peak of Heaven, and where Tenshi Hinanawi lives.

Overall, Touhou simplifies the cosmology of Buddhism for its depiction of Heaven. The Form and Formless realms are combined with the Deva path, and Heaven is reinterpreted as the rebirth destination for beings who reach nirvana. Unlike in Buddhism, where one can only enter a heaven by being reborn in one, in Touhou one can enter Heaven while alive through ascetic (hermit) practices after gaining immortality. This is a Taoist influence, where the Chinese concept of tian（天）is combined with the kinds of heaven in Buddhism.

The complex psychological description of meditative states, the dhyānas and arūpa-āyatanas, are not mentioned in Touhou (at least not when it comes to Heaven as a location). However, bhavāgra, the highest of the arūpa-āyatana, is present as a physical location within Heaven. The Japanese word for bhavāgra, 有頂天、can also describe a state of ecstasy, so it's likely ZUN would be more familiar with that word than the other arūpa-āyatanas.

I might do more of these posts in the future. I need to look more into Taoism and the Chinese influences that appear in the depiction of Heaven, as I know little of them. I avoided mentioning the Dragon Palace for this reason. I could also write about Hell in Touhou, since its structure is a lot more developed than Heaven.

Glossary

bhavāgra（有頂天）- an alternate name for the "Sphere of neither perception nor non-perception"（非想非非想処）. The highest plane of the Formless Realm（無色界）、a state where beings who reached the fourth formless dhyāna (arūpa-āyatana) are reborn in. In Touhou, a physical location in Heaven.

devaloka（天界）- a world of devas (Gods), i.e. heaven. In Touhou, a physical location above Gensokyo where beings who achieve nirvana are reborn.

dharma（法）- in this essay, primarily refers to the teachings of the Buddha and Buddhist belief more generally.

dhyāna（禅定）- meditation to achieve a mental state of concentration, equanimity, and awareness, or the resulting mental state. Beyond the four rūpa dhyānas are the four arūpa-āyatana. Attainment of these eight levels determines one's rebirth in either the Formless Realm or the Realm of Forms.

karma（業）- an action or its effect. In Indian religions, including Buddhism, karma is a cosmic principle whereby actions and their intents produce positive or negative results in this life or even after rebirth.

naraka（奈落）- a world in Hell, where those who performed bad deeds in a past life are reborn and tortured until they have exhausted their negative karma and can reenter saṃsāra.

nirvana（涅槃）- the cessation of the activity of the grasping mind, which results in liberation from suffering and saṃsāra.

preta（餓鬼）- a being that undergoes suffering greater than that of humans, being always hungry and thirsty. Often translated as "hungry ghost." Rebirth as a preta is a result of committing wicked acts in a previous life that don't merit rebirth in a Hell.

saṃsāra（輪廻転生）- the cycle of death and rebirth, where individuals are reincarnated into one of Three Realms, including the Six Domains of the lowest realm.

References

Gethin, Rupert. The Foundations of Buddhism. OUP Oxford, 1998.

Gethin, Rupert. "Cosmology and Meditation: From the Aggañña-Sutta to the Mahāyāna." History of Religions 36, no. 3 (1997): 183-217.

Burley, Mikel. "Conundrums of Buddhist Cosmology and Psychology." Numen 64, no. 4 (2017): 343-370.

Woo, Jeson. "On the Yogic Path to Enlightenment in later Yogācāra." Journal of Indian Philosophy 42 (2014): 499-509.

Higgins, David. "A Reply to Questions Concerning Mind and Primordial Knowing." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (2011): 31-96.

Touhou Sources

Perfect Memento in Strict Sense - Yuyuko Saigyouji

Perfect Memento in Strict Sense - Celestial.

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (SWR) - Yukari's scenario

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (SWR) - Tenshi's scenario

[que-de-metal]

I know you have big akyuurei feelings but I also want to know like every character you might ship akyuu with too 🔍 (but if you also want to talk about why akyuurei's great I'm always all ears too...)

Trying to switch the AkyuuRei brain off for three seconds to answer this because they really are my favourite Touhou ship of all times so if I started talking about them I'd never get to the other ships 😭

I reread Forbidden Scrollery recently. It cemented the fact for me that while there's so many Akyuu/Kosuzu fanworks that I love, it's really one of these ships for me that's more appealing as one-sided (which is a compliment because unrequited love is my favourite type of romance 😅). Lately a configuration that has been on my mind is the "unrequited switcharoo" kind: Kosuzu having feelings for Akyuu for a very long time but Akyuu relegating it to friendship completely and closing herself off to relationships with normal humans due to her curse's nature > Forbidden Scrollery happens and Akyuu realizes Kosuzu is so much more than a fragile fleeting human and allows herself to see her more romantically > unfortunately Kosuzu has already moved on to other things (youkai).

I like stuff that juxtaposes AkyuuRei with YukaRei and I think it could work as a 3-way ship. There's also something interesting about Akyuu/Yukari in general. The Writer/Editor dynamic is something super intimate but the fact that the Editor is the one in power makes it really unique… It's always been my headcanon that when Yukari makes an edit to the Chronicles, it affects the memories of the next reincarnation, so there's an almost psychological horror feel to romancing someone whose memories you can rewrite at will… I don't really see this ship in a healthy and fluffy configuration but if I'm looking for toxicity that's where I would go.

Like I said before I'm interested in the consequences UDoALG could have on the curse of Are. Since while the hierarchy of Hell didn't care too much about Gensokyo Eiki was the one enforcing it, but now that Zanmu's eyes are on Reimu I feel like Akyuu's next death is being put in a completely different spotlight than the one she's used to. I think you could nicely pepper some Akyuu into ZanHisa in that context.

Kind of an older one because I haven't thought about this for a long time but I used to have some Akyuu/Yuuka feelings. They're related to the way fandom talks about Yuuka: I see a lot of discussion that's like "What are Yuuka's REAL powers? Her power is supposed to be flower manipulation but she's also canonically mega dangerous and mega powerful and violent. Truly there has to be something more" but the source of her being extremely dangerous is PMiSS, which is written by Akyuu, who has asked youkai to self-report their threat level. I've always been a "Yuuka is not actually that powerful, she exaggerates her abilities to be feared and left alone in a self-isolating way" truther, and that implies Akyuu having a front-row seat to that kind of self-destructive behaviour. So I'd love to see her react to it.

These are the big four I have thoughts about (well five since ZanHisa/Akyuu would be 3 people). But this is Touhou so you can always come up with more…

[chireikiden]

What are the things in lore you would say ZUN 100% retconned/later ignored in regards to his own material?

This was a pretty broad question to answer at the drop of a hat, so I let it sit in my inbox for a while and wrote down a couple things that came to mind in the meantime.

As we all know, yadda yadda, Touhou is very good at simply not bringing things up again, and thus you can very rarely argue that some individual thing has been outright retconned based simply on its absence in later works. Add unreliable narrators on top, and that only really leaves the very clear contradictions.

Early Windows stuff: You can surely find more if you crawl more carefully than I felt like doing, but here’s some that I remember. The EoSD prologue tells us that Gensokyo is just a seldom visited region in the mountains with a few random humans living amongst monsters, implicitly no Human Village, and no barrier around it. Reimu is worried that the red mist would basically flow out of Gensokyo and into what we'd now consider "the Outside World", which may or may not be aware of Gensokyo and just ignoring it. It's not hard at all to slot into the current setting by moving around a couple things, but read on its own without anachronistic assumptions it's clearly different. Basically, it's a good example of how the essentials of Gensokyo as a setting really weren't fully formed until at least a couple games later.

As an extension of that, I think a lot of things associated with EoSD - like the preceding Vampire Incident, the spell card rules, or even the SDM being newcomers to Gensokyo - weren’t even a twinkle in ZUN’s eye at the time he made EoSD, and were only retconned into existence starting roughly with PMiSS. (Them being newcomers is arguable based on stuff like Reimu not knowing the mansion was there, but that’s also easily explained by Reimu being Reimu.)

PCB starts fleshing things out a bit more and has fewer outright contradictions, but still for example claims/implies that humans sealed up Gensokyo in order to lock the youkai inside. Not irreconcilable, especially if you assume an unreliable narrator yadda yadda, but I think it’s fair to consider it retconned.

By the time of IN, the main pieces are more or less in place and there’s a lot less stuff that would need to be retconned later on, but you can still find some messiness especially related to the Moon if you want to read it that way.

Reimu’s luck: While it’s come up on rare occasion, typically in the form of her “intuition” but also in LE where she uses it for gambling, I don’t think it’s ever again been anywhere near as extreme as that time in EaLND where she walked over a river by happening to step on random fish. If anything, she usually seems pretty unlucky at everything that isn’t specifically gambling or solving incidents, but that might be its own hair to split.

Just for bonus points: Since it’s been on my mind. The literal meaning of retcon is “retroactive continuity”. I think the manga, games etc. typically work on a Schrödinger’s Timeline that simply doesn’t exist until it is directly referenced somehow, and even then it’s only loosely defined. For example, CDS and Lotus Eaters started around the same time (in real life), which was also when the first Gouyoku Ibun demo came out. Lotus Eaters could be making long time skips for all we know, but the events of CDS have probably spanned only a couple weeks at most.

And now we have Lotus Eaters' latest chapters taking place shortly after the events of Gouyoku. In that case, when Yukari summons Flan into the Underground to act as her ballistic missile in CDS, is she doing it before or after Okina did literally the same thing in Gouyoku? When does CDS take place in relation to Gouyoku, or any given LE chapter? Or does it, and every Touhou story, merely take place “now”, even if it started in 2019 and it’s now 2023?

Since Touhou stories tend to only reference each other when they feel like it and are otherwise perfectly comfortable just not bringing it up in any way, there’s a good chance we’ll never know. Or they could simply say something in the next chapter just because. But usually not.

[jacketkos]

my favorite brand of person is touhou "leftists" who aggressively insist that the series has no social (but especially racial) subtext when PMiSS beats you over the head with "it's a social metaphor, dumbass" by referring to youmu as ハーフ

[sukimas]

now granted, concealed the conclusion (whose conclusion i have just unconcealed and am about to continue unconcealing for you) was a semi-reasonable game to make at its time (2006). there was speculation about gensokyo all being someone's dream in PMiSS (released at the same time), the butterfly dream schtick in CoSD. making the main character reimu as a terminally ill child is very very silly when the point of reimu is that she's not in control of anything, much less the entire world (but works of that time loved to overstate reimu's importance, so you know. some people even thought that gensokyo would be destroyed if she died, in actual canon).

the problem with it (besides some rather dreadful mischaracterizations that didn't even fit with the limited canon of the time) is that it then stuck around in the consciousness of touhou fandom in the west for a decade, far, far longer than it did on side JP. and good god it stuck around too long on side JP too- it is a distinctly pre-MoF game (early windows vagueness is a death knell for fanon) yet people were talking about it seriously in 2015, when i started hanging around on shrinemaiden. and even after that, for a good while! it only really started falling off in 2019-20.

oh and also it had some really bad music remixes.

[kirbymongerr]

I wish other people were as interested in the history of the development of touhou because it's got such great stories within it.

The fact ZUN approached writing Perfect Memento in Strict Sense with his typical "I'll just give it a shot and see what happens, lol" mindset until he met a publisher at a Cafe to discuss the book and they asked "So what do the people in your world eat, where do they get it, how is it made? What do they wear, where do they get the clothes how are those made? Where do they live, who built the homes, what are they made of? If you cannot answer these questions you cannot write this book."

The fact he took that to heart and starting with touhou 10 (the first made after PMiSS) there's clearly more thought put into the where and why of everything, characters having more distinct goals and wants and homes, more distinct mythological and folkloric origins, a place within the world that they fiil their way, an impact on that world that makes them known. They're not a prop in a game, the necessary target for you to shoot at, they're a person in a world who was doing something before this fight and will go do other things after.

[toho-literature]

Perfect Memento in Strict Sense: Pages 48-51 - Yukari Yakumo

Youkai of Boundaries

Yukari Yakumo

Ability: Manipulation of boundaries

Threat level: Unknown

Human friendship level: Normal

Main place of activity: Anywhere and everywhere

When talking about youkai-like youkai, the first name that comes to mind is probably Yukari Yakumo.

To start with, she is a youkai that you do not want to deal with. Even besides the fundamental issue of the danger of her ability, this youkai will appear anywhere unexpectedly, her character is lacking in human sentiment, and her behavioral principles are completely different from those of humans, to name a few of her issues.

Her appearance is not especially different from that of a human.

She prefers extravagant clothes, and is often seen with a large parasol.

Her main time of activity being at night, she sleeps in the daytime.

All in all, she is a traditional youkai (*1).

Though she claims to hibernate through the winter, we have only her word on it and it's unknown where she lives, so this is unconfirmed.

There is an article in the Youkai Encyclopedia from Aichi's (*2) Gensokyo Chronicle from long ago that seems to describe her.

It appears she existed back then as well.

Ability

The ability to manipulate boundaries is a terrifying ability capable of fundamentally undermining reality.

As far as we know, everything is built upon the existence of boundaries.

If there was no water surface, there could be no lake.

If there was no sky line, neither mountain nor sky could exist.

Were it not for the Great Barrier, even Gensokyo itself wouldn't exist.

If there were no boundaries, everything would probably exist as a single enormous object.

Thus, the ability to manipulate boundaries is by logic an ability of creation and destruction.

It essentially creates a new existence, or conversely rejects some existence.

Among the abilities youkai are known to possess, this is one of the most dangerous, being comparable even to the power of gods.

She is also capable of moving to an entirely separate location between gaps in space, whether it be her entire body or only a part of her.

It's said that this ability is not limited to physical space, but also applies to pictures, others' dreams, and even stories.

In addition, she possesses superhuman (*3) intellect, especially concerning mathematics.

Furthermore, due to her long lifespan, she has a wealth of knowledge and experience.

Daily Life

She is actually quite talkative, and is willing to teach you about herself or about Gensokyo.

However, most of her stories are impossible to prove or confirm, so no one can say how many of them are true.

Her house is said to be located at the boundary between Gensokyo and the outside world, just like the Hakurei Shrine, but no one has ever actually seen it.

This is because she moves through gaps in space, so she seems to appear out of nowhere and disappear into nothing.

No one can follow her through the gaps, so it's not known if it's true or not (*4).

In addition, she rarely does things herself, leaving all of her day-to-day work to a beast youkai she controls as a shikigami instead.

This shikigami acts in her place while she is sleeping, particularly during the day or in winter.

Also, as she has lived a long life, she has many youkai friends that are similarly long-lived.

Most of her friends are youkai of the strongest class, like Yuyuko Saigyouji of the Netherworld and the oni Suika Ibuki (both described later).

Connection to Gensokyo

Gensokyo is isolated from the outside by a large magical barrier.

This barrier could be seen as the boundary separating the inside and outside.

However, the outside world and Gensokyo are still physically contiguous, so it could perhaps be said that the boundary that the barrier forms is what logically defines the place that we call Gensokyo.

In other words, one could say that with the mere existence of the youkai of boundaries, it's possible for places like Gensokyo to be created and destroyed.

It could be claimed that the fact that a youkai of boundaries lives somewhere unknown in Gensokyo, a land surrounded by an enormous boundary, implies that she must have some deep, vital connection to its formation.

Strangely, this youkai rarely attacks humans.

A youkai that never attacks humans is by definition not a youkai, so it is assumed that she does somewhere.

As she can freely visit the outside world, it's speculated that she attacks humans in the outside world (*5).

Anecdotes About This Youkai

Genso-Lunar War

This is a story from over 1000 years ago.

It is said that she once invaded the moon by modifying the boundary between truth and falsehood and plunging into the moon's reflection on the lake's surface.

Although she went in with an army of impudent youkai, they were crushed by the Moon's advanced weaponry.

It is believed because of that incident, youkai usually do not choose to attack outside their territory.

The stories of this event are also what made her powers widely known among humans.

Youkai Expansion Project

A story from over 500 years ago.

The project refers to a plan designed and implemented by Yukari in order to restore power to the youkai of Gensokyo, who felt pressured by the increase in the human population.

Until then Gensokyo was merely a spot deep in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, but she planned to create a boundary of illusion and reality around Gensokyo, logically creating a new world.

By establishing Gensokyo as an illusionary world, and the outside as the real world, the youkai weakened by the outside world would naturally flock to Gensokyo; this was a truly epochal event.

With this, it ended up that even youkai from outside of Japan immigrated to Gensokyo.

The effects of the boundary continue even now.

The cleverness of the plan lies in allowing youkai to disappear in the outside world while permitting them to thrive within Gensokyo.

As long as the outside world remains in the hands of the humans, Gensokyo will remain in the hands of the youkai.

The Great Barrier Commotion

This, of course, refers to the existence of the Great Hakurei Barrier (*6).

It is said that this youkai was one of the sages who suggested the creation of the Great Barrier and created what is now Gensokyo.

However, it appears that in the beginning there was some opposition to this plan from a number of youkai, and there was open conflict between them.

As this conflict distracted youkai from their normal attacks against humans, the Great Barrier has received great praise among the humans of Gensokyo.

Eventually, word of the usefulness of the Great Barrier circulated among the youkai, and there are scarcely any that oppose its existence now.

The Phantom Commotion

The Phantom Commotion refers to the weakening of the boundary between the Netherworld and the world of the living, which has made it easy for the respective denizens of each to cross through it.

It is obvious it was the doings of this youkai.

Since this was the act of a wise youkai, it's possible there was some extraordinary benefit to youkai society in doing this. (*7)

As this is an ongoing incident, the matter remains unresolved.

Eyewitness Reports

"She makes my food disappear right out from under my nose, even when I'm careful about it. I wish she'd stop." (Reimu Hakurei)

When you're not looking she can slip her hand through a gap in space and take things from far away.

"She keeps poppin' into my house and I wish she'd cut it out. Can't she at least use the door like a normal person?" (Marisa Kirisame)

Even playing with teleportation has its limits.

Countermeasures

She seldom appears in the human village.

Barring unknown circumstances, she likely doesn't attack normal humans very often.

No matter how confident one is in their abilities, it would be wise not to attempt to exterminate this youkai.

Though, she would likely make allowances for the power of her opponent so as not to allow the battle to become too one-sided.

In any case, there is neither any sort of defense against nor weak point in the ability to manipulate boundaries.

Her intellect far surpasses those of humans, and her physical strength is what you would expect from a youkai.

Humans probably don't even have a one in a million chance of winning against her.

Excepting, of course, the countermeasure of approaching her in a polite manner.

*1: Recently, as the number of nocturnal humans increases, so does the number of diurnal youkai.

*2: The Gensokyo Chronicles written by the first member of the Hieda line, more than 1200 years ago.

*3: She's a youkai, so it's no wonder she is superhuman.

*4: There are rumors her house is located in the outside world.

*5: There are other rumors that she is a youkai from the outside world, and she simply comes to here for play. Indeed, she may spend the winters and the daytime, when she claims to be sleeping, in the outside world, and some even say that the world in Yukari's dreams IS the outside world.

*6: The boundary separating Gensokyo and the outside world. It's a logical boundary, but it is said to have become extremely difficult for humans and youkai alike to pass through it, so it's clearly a strong boundary.

*7: I have been unable to confirm this in my lifetime.

[lyricalive]

Compilation of older RaiLyri art.  🥁🎹