Characters / Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom

aka: Touhou Perfect Cherry Blossom

Touhou Project characters index
Main characters: Main Characters
PC-98 Era: PC-98 Games (Highly Responsive to Prayers, Story of Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, Lotus Land Story, Mystic Square)
Windows Era — Main Games: Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil | Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom | Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night | Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View | Touhou Fuujinroku ~ Mountain of Faith | Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism | Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object | Touhou Shinreibyou ~ Ten Desires | Touhou Kishinjou ~ Double Dealing Character | Touhou Kanjuden ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom | Touhou Tenkuushou ~ Hidden Star in Four Seasons | Touhou Kikeijuu ~ Wily Beast and Weakest Creature | Touhou Kouryuudou ~ Unconnected Marketeers | Touhou Juuouen ~ Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost
Windows Era — Other: Side Games | Other Official Works

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This page is for Touhou characters who debuted in Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom.

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Letty Whiterock

Youkai of Winter

Letty Whiterock

"If you can only sleep in warm weather, then you're like us and the Asebi flowers."

A Yuki-onna and stage 1 boss. She is only ever seen during the winter, and goes into hibernation as spring arrives. While she attacks the heroines for attempting to end the long winter, she's only half-serious as she has already accepted that spring must eventually come.

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• Badass Cape: She wears a almost transparent cape and happens to be a decently powerful youkai.
• Elemental Baggage: Averted. Unlike Cirno she can't create cold by herself, only manipulate what's already there. As a result she's near-powerless outside of winter (and yet immensely powerful in it, far more than the aforementioned Cirno).
• Flat Character: Her character mostly amounts to being a Yuki-onna.
• An Ice Person: She is a Yuki-onna, a youkai of winter. Specifically she controls cold rather than creating it.
• Leitmotif: "Crystallized Silver."
• Shout-Out: Her name is a reference to Lettie Blacklock in Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced.
• Signature Headgear: A mob cap combined with a so-called hitaikakushi.
• Warm-Up Boss: Ironic since she's An Ice Person. Nevertheless, Letty is the first boss in Perfect Cherry Blossom and the most simplistic one. Granted, it's justified as she's Willfully Weak and let the Player Character win.
• Willfully Weak:
  • Her ability to manipulate and amplify cold weather makes her extremely powerful in winter, to the point where ZUN has said that she could cause an incident by herself (that would presumably elevate her power level to that of a stage 5 or 6 boss). Despite this, she's a Warm-Up Boss.
  • Her profile states she let the heroines win because even she thought winter's gone on long enough.
• Yuki Onna: The kind of youkai she is, though she doesn't have the typical appearance of one, wearing a blue and white dress and having short, curly lavender hair rather than the more traditional kimono and long black hair. However, she's still strongly connected to winter and cold weather.

Chen

The Black Cat of Evil Omens

Chen

"Uh... what? This is our home. Get out of here now!"

A nekomata youkai and shikigami to Ran Yakumo. As her own master is also a shikigami, this means that she too is a servant to Yukari Yakumo.

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• Anime Chinese Girl: While not explicitly stated, both her name and the title of her theme music are in Chinese, which implies that she may be Chinese herself. Her Chinese-inspired outfit also implies this to be the case.
• Assist Character: Often shows up as one for Ran and Yukari in their spellcards. In Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost the presence of Chen serves as the only difference between Ran's nonspell danmaku and Spell Cards.
• Badass Adorable: Very small and cute, and a dangerous youkai when in shikigami mode.
• Bakeneko and Nekomata: She's a nekomata, a cat youkai with two tails. This being Touhou, she's depicted as a two-tailed Cat Girl.
• Cat Girl: She has cat ears and, being a nekomata, two cat tails.
• Cats Hate Water: Not only does she hate water as a cat, it also weakens her shikigami link with Ran, and forces her to revert to an ordinary nekomata.
• Characterization Marches On: Chen acted fairly mature and composed in Perfect Cherry Blossom, and her profile suggested she was actually fairly distant from Yukari, not even living with her and only answering to Ran. Later works would go with her fanon characterization of being an upbeat Cheerful Child in demeanour, and portray her and Ran as essentially The Dividual.
• Colourful Theme Naming: Her name actually means "Orange" in Chinese. The Yakumos are all named after colors, so that their relative power levels correspond to the placement of the colors on the electromagnetic spectrum. So Chen, whose name means "orange" is weakest, "indigo" Ran comes next and Yukari whose name means "violet" is strongest.
• Everyone Calls Her "Barkeep": "Chen" is the name of the shikigami possessing the cat, making it more of a title than a proper name. However, if she had a name before that she doesn't use it.
• Familiar: She's Ran Yakumo's shikigami. This is quite unusual because Ran herself is a shikigami of Yukari Yakumo, which just goes to show how powerful Ran is despite that.
• Flunky Boss: She attempts to be this, assembling a large number of cats together so they can pledge allegiance to her. It fails miserably.
• Good with Numbers: As with Ran, she's also been described as a "supercomputer" by Yukari, and in Foul Detective Satori, is tasked by her (alongside Ran) to run data analytics on the spirits in the Netherworld to narrow down the culprit.
• Leitmotif: "Diao Ye Zong (Withered Leaf)."
• Logical Weakness: Like most cats she dislikes getting wet, and she's also about as susceptible to the effects of catnip as any normal cat.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: Being a nekomata, she has two tails; more accurately, her tail splits in two around 10% away from her body (though most fan artists just use two tails).
• Nested Ownership: The shikigami (To Ran) of a shikigami (To Yukari).
• Powers via Possession: She becomes a lot more powerful when Ran is possessing her as a shikigami.
• Recurring Boss: Shows up as both the Stage 2 boss and Extra midboss of Perfect Cherry Blossom.
• Signature Headgear: A simple, green mob cap.
• Spectacular Spinning: A lot of her danmaku do spinning motions as does Chen herself.
• Willing Channeler: Technically the shikigami named "Chen" is a script created by Ran that the bakeneko is playing host to in exchange for power. However, she doesn't stay in shikigami mode 24/7 like Ran does, nor does her possessed state seem to affect her personality.

Alice Margatroid

See our Touhou PC-98 page.

Lily White

In-Game

In Wild and Horned Hermit

Fairy Herald of Spring

Lily White

Stage 4 Mid-Boss, a fairy who heralds the coming of spring. For some reason, the only way she knows how to do so is with a shower of danmaku. Despite a few appearances and descriptions throughout canon, she generally shows up as a one-note character with no dialogue, though her enthusiasm is hard to miss.

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• The Bus Came Back: Comes back in Hidden Star in Four Seasons as the Stage 3 midboss.
• Cosplay: Fairies are mentioned to be fans of cosplay; and Lilly White is no exception; with "Lilly Black" in Touhou 9 being Lilly White cosplaying. This returns in Unconnected Marketeers as a rare spawn from her card that drops a Life Piece instead of a Bomb.
• Genki Girl: And how! Her sheer enthusiasm fuels magic barrages strong enough for the late stage she is in without even declaring a spell card.
• Implacable Woman: In Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Sure you can shoot her down, but wait a minute or so and she comes right back.
  • In Unconnected Marketeers her card lets you summon her as an enemy, shooting her down rewarding a bomb or life piece. Every time you re-summon her, she fires more danmaku.
• Mid-Boss:
  • This is basically her schtick, from Perfect Cherry Blossom to Hidden Star in Four Seasons. She even manages to be a midboss in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, which doesn't have stages.
  • Her Ability Card in both Unconnected Marketeers and 100th Black Market lets you summon her as a miniboss. Defeating her gives you ample resources as rewards.
• Nature Spirit: As with all fairies.
• Nice Girl: According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Lily White is one of the friendliest and least threatening characters towards humans of Gensokyo. Even otherwise cautious Akyuu states that catching sight of her is a good omen, encouraging readers to try and tame her.
• Non-Player Character: Lilly has the most appearances in official games while not being a playable character; having appeared in Perfect Cherry Blossom, Phantasmagoria of Flower View, Great Fairy Wars, Hopeless Masqurade [as a background character], Hidden Star in Four Seasons and Unconnected Marketeers. Despite appearing in 6 official games, Lilly White is notably one of the few named characters without her own theme.
• Resurrective Immortality: As with all fairies she revives upon being killed.
• Signature Headgear: A white pointed hat, often depicted with a red zig-zag pattern around the brim.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Hidden Star in Four Seasons she finally has her own spell card.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Apparently Lily has such a deep connection to spring that her presence actually brings it - plants even burst into flower during the seconds it takes her to pass by. Still doesn't help her much when she's shooting at people from sheer excitement, since they all shoot back.

Layla Prismriver

Layla Prismriver

Layla Prismriver is one of the daughters of Count Prismriver who could not bring herself to leave their home after he tragically died in an accident, and his orphaned daughters each went their separate ways. Instead, she invoked powerful sorceries in order to create three poltergeists with the appearance and personalities of her three older sisters. Layla and her sisters have long since passed away before the events of Perfect Cherry Blossom.

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• Creating Life: Or unlife as the case may be.
• Death by Origin Story: She died long ago and only her fake sisters remain.
• Upgrade Artifact: Gained her powers from "an item from Gensokyo" that her father attained somehow. Said item was also responsible for her father's accident.

The Prismriver Sisters

Three Poltergeist Sisters

The Prismriver Sisters

The Prismriver sisters are a trio of poltergeist sisters who serve as the stage 4 bosses. The sisters are talented musicians whose performances are popular among youkai. According to their backstory, the three poltergeist Prismriver sisters are the creations of Layla Prismriver, who based them on her three older sisters. While the original four Prismriver sisters have long since passed away, the three poltergeists have remained in their ancestral home to this day, continuing to hone their musical skills.

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• Author Appeal: The violin, trumpet, and synthesizer are all common instruments in both PC-98 and Windows MIDI music.
• Brown Note:
  • Lunasa can induce depression in anyone that hears her playing her violin.
  • Merlin's trumpet playing has the polar opposite affect of Lunasa's violin. It can cause people to break out uncontrollably into dance or become unable to hold a coherent conversation.
• The Cameo: Appear alongside Raiko Horikawa in Antinomy of Common Flowers' concert stage. Justified since they're the one playing the theme of the final battle.
• Creative Differences: In-universe, Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia reveals that they broke up because of this (though, it's implied that this fact was all superficial, and there was a more serious reasoning behind it). This turned out to only be temporary, as they later got back together, and hired Raiko as their new member.
• Curtains Match the Window: Blonde hair, golden eyes for Lunasa, blue-ish hair and blue eyes for Merlin, brown hair and eyes for Lyrica.
• Elegant Classical Musician: An entire trio of classical instrument players.
• Leitmotif: "Phantom Band ~ Phantom Ensemble". According to ZUN, unlike everyone else in the series, the Prismriver Sisters actually play the song during their battle rather than it just being normal background music.
• Musical Assassin: Violin, trumpet, and synthesizer, respectively. Their attacks use a unique kind of danmaku that looks like musical notes.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: They're poltergeists, which in this series are magical constructs that were never alive to begin with.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: They appear together, play music together and at least for some spell cards also fight together.
• Replacement Goldfish: What they were originally intended to be, as Layla Prismriver created them to replace her three older sisters.
• Sequential Boss: The fight against them in Perfect Cherry Blossom starts with just one sister, then all three at once, then another solo sister, and finally all three together for the finale.
• Sibling Team: They work together and, as their title suggests, they're sisters.
• Signature Headgear: They wear pointed hats with different decorations at the peak; Lunasa has a red crescent moon, Merlin has a blue sun, and Lyrica has a green shooting star.

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The Poltergeist Violinist

Lunasa Prismriver

"Unwanted noise like you should be drowned out."

The eldest of the Prismriver trio, who specializes in stringed instruments. Lunasa is an honest, hard-working, honor student type who is nevertheless pessimistic in general.

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• Aloof Big Sister: A girl of few words and fewer actions but of course she cares deeply for her younger sisters.
• The Stoic: Usually silent and unfazed by things happening around her.

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The Poltergeist Trumpeter

Merlin Prismriver

"No dish has ever escaped my performance alive."

The middle sister of the Prismriver trio, who specializes in wind instruments. Merlin is energetic and easily excitable. She possesses greater raw power than her sisters, but lacks precision and control.

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• Energy Weapon: All of her attacks involve lasers.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Sometimes Merlin will fail to transition into the trio's last card properly, leading to much pain as she can actually kill you during the post-battle dialogue or even after the stage has ended. This lead to the creation of the "Merupo" meme, an insane Pokémon Speak version of Merlin with her head replaced by the characters ξ・∀・）
• Genki Girl: The most cheerful of the sisters.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Most official sources give her name as Marlin.
• Joke Character: In Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Merlin has awkward shot angles, slow movements, and an equally awkward scope that makes her a hassle to use.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Merlin has the most raw power out of all three sisters, but lacks precision and control.

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The Poltergeist Keyboardist

Lyrica Prismriver

"Well then, let's start the performance! Sisters, get ready!"

The youngest of the Prismriver trio, who specializes in percussion and keyboard instruments. Lyrica is very intelligent, but dislikes exerting effort, so she usually tries to trick her sisters into fighting for her.

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• Anachronism Stew: Unlike her sisters' instruments of choice, the synthesizer clashes with the general setting, not to mention the whole classical musician image. Though it's possible that, like many things, the keyboard simply ended up in Gensokyo as it's described as definitely not magical unlike the violin and trumpet her sisters use.
• Author Appeal: ZUN does love his synthesizer music, and Akyuu wouldn't mind a good listen.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: She's very intelligent, but she doesn't like to put much effort into anything and often tries to trick her sisters into fighting in her stead.
• The Collector of the Strange: In this case, sounds.
• Day in the Limelight: Her appearance in Phantasmagoria of Flower View. While her sisters are playable, only Lyrica gets a proper story mode.
• Deadpan Snarker: Her comments can have quite the bite and she's a bit of a trickster too.
• Dirty Coward: She tends to hang back and let her sisters do all the work while she stands in the corner and snarks.
• Failed a Spot Check: Most of her PoFV story has her traveling around Gensokyo without realizing that her sisters have been with her the whole time, until she meets Eiki and they reveal themselves.
• Offhand Backhand: She can shoot backwards in Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

Youmu Konpaku

The Half-Ghost Gardener

Youmu Konpaku

"The things that cannot be cut by my Roukan-Blade, forged by youkai...are close to none!"

Swordswoman and gardener of Hakugyokurou, the Netherworld court. She's half-human and half-phantom, half-dead and half-alive, half-illusion and half-reality, and altogether half-baked. She is Yuyuko's faithful servant, but her seriousness and naivete contrasts with her mistress's whimsical and carefree nature. She is the one who has been stealing the essence of spring from Gensokyo in Perfect Cherry Blossom, under orders from Yuyuko. Has since then gone on to be a recurring playable heroine for the series.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Her sword Roukanken is stated to be able to cut almost anything.
  The things that cannot be cut by my Roukanken, forged by youkai, are next to none!
• Ancestral Weapon: The Hakurouken, a family heirloom wakizashi that can cut confusion and is only usable by the Konpaku family.
• Badass Normal: While she's hardly normal, in the sense of being half-ghost, she lacks any of the specific magical powers assigned to most of the cast, making up for it in pure swordsmanship.
• Battle Butler: To Yuyuko Saigyouji, the ghost princess.
• BFS: The katana Roukanken is about as long as she is tall, although she's pretty short. She also wields it in one hand while holding the wakizashi Hakurouken with the other. Truth in Television with that.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: She's allegedly Yuyuko's bodyguard, as if Yuyuko would need help defending herself.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Played for Laughs in chapter 2 of Visionary Fairies In Shrine - Youmu is exposed to Clownpiece's Hate Plague powers at a flower-viewing and tries to attack the other guests with her sword, but they just assume she's had too much to drink and ignore her until she gets tired.
• Bullet Time:
  • Either to demonstrate her Super-Speed, or to show Hakurouken's confusion cutting powers as the protagonist experiences a zen moment.
  • A weird bug of all things supports the latter; Marisa using a Master Spark at the right moment will turn the thing from translucent to completely opaque white - she literally brightened up.
• The Bus Came Back: After not appearing in a playable capacity since Ten Desires, she's playable in Wily Beast and Weakest Creature.
• Butt-Monkey: Her profiles call her "half-baked" in many ways, and also mention that due to her straightforward, simple, and somewhat immature personality, she often gets made fun of or bullied. She gets teased by Yuyuko almost any time the two interact in canon, as well as by a few others like Yukari in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. In Wily Beast and Weakest Creature, several bosses are employees of Hell who know her as "That carefree gardener of the Netherworld" (where the context of "carefree" in the conversations is "absent-minded").
• Charged Attack: In Ten Desires Youmu doesn't have a focused shot; holding the fire button while focused instead charges up a Blade Spam that continuously inflicts heavy damage to nearby enemies for a few seconds.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Yuyuko. Though since Yuyuko is mostly faking it, and Youmu has a rather one-track mind, it's sometimes inverted.
• Close-Range Combatant: Not only in the fighting games; she even manages to be one in Ten Desires.
• Counter-Attack: Voidness Sword "Slash Clearing the Six Senses" in Hisoutensoku, notable for being the only move which can counter Reimu's Fantasy Nature. In Ten Desires and Wily Beast and Weakest Creature (where a Counter-Attack wouldn't make sense) it becomes a Charged Attack, but maintains the spirit of the trope in that it requires a good opening to use.
• Difficult, but Awesome: When she's playable in the shooting games. She does bring a sword to a danmaku fight, after all.
  • In Imperishable Night she's part of the Ghost Team, which reverses the usual unfocused spread/focused concentration, but is stronger than average. Youmu herself has an option that fires opposite of how she moves, which can be very irritating or very useful depending on how used you are to it. Mastery of her quirks allows her to cheese through waves of mooks before they get the chance to shoot.
  • In Phantasmagoria of Flower View her speed is at the far extremes of fast and slow, has a weak offense, but has a charged attack that can cancel bullets. When a match starts to heat up and flood with bullets, being able to create openings without bombing (or using her spell cards at all) can make or break a victory, and she can snap between big movements and pinpoint slow movements at the drop of a hat.
  • In Ten Desires she again reverses the spread/concentration fire, but this time with Gradius-style options unfocused, and a piercing Charged Attack that hits a large area focused. Her Ten Desires incarnation is probably the best example, as she can be quite a bit more effective than anyone else, but is hard enough to play that most players can clear the game with everyone else in the time it takes to get the hang of her.
• Disappeared Dad: While her specific relationship with Youki is unclear, he's usually assumed to be a father figure of some sort. And he disappeared, leaving his job to her.
• The Ditz: While she's not stupid per se, she seems to have come to the conclusion that thinking too hard about anything is a waste of time. Which may be true, given that she has to deal with Yuyuko every day, and Yukari ever so often. Though that's not to say she doesn't have her moments where she doesn't seem to be thinking at all, though:
  Youmu: Oh no, Lady Yuyuko! It's completely dark when I close my eyes!
• Doppelgänger Attack: Her phantom half can also turn into a body double. Or even a triple.
• Doppelgänger Spin: As part of her Voidness Sword "Slash Clearing the Six Senses" Counter-Attack in Hisoutensoku.
• Dual Wielding: Uses two named swords: a wakizashi named Hakurouken (which is also an Ancestral Weapon) and a katana named Roukanken.
• Flash Step: One of her spell cards is called "Two Hundred Yojana in One Slash." A Yojana is about 6 to 15 km, so the spell card implies that Youmu can travel 1200 to 3000 km in the 2 frames (out of 60 f/sec) or so it takes to make a single slash. That's pretty damn fast.
• Ghostly Chill: Played with; since she has a human half and a phantom half, her body temperature is in-between the two (i.e. cool by human standards but warm by ghostly standards).
• Half-Human Hybrid:
  • She is half-human, half-phantom, "phantoms" being the shapeless ghost-lights of the Netherworld, which include but are not limited to the spirits of the dead. Oddly this results in her having two bodies: a mostly-alive human body and a mostly-dead (but corporeal) phantom body. It's not clear whether the Konpaku clan are classified as half-phantoms because their ancestors got stuck between life and death, or because they bred with phantoms (...somehow).
  • This has a gameplay effect in Imperishable Night, where the player normally controls a human-youkai team. Part of the mechanics is a meter that slides between Human and Youkai depending on which partner you use; Youmu and Yuyuko are the only team with a meter imbalanced to one side. Once solo versions of the characters are unlocked, Youmu is the only one whose meter isn't imbalanced.
• Heroic Lineage: She's member of a family of half-ghosts, her (grand)father is a Master Swordsman as well as her mentor from whom she inherited an Ancestral Weapon, she shows Undying Loyalty to her employer Yuyuko and she's a Kid Samurai throughout. Definite hero material here, yet she only appears as a heroine in a few games.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Her idea of stealth includes standing out in the open with no disguise.
• Hitodama Light: Her phantom half is always present and independently visible around her. There's an Asian belief that human souls actually have two parts (Kon and Paku, hence her name). There's the immortal "higher" soul (Kon) that either becomes a ghost, like Yuyuko, or enters the cycle of reincarnation, and the transient "lower" soul (Paku) that animates the body and houses the earthly passions and which could, after death, become an unintelligent evil spirit, such as those seen in Subterranean Animism. Youmu's phantom-half is apparently her higher soul, while her lower soul remains in her human body, giving it life.
• Iconic Sequel Character: One of the major recurring heroines of the series, introduced in the second game of the modern canon.
• Ironic Fear: She's afraid of ghost stories, despite being a half-ghost with a sword that can kill ghosts in the employment of a ghost.
• I Take Offense to That Last One:
  Reimu: You're a talkative ghost.
  Youmu: I'm half non-ghost, you know!
  Reimu: That was what needed correcting?
• Katanas Are Just Better: She certainly has a thing for her two swords (though Hakurouken is a wakizashi), one of which can cut anything while the other can cut nothing except confusion. While the latter still hurts, to most beings it will cause instant-enlightenment.
• Kid Samurai: Youmu acts a lot like this - she is young for her race (half-ghosts), inexperienced and naive, but also very strong and absolutely loyal towards her employer Yuyuko Saigyouji.
• Leitmotif: "Eastern Ghostly Dream ~ Ancient Temple" and "Hiroari Shoots a Strange Bird ~ Till When?"
• Lunacy: Her "Matsuyoi-Reflecting Satellite Slash" Last Word uses the power of the Moon in order to create a slash capable of covering the entire garden of Saigyouji.
• Meaningful Name: Both "Kon" and "Paku" mean "soul", but a "Kon" is a "mental" soul, which is separated from a body as soon as human dies, ascends to Heaven and is reborn in another realm while a "Paku" is a "physical" soul, which remains in the body for a while and then goes back to the Earth.
• Mortality Grey Area: Being half-human and half-ghost she's considered half-alive and half-dead as well.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: She's unfailingly loyal to Yuyuko, but has gradually advanced out of this trope through the years. Compare her taking spring from Gensokyo in Perfect Cherry Blossom simply because Yuyuko asked her to, versus her dueling Yuyuko so she could leave and investigate the incident in Ten Desires.
• Mystical White Hair: Apparently her unusual hair is a hallmark of her half-phantom heritage.
• Named Weapons: Roukanken (Lookout Tower Sword) and Hakurouken (White Tower Sword), the first being her primary weapon.
• Oxymoronic Being: She is half-human and half-ghost.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Youmu shares her status as shortest of the main incident resolvers with Marisa, but also happens to be the most physically powerful.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything:
  • She's supposed to be Yuyuko's gardener but is depicted more like a bodyguard and servant. In fact, all the gardening she does in canon is using her "Two Hundred Yojana in One Slash" technique to quickly trim the ludicrously vast expanses of the Cherry tree garden of Hakugyokurou.
  • Even worse, she's actually a swordsmanship tutor for Yuyuko, filling in for Youki, but Yuyuko never takes any lessons and simply asks her to take care of the garden, which we don't see her do.
• Recurring Boss: Is the Stage 5 boss and Stage 6 midboss.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: She's a competent swordswoman with red eyes in her debut. She's also red-eyed in her portrait during her lost word in Imperishable Night.
• Razor Wind: Sharp enough to cut and destroy bullets.
• Shout-Out: A lot of her attributes including her sometimes childish sometimes serious attitude, ghostly companion, silver hair, sword skill and fast movement make Youmu a fairly clear parallel to Jean Pierre Polnareff of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. One of her colour palettes from Hisoutensoku is even entirely silver like Pol's Silver Chariot stand. Meanwhile, that line for Absurdly Sharp Blade above is a reference to Super Robot Wars.
  • Her Voidness Sword "Slash Clearing the Six Senses" in Hisoutensoku replicates the Turbid Current sword tech in Sa Ga Frontier with a final blow.
• Small Name, Big Ego: A minor case. Youmu's level of skill is actually quite impressive and she doesn't often brag about it, but she's young and has a poor idea of her own limits.
  • From Cage in Lunatic Runagate:
  Youmu: I don't mean to boast, but I am skilled in tailing. As I am half-human and half-ghost, the presences of both are less noticeable than a full one.
  Sakuya: I wonder how long our little stalker will continue to believe she has not been spotted.
• Soul-Cutting Blade: Her sword Roukanken is claimed to "kill ten spirits in one swing". Meanwhile Hakurouken can "cut through confusion", which causes spirits to cast aside their lingering regrets and ascend to Nirvana (it has the same effect on humans, but is so much weaker that they experience only momentary discomfort).
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: One of her moves in Immaterial and Missing Power and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. She spins her sword to reflect the opponent's danmaku attacks.
• Tomboy: By the virtue of being a sword-wielding fighter. Her girly girl counterpart is Yuyuko.
• Undying Loyalty: Youmu is intensely loyal to Yuyuko, except when she's not. While she often disobeys Yuyuko to go on her own adventures,^note such as every time she's playable in a game other than when she was paired up with Yuyuko in Imperishable Night, most notable Ten Desires in which she actually fought Yuyuko for the right to leave the Netherworld in the end she seems to have an unconscious sense of duty that keeps her working for Yuyuko despite her complaints. And she's not even getting paid...
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Despite the fact that she serves a ghost and is half one, Youmu is terrified of ghost stories. Made doubly ridiculous by the fact that with the Roukanken, she is one of the very few people actually capable of killing ghosts.
  • Youmu is just one huge scaredy-cat when it comes to imaginary horrors. In one chapter of Oriental Sacred Place she participates in a test of courage and spends most of it running hysterically from people in cheap Halloween costumes. Since she knew perfectly well there was nothing to be afraid of, most of them assumed she was just playing along, but her mistress knew better.
    Youmu: I'm no good with scary stuff.

Youki Konpaku

Youki Konpaku

Youmu Konpaku's father (or possibly grandfather) and mentor, who served as Hakugyokurou's gardener before her. He disappeared sometime before the events of Perfect Cherry Blossom, which Youmu took to be just another one of his lessons. Strictly appears only in Youmu's character description for Perfect Cherry Blossom.

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• All There in the Manual: The only reason we know he exists is that he's mentioned in Youmu's profile.
• Combat Pragmatist: Rather than following a traditional fighting style, he "stole" the most effective moves from a number of styles. Judging by Youmu's techniques, he also favored defeating an enemy before they knew what was happening.
• Disappeared Dad: No one really seems to know his current whereabouts.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Like Youmu, he too is half human, half ghost.
• Master Swordsman: A rather pragmatic one which is quite uncommon, especially among the Japanese. He did teach Youmu though and it really shows.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Youki seems to have been less devoted to his job than Youmu is. Not that that's saying much.

Yuyuko Saigyouji

Ghostly Girl in the Netherworld Tower

Yuyuko Saigyouji

"In a gathering of corpses, there is beauty. Same goes for the cherry blossoms and spring..."

Ghost Princess of Hakugyokurou, also an old friend of Yukari. When she was still alive she had the power to control the spirits of the dead. Eventually this grew into the power to kill others with a thought, terrifying Yuyuko to the point of suicide, after which her body was used to seal an evil cherry tree. Over time, she forgot about her life and hatched a plan to resurrect the body sealing the tree. When she realized that it was her own body that sealed the tree, she changed her mind and lived her life as a ghost, perhaps for the better, because the resurrection of her body would destroy her and unleash the evil tree.

---

• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • Having the power to invoke death as one pleases is dangerous. Good thing Yuyuko is responsible enough to know how dangerous it is, Cloudcuckoolander tendencies aside.
  • The only time it's known she has used her power during the games is in an attempt to kill Mokou, who, as an immortal, is unaffected.
• Battle Aura: A massive, pink paper fan with a classical motif etched on it appears behind her.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Though she's usually a happy and upbeat person, you do not want to make her angry, at least according to Akyuu in Perfect Memento. Her Imperishable Night profile also states that despite her whimsical nature, many beings are secretly afraid of her, likely due to her power over death.
• Beware the Silly Ones: As silly as she is, she still has power over death and tries to poison Eirin in one of her endings in Imperishable Night.
• Big Eater: Her main Running Gag:
  • She seems to treat her journey in Imperishable Night as a "Wonderful Midnight Snack Tour". One line implies that she actually went as far as to eat Mystia (not that this stops Mystia from reappearing in the next game).
  • In both Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red and A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years, when Yuyuko has to compare two things she immediately thinks of them in terms of food.
  • Yuyuko and Youmu's stage cameo in Hopeless Masquerade consists of Youmu holding a box of riceballs and feeding them to Yuyuko... on continuous loop.
  • In Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia, she gets a full-on food review section.
  • In Foul Detective Satori, Yuyuko's stomach growling is the first indication that she's recovered from being attacked by the Jailbreak King.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Yuyuko is very possibly smarter and more perceptive than even Yukari, but unlike Yukari she has no real ambition or long-term plans; on the rare occasion she does act it's usually For the Lulz.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: She has many butterfly-themed spell cards and projectiles, which is fitting due to being a ghost and her association with death (but not rebirth; she can never actually reincarnate, due to her body being used to seal the Saigyou Ayakashi). Indeed, she was the first boss in the series to use butterfly bullets. Many bosses have since used them, but never to Yuyuko's level.
• Celestial Bureaucracy: Although she was originally human, her particular skills and situation caused her to be appointed by Eiki as permanent ruler of the Netherworld instead of reincarnating normally. Given that she still has her job, she's presumably a Bunny-Ears Lawyer.
• Cheery Pink: She's got pink hair plus a cheerful disposition.
• Cherry Blossom Girl: For someone not named Sakura, she sure hits a lot of points for the trope. She's got themes relating to death by simply being dead. She's aiming for the rebirth of the person buried beneath the giant cherry tree Saigyouji Ayakashi, not knowing she's the one buried there, and does this by collecting spring in the form of cherry blossom petals. Her powers are the exact opposite of healing: The ability to kill with a thought. She has an aura of traditional Japanese elegance (ruined by her constant trolling of Youmu), which includes wearing kimonos that sometimes have cherry blossom patterns. Finally, she tops it off with her pink hair.
• Cloudcuckoolander: She tends to say rather odd things and acts like she's barely paying attention to the topic at hand when speaking to other characters. However, it's often implied that she's really exhibiting Obfuscating Stupidity and has figured out what's going on before anyone else.
• Combat Hand Fan: In the fighting games, some of her moves have her smack enemies with hand fans.
• Cryptic Conversation: In any storyline where she shows up, she'll usually allude vaguely to how she's already figured out exactly what's going on (explaining things would be too boring). Her servant Youmu says she can never understand what Yuyuko is talking about.
• Cute Ghost Girl: She's a pink-haired ghost princess with a very carefree and cheerful personality. For a long time, she was the trope picture.
• Dance Battler: In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody she floats around attacking with slow, sweeping movements - sometimes with her eyes closed or while holding a pair of paper fans. The result looks somewhat like a ceremonial dance.
• Dissonant Serenity: As someone who actually suffered quite a lot in the past and by now knows that she can never reincarnate because she's sealing a terrifyingly evil youkai tree, she sure is a happy-go-lucky person and very upbeat.
• Driven to Suicide: The cause of her death; after realizing what her power was, she became terrified of it and committed suicide. She eventually forgot about this over time.
• Expressive Shirt: The pattern on her robe changes from game to game or story to story, but always matches something going on in the plot, even if she presumably didn't know what would happen when she got dressed. Or did she?
• Fair-Weather Mentor: Her relationship with Youmu has shades of this. Yuyuko likes to speak in riddles and implications whenever she can, encouraging people to work things out for themselves rather than telling them directly... which makes her a terrible mentor for the Literal-Minded Youmu.
• Famous Ancestor: Not exactly ancestor, but her father may or may not have been the famous Japanese poet Saigyo, who wrote a poem about his wish to die under blossoming trees. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Yuyuko's father was indeed a celebrated poet who did end up dying under the influence of the Saigyou Ayakashi, a youkai cherry tree.
• Final Boss: Of Perfect Cherry Blossom. Then she activates her last spell card...
• The Gadfly: Hand-in-hand with her It Amused Me tendencies, she's fond of pushing people's buttons and teasing (primarily with Youmu).
• Ghost Amnesia: Since she died a thousand years ago, she eventually forgot everything about her life, to the point that she even forgot that she is the one whose body is buried under the Saigyou Ayakashi.
• Glacier Waif: In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody she may be delicate-looking, but she pulls off the Mighty Glacier role convincingly - she's slow because she moves through ghostly floating and attacks through ritualized, dancelike movements... that release powerful bursts of energy.
• Guest Fighter: Appears as a playable character in Lord Of Vermilion alongside Reimu.
• High-Class Fan: Being a ghost princess, she's often depicted as holding a fan to emphasize her elegance, namely in Immaterial and Missing Power and several manga spinoffs and official illustrations. In the fighting games, she even weaponizes them.
• Historical Domain Character: Is based on the daughter of real-life Japanese poet Saigyou, who became a Buddhist nun, but whose secular name and Buddhist posthumous name have been lost to history.
• Hitodama Light: She is a ghost with two or three lights always floating about.
• Inconsistent Spelling: K-S renders her last name as "Saigyouzi."
• Intergenerational Friendship: Even when she and Yukari began their friendship a millennium ago Yukari was already ancient, and now she is still many times Yuyuko's age. Neither of them care in the slightest.
• It Amused Me: She decided to make the Saigyouji Ayakashi blossom because she was curious as to who was buried underneath it and wanted to see them resurrected, not knowing it was herself.
• I Wished You Were Dead: Her manipulation of death is described as "Invoking death as she wishes" — Yuyuko can literally wish people dead. She can also choose for the departed to be sent to Hakugyokurou instead of their normal afterlife, as well as having control over their soul.
• Leitmotif:
  • "Border of Life" and all of its subsequent rearranges.
  • And now she has "Ghost Lead".
• Master Poisoner: Twice in canon^note Immaterial and Missing Power Yukari route, Imperishable Night Ghost route ending, she has poisoned peoples' drinks... but both times they noticed and/or were immune, and Yuyuko seemed to know this would happen. Yuyuko has a weird sense of humor.
• Mighty Glacier: In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody Yuyuko has long attack animations (both in startup and cooldown) and moves by floating slowly around the screen. However, she also hits like a truck, and many of her attacks have large hitboxes or properties which make them hard to stop.
• Ms. Exposition: She explains the plot to Youmu in Silent Sinner in Blue and also gives interesting, if often cryptic, speeches in Imperishable Night.
• Necromancy: Not only can she kill with a thought, but she can also control the souls of the dead. Which as you might imagine is helpful in running an afterlife.
• Nerf: In-Universe she does this to herself due to going from the final boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom to the first boss of Ten Desires. Though, in the latter, the dialogue makes it clear she was significantly holding back.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She often acts like a ditzy Cloudcuckoolander, but she's smarter than she lets on and it's often implied that she's figured out situations long before everyone else does.
• Ojou: She is a ghost princess whose home is a towering pagoda with an immense garden.
• The Omniscient: Of the mundane variety; she's just that perceptive. Except for that thing with the corpse under the Saigyou Ayakashi.
• Own Death By Origin Story: See Driven to Suicide above.
• Painfully Slow Projectile: Many of her danmaku patterns involve these. They are easy to dodge individually, but over time they will clutter up the screen, blocking your path from the faster bullets.
• The Pollyanna: She easily has the most heart-wrenching backstory in the cast, and yet is one of the funniest and most cheerful characters. This may be originally due to her completely forgetting about her past. However, she recovered her memory at the end of Perfect Cherry Blossom, and nothing seems to have changed, likely because she's grown used to being a ghost.
• Power Gives You Wings: Power gives you a Giant Fan, in her case.
• Power Incontinence: Yuyuko's power to invoke death was stronger when she was alive; while it's not clear whether she ever actually lost control of it, presumably she was very afraid of the possibility.
• Psycho Pink: The main antagonist of Perfect Cherry Blossom who also has pink hair.
• Rose-Haired Sweetie: She has pink hair and is usually quite cheerful and optimistic despite her troubled past.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: She seals the cherry tree, and it seals her, forever preventing her from ever being part of the Reincarnation cycle. She realizes she's happier that way.
• Signature Headgear: Wears a blue mob cap with a hitaikakushi in front on which there's a red ghost insignia as well as a veil down the back of her head.
• Soul Jar: Inverted - her body being sealed prevents her soul from passing on. The end result is still functional immortality, though.
• Soul Power: Her original power was merely to control the spirits of the dead, and her ability to do so is also one of the reason she was appointed to be in charge of the Netherworld. While it's never fully explained, it seems likely that her ability to cause death is also an aspect of this, ie: removing someone's soul to kill them. In-game, she is constantly surrounded by floating spirits and sometimes sends them to attack.
• Spread Shot:
  • In Imperishable Night the Ghost Team fires a narrow shot while unfocused (Youmu), and a Spread Shot while focused (Yuyuko). This is a notable inversion of how shot types usually work, and contributes to the Ghost Team's unusual playstyle.
  • This also extends to Yuyuko's appearance in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, where her projectile attacks are both large and spread out compared to most of the cast.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In Ten Desires, when Reimu and Youmu ask her where they should go next after defeating her. Considering how she's often Obfuscating Stupidity, she's probably doing this on purpose to guide them in the right direction.
  (To Reimu): "I'll give you a hint. The cemetery behind the temple isn't suspicious."
  (To Youmu): "I doubt that some troublesome individual is about to make a return, or that there's any secrets or anything in, say, the cemetery behind the temple..."
• Talking through Technique: Does this with Yukari, most famously in Silent Sinner in Blue where it's used to catch the Lunarians off-guard.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Girly Girl to Youmu's tomboy.
• Trickster Mentor: Whenever she decides to help someone. Unfortunately, Youmu seems too Literal-Minded for it to work on her very well.
• Troll: At the end of Silent Sinner in Blue, she steals a 1000-year-old bottle of sake from the Moon to piss the princesses off, which was what Yukari wanted her to do — but she also trolls Yukari by not stealing anything more valuable than a bottle of sake.
• Willfully Weak: Despite being introduced as the Final Boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom, she's only the stage 1 boss of Ten Desires. However, even though she may come across as a Degraded Boss, she's not really trying to win; she just wants to give you a little spellcard practice before you go off to investigate the divine spirit incident.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: She is an unusual case. She's whimsical and prefers pulling pranks on her servant/guardian, but she can be serious if the time comes. She is, however, the elegant mastermind befitting the character type.

Saigyou Ayakashi

Saigyou Ayakashi

An evil cherry tree sealed by Yuyuko and Yukari centuries ago. It has the power to lure people to rest underneath its branches after which it drains their souls.

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• Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted; its beauty lures people to it and then it kills them by inducing deadly peacefulness or simply eternal sleep.
• Botanical Abomination: The Saigyou Ayakashi is a more than one thousand year old large youkai cherry tree that absorbs the life force of anyone who rests under its branches by beguiling them with its beautiful cherry blossoms. It was originally just a regular tree before it became a youkai after absorbing the blood of people who came to die under it, starting with a famous Gensokyo poet who inspired others to follow his example. It currently rests in Hakugyokurou, unable to bloom and beguile more people due to Yuyuko's body being sealed under the tree.
• The Cameo: Appears in Ten Desires as the background for Yuyuko's spell cards (just as it did in Perfect Cherry Blossom).
• Cherry Blossoms: A giant youkai cherry tree that drains souls.
• Eldritch Abomination: What else can you call something that drives people insane with deadly peacefulness and beauty before draining their souls?
• Greater-Scope Villain: While Yuyuko was the driving force behind the plot, it was her curiosity of this thing that got the ball rolling.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: It was sealed using Yuyuko's body. As such, it never flowers or bears fruit; it takes roughly all of Gensokyo's "Spring" to cause it to even begin to bloom.
• When Trees Attack: This tree doesn't even have to move, its victims come by themselves.

Ran Yakumo

Shikigami of the Youkai of Boundaries

Ran Yakumo

"Don't mistake me for a simple beast either. I am the shikigami of a powerful master. As such, my powers far exceed those of any youkai you've ever seen... Not to mention those of humans. Or dogs."

A kitsune, Yukari's beleaguered but loyal shikigami, looking after the house and her duties while her mistress sleeps. A grand youkai in her own right, she is wise and strong, old enough to possess a full set of nine tails and is powerful enough to have her own shikigami, Chen.

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• A Day in the Limelight: Ran is one of the main heroines in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, with her backstory and character being greatly expanded on.
• Ascended Meme: Ran was often portrayed in fanworks as being overly motherly to Chen and finding her cute. In Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, she thanks Rin for playing with "little Chen" and even refers to Chen as "my once-cute Chen" when complaining about Chen's new habit of digging up corpses to present to Ran thanks to the kasha's influence, making Ran finding Chen cute canonical.
• Asian Fox Spirit: She's a nine-tailed fox, which are traditionally quite powerful in Japanese mythology (almost divine). Presumably this is meant to contrast with her status as a shikigami and make Yukari seem even more threatening. Indeed, it may be hard to remember at times, but Ran is a fully-fledged Extra Boss in her own right.
• Assist Character: Often appears as one for Yukari in her spellcards.
• Artificial Intelligence: Shikigami in Touhou are essentially a magical version of AI, and Ran is the most prominent example.
• Badass Boast: "I am leagues different from Chen. Leagues, columns, digits, and colors."
• Colourful Theme Naming: Her name means "indigo" in Japanese.
• Connected All Along: Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost reveals that she and Yuuma knew one another long before the latter became leader of the Gouyoku Alliance, and the same goes for all the other Animal Realm bosses.
• Curtains Match the Window: Her hair is blonde and she has yellow eyes.
• Demonic Possession: Strange Creators of Outer World reveals that Ran is actually a shikigami parasitically taking host of a nine-tailed fox youkai so strongly that it never shows on the surface; leading people to not have any difficulty seeing her as a kitsune.
• Everyone Calls Her "Barkeep": "Ran Yakumo" is the name of the shikigami spirit possessing the fox, making it more of a title than a proper name. However, if she had a name before that she doesn't use it.
• Familiar: She's Yukari Yakumo's shikigami, and is powerful enough to have Chen as her own shikigami.
• Fastball Special:
  • Yukari often literally throws Ran into the fray for her attacks.
  • Ran herself throws Chen at the player character as an attack in 'Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost''.
• Formulaic Magic: Yukari frequently refers to Ran like a computer program, to the point where she's referenced debugging her.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The only difference between Ran's nonspell and spell in Touhou Juuouen is the presence of Chen, who will fire off a couple of bullets; and then be thrown at the enemy. Impact with Chen can and will break your barrier or cost a life.
• Good with Numbers: Capable of doing complex calculations in an instant. She also worked out the formula used to calculate the width of the Sanzu River (which changes depending on the amount of spiritual wealth the soul carries to pay off the ferryman) in her spare time. Most likely, this skill of hers is part of an ongoing joke where ZUN compares shikigami to computers.
• Happiness in Slavery: Both Ran and Yukari believe that a shikigami is a tool, and that to achieve her full power as a shikigami, Ran must always do precisely what is ordered of her. An article in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red describes Yukari beating her for getting into a fight without permission while she was asleep. ^note Presumably, this is when Ran fought the heroine in Perfect Cherry Blossom because the heroine wanted Ran to wake up her master. A shikigami gains power from their master so long as they obey, so getting into fights that the master doesn't authorize deprives the servant of potential power.
• Her Name Really Is "Barkeep": Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost reveals the spirit that became the shikigami was named Ran even before meeting Yukari and the fact their names go so well together was just a happy coincidence.
• Irony: Ran, a possessed nine-tailed fox, has Chen, a Cat Girl, as her shikigami.
• Leitmotif:
  • Her official boss theme is "A Maiden's Illusionary Funeral ~ Necro-Fantasy," (of which Yukari's theme is a reprise/remix, oddly enough), but she also tends to be associated with "Charming Domination."
  • "Charming Domination - Who Done it?" is used as her theme in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, though it only ever plays in VS mode.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: She has nine tails, which indicates how long-lived she is; as the legends of kitsune go, a fox's tail will split in two after living for a hundred years, and they gain a tail for every century after, so theoretically she is between 800 and 899 years old.
• Little Bit Beastly: Nine-tailed fox, though she keeps her ears covered under a hat.
• Paper Talisman: She carries a nekomata-themed paper talisman in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost, which VS mode reveals she uses for summoning Chen.
• Percussive Maintenance: Extending the "shikigami = computer" analogy, Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red shows that Yukari sometimes fixes Ran's malfunctions by hitting her with her parasol. Ran herself is okay with this, though Aya is somewhat disturbed.
• Pre-Final Boss: Is the Phantasm stage midboss.
• Promoted to Playable: Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost makes her a playable character for the first time.
• Recurring Boss: Is the Extra Stage boss and Phantasm stage midboss for Perfect Cherry Blossom.
• Rule of Two: Yukari's personal servant, and she has her own servant in Chen.
• Satellite Character: For twenty years, her character boiled down to being the shikigami with her own shikigami, which meant everything about her tied into either Yukari or Chen. Her own stage and boss fight is officially treated as an easier version of Yukari's, and the name of her stage refers to Chen rather than Ran herself. Her stint as one of the main protagonists in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost finally broke this, adding to her personality and backstory in ways not shared with Yukari or Chen.
• Signature Headgear: A modified mob cap wrapped with a few ofuda and two pointed "sleeves" for her ears adorned with tassled pom-poms.
• Spectacular Spinning: Much like Chen, she spins a lot in battle. Yukari even uses her as a living projectile in Imperishable Night.
• Techno Wizard: In Chapter 37 of Curiosities of Lotus Asia, Yachie calls upon Ran to fix a malfunctioning computer system in the Animal Realm, ultimately discovering the culprit and further using her computer skills to peacefully settle the matter.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Fried tofu is traditionally loved by kitsune, and according to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense Ran is no exception. It's said that one could persuade her out of fighting by offering her some. She's seen at Reisen's stand in Wild and Horned Hermit, buying some.
• The Watson: In Silent Sinner in Blue, Ran pretty much exists to act as someone for Yukari to give exposition to.
• Willing Channeler: "Ran Yakumo" is technically not the kitsune, but the shikigami possessing her body. Unlike Chen she willingly stays in shikigami mode pretty much all the time.

Yukari Yakumo

Youkai of Boundaries

Yukari Yakumo

"Oh, so that's a 'strange incident'? Then I suppose I'm a mobile strange incident."

The mysterious "youkai of boundaries" and one of the most powerful beings in Gensokyo^note Exactly how powerful is vague, as most of the information on Yukari's abilities comes from Yukari herself, but she's crafty enough to outwit most of the entities stronger than her anyway. - her signature "gaps" allow her to travel almost anywhere (including the Outside World), her Onmyōdō skills let her find out almost anything, and she's no slouch in combat either. She tends to mess around with people or use them as pawns in her schemes, but most of the time she has the best interests of Gensokyo at heart. Yukari is one of the Youkai Sages, who together founded Gensokyo and created the Great Hakurei Barrier, with her many behind-the-scene machinations being in the interest of Gensokyo's preservation. However, as she sleeps through the day and hibernates through winter, she leaves most of her work to her shikigami Ran. Yukari is an old friend of Yuyuko, and the closest thing Reimu has to an employer.

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• Ambiguously Evil: Depending on your perspective, Yukari is either a genuinely noble but ruthless protectress of Gensokyo, or a calculating villainess who just happens to be on the side of Reimu (one of the main heroines).
• Ambiguously Related: Her exact relation with Maribel Hearn is this in spades. Large amounts of evidence point to them being connected (most obviously in their names), but to this day no explicit confirmation has ever been given on what exactly is up with the two of them.
• Anonymous Benefactor: Occasionally leaves things in the Hakurei Shrine's donation box when Reimu's not looking.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: Claims that she herself is the representative of Gensokyo's reality. How honest this statement is however is up in the air.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Yukari is mostly content to have Reimu and her shikigami solve most issues, partly due to her odd sleep schedule, partly due to just being lazy. If something happens that is actively threatening Gensokyo however, Yukari will not hesitate to get involved; Eientei and later Tenshi learned this the hard way.
• The Archmage: The Onmyōdō version, not the quasi-scientific magic practiced by youkai magicians, but either way she's an extremely powerful sorceror.
• Artificial Brilliance: In Perfect Cherry Blossom. Unlike any other boss in the series, Yukari will actually pause her attacks (and the timer) during her final spellcard whenever the player manages to gain some form of invincibility, and will calmly wait until it wears off before resuming.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Yukari's ultimate spell card in the fighting games, Obsolete Line: Trip to the Old Station, trumps most every other card used by any other character in sheer damage output. However, it can be avoided by flying over it (not grazed or blocked, however), and the portal for summoning the train takes a long time to open, so any opponent worth their salt will knock you upside the head while you're channeling it. If Typhoon is active, however....
  • It is, however, one of the best Okizeme (wake up game) supers in the game. Yukari has some very easy set ups that give her ample time to channel the super while the opponent is flailing through the air and or getting up from the floor, and if done correctly these setups lead to the opponent rising to an unblockable, ungrazeable train to the face.
• Bad Boss: Yukari's article in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red describes her disciplining Ran by hitting her with an umbrella. She claims that, since shikigami are first and foremost tools, it's not abuse but rather Percussive Maintenance.
• Barrier Maiden: She was instrumental in gathering support for the construction of the Great Hakurei Barrier, and her powers are based around manipulating barriers, but she leaves the Barrier's upkeep to Reimu and usually steps in only to repair major damage.
• Barrier Warrior: Her "control over borders" ability can easily manifest in stuff that blocks enemy attacks.
• Beneath the Mask: In Wild and Horned Hermit chapter 35, when Kasen rejects the idea of being "on her side", Yukari seems genuinely sad for a moment before quickly resuming her usual Stepford Smiler attitude.
• Berserk Button: Damaging the Great Hakurei Barrier. Her laziness, her shikigami and the other resident incident resolvers are not excuses for her to sit idly by while someone damages Genskoyo's foundation, and she makes sure the perpetrator knows it. Case in point: her story mode in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody consists of her going on a personal manhunt for Tenshi after her earthquake damages the Hakurei Shrine, beating up everyone she encounters for information along the way. By the time she reaches Iku, she's so angry that she openly declares her intentions for Tenshi, and they are not spellcard-kosher.
  Yukari: "I'm going to make her become deceased for a bit."
• Beware the Silly Ones: Yukari makes it clear that despite her whimsical demeanor, she can and will fuck up someone's day if they continue to be a problem to Gensokyo or to her:
  • When Kasen unintentionally brings in western dandelions through her excursions to the Outside World; Yukari very passive-aggressively warns Kasen about her travels to the outside, the damage it can cause, and the extents to which Yukari is implicitly willing to go to undo said damages.
  • Partly in order to make Eirin fulfil her duty as a "human"-aligned resident of Gensokyo — that is; making her fear the unknown — and partly as payback for being defeated by Eirin in the distant past, Yukari concocts a very elaborate plan to defeat the Lunar Capital; not through battle but through wits. Her goal being to show Eirin that, despite her intelligence, she cannot know everything — and what she does not know, she should fear. While the theft of a bottle of sake isn't really a big deal; the fact that Yukari was somehow able to steal it outright traumatizes Eirin.
  • In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody Tenshi learns this the hard way when Yukari hunts down and delivers a serious beat down on Tenshi for all the damage she had caused to the Hakurei Shrine and Gensokyo's barrier as a whole. Her dialogue with Iku even states that she briefly considered just killing Tenshi after their battle.
• Big Good: She's mostly an authority figure when she actually shows up, but Yukari isn't human and the oddity of some of her behaviour occasionally pushes her towards being more of a Mysterious Backer for Reimu.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Her philosophy seems to be some form of Taoism... as interpreted by a "very youkai-like" Youkai with a manipulative streak. Even other youkai have trouble understanding her motives.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Though it's hard to tell what parts of Yukari's actions are complex plotting disguised as laziness, or laziness disguised as complex plotting.
• Bulletproof Vest: Implied in Touhou Hisoutensoku ~ Choudokyuu Ginyoru no Nazo o Oe - if Bare-Fisted Monk Meiling defeats Yukari she will comment that she felt some odd resistance, and asks what's she's wearing under her clothes. Then again, maybe Yukari is just that tough.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In Immaterial and Missing Power.
  Sakuya: Whatever. Stop lying and give up your schemes, now.
  Yukari: (Which lies and schemes is she talking about? It's hard to keep track of them all...)
• The Chessmaster:
  • She's had a hand in many, many schemes over the years, the complexity and scope of which makes Kanako look upstart. Including the disastrous Moon invasion 1000 years ago that taught youkai not to overstep their boundaries, and made Yukari well-known, even among the humans (whether Yukari knew they would lose and this would happen is up for debate). Then, 500 years later, in order to return leverage to the youkai over that of the humans, she laid the groundwork for the Hakurei Barrier, by establishing the area of Gensokyo as a youkai haven, where they could emigrate to and be free from the outside, after which the Barrier took 400 years more to be completed. Even the debates and conflicts over the Barrier and their use in distracting from Gensokyo's vulnerable human population until youkai and humans could live together there were possibly foreseen by her. Lastly and most strikingly, the entirety of Touhou Bougetsushou was planned out by her, manipulating the Watatsuki sisters, Eirin, and Remilia against each other, all of whom are quite clever in their own right.
  • Yukari openly acknowledges herself as this when playing as Sakuya in Perfect Cherry Blossom.
  Sakuya: So, is law enforcement [in the Netherworld] always like this?
  Yukari: There's no law in this world. As we can't have a death penalty, of course.
  Sakuya: Oh, what about the Yama?
  Yukari: One just needs to be stronger than the Yama and they can do as they please. That's the way of this place... no, of all places.
  Sakuya: Stronger how exactly? Financially?
  Yukari: In cunning.
  • By the by, the First Lunar Invasion was no different: it's implied it really didn't matter whether it failed or succeeded: either way, Yukari won. If they won, good, they have access to Lunarian technology and gain control of the Moon. If they failed, the youkai were taught a fierce lesson about expansionism and either way Yukari has the chance to examine the barrier separating the True Moon from the barren satellite... which was doubtlessly of extreme interest of someone in need of such barriers to, shall we say, create a sealed realm of her own...
  • Marisa's Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom ending and Chapter 35 of Forbidden Scrollery implies that she was responsible for the world ending Urban Legend, and that perhaps even the events of Urban Legend in Limbo and Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom were all part of an unknown plan to eventually shake Gensokyo's social paradigm. It is rather suspicious that in both cases she (at least directly) stayed out of their events despite the direct danger both Sumireko and later the Lunarians posed to Gensokyo, and interfering with the Barrier (like the former did) in particular being one of Yukari's few Berserk Buttons.
  • Even though she never reveals exactly why, in the final arc of Forbidden Scrollery she influences Kosuzu to use the Night Parade scroll and end up getting possessed by the oni inside, which prompted action to finally subdue it and put into the hands of a more responsible owner, that being Mamizou. This seemed to be all a lesson to teach Reimu that she has a responsibility to protect both humans and youkai from each other.
• Colour-Coded Characters: Reimu and Yukari form the "Border team" in Imperishable Night. It's rather convenient that the colors of their outfits correspond to the borders between visible and invisible light.
• Colourful Theme Naming: Her name means "violet" in Japanese. See Chen's entry above.
• Compressed Hair: Somehow manages to hide almost all her hair in her hat in the fighting games. Said hat might contain a gap.
• Cool Train: Attacks with one in one of her spell cards in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. All Aboard the Yukari Express!
  • The train returns with Yukari's appearance in Antimony of Common Flowers, except this time it crashes into the side of the stage and EXPLODES!
• Cryptic Conversation: Tends to make confusingly vague remarks, though not as much as Yuyuko does.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Yukari has eleven health bars compared to the Extra stage bosses' ten, giving her the distinction of having the most HP of any boss in the series.
• Depending on the Artist: Her height. The games generally portray her as being at least taller than Reimu, but it's an entirely different story in the supplementary material, with Curiosities of Lotus Asia and Wild and Horned Hermit depicting her as incredibly short, needing to even stand on her tippy toes to even speak to Kasen (who is slightly taller than Reimu) in the latter!
• Dirty Coward: Dream Kasen thinks she's a coward due to in her eyes talking a big game but being reluctant to actually attack directly.
• Dumb Blonde: She inverts this via being an intelligent schemer with blonde hair.
• Evil Running Good: A Pragmatic Villainy variant. Officially she and Reimu are on opposite sides of the human-youkai conflict, and Reimu has fought Yukari on multiple occasions. In practice she offers Reimu a great deal of support and guidance, and may be responsible for her position in the first place. She seems to value Reimu as both a neutral party who can break up conflicts between youkai factions, and a way to prevent youkai from pushing the Human Village too far and sparking a war.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Over time Gensokyo's youkai have drifted from their origins as manifestations of human fear, becoming less aggressive and more capable of developing individual personalities. Yukari was somehow involved in most of the factors contributing to this.^note The Great Hakurei Barrier cuts them off from the influence of Outside World beliefs and superstitions, while the Spell Card system allows them to gain sustenance from "attacking" humans without actually hurting them or risking death in return. The "evil" part comes in because youkai haven't become fully independent beings yet, and Yukari helps with the food supply.
• Fastball Special: Her usual method of using Ran. Yukari is the pitcher.
• The Fog of Ages: Even as powerful as she is, she can't fully escape this. In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, her memory of the last mass flowering incident 60 years prior is beginning to fade as she recounts it in Seasonal Dream Vision, at some points it truly sounds like she's teetering on the edge of forgetting about it entirely, and briefly ponders if this means she's finally going senile. Then Yuyuko comments she can't even remember what she had for breakfast the day before.
• Frame Break: Sort of. In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody Yukari's spell cards Boundary "Border Between 2D and 3D" and Boundary "Objective Border" travel along the edge of the screen.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Assuming she really is just an older version of Maribel Hearn, she went from a college student with an interest in the supernatural with some ability to control boundaries to one of the most powerful, cunning, and well-informed characters in the setting.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: Has power rivalling a god, and seems to see herself as the custodian of Gensokyo. So lazy she sleeps 12 hours a day and "hibernates" though the whole winter. Even when she's awake, she still doesn't take much direct action, instead manipulating others into doing her job for her. Anything that does spur her into taking direct action is considered a Godzilla Threshold.
• Good with Numbers: Since a familiar's power is derived from its master, Yukari is even better at numbers than Ran, who is known to calculate the Sanzu River's width out of boredom. Ran mentions that if Yukari wanted, she could have calculated the depth of the Sanzu River as well, even though it's known to be bottomless.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Exemplary even in her name, which means "violet", and she has a very refined manner, though she can be strange even by youkai standards.
• Greater-Scope Villain: One way of looking at her, considering she's one of the sages involved in the creation of Gensokyo and maintains the Forever War as a means to preserve the yokai's existence, making her responsible for the setting of most games.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: "Heart of gold" may be a bit of a stretch, but she's not malicious most of the time and everything she does is to maintain Gensokyo's balance.
• Half the Woman She Used to Be: Her Last Word in Antinomy of Common Flowers is called Lend Me Those Beautiful Legs, in which she (temporarily) bisects her opponent with a Portal Cut. Additionally, her Occult in the same game is based on the Teke-Teke Urban Legend and thus involves her using her gaps to bisect herself and rushdown the opponent with her upper half.
• Hammerspace: Tends to become a Hyperspace Arsenal at times with traffic signs, tombstones and a train.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Even more so than Reimu, as she's an incredibly powerful youkai who has no need to train at all.
• Heavy Sleeper: She hibernates through the wintertime.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: She's this deliberately, as while she's helpful to humans a lot of the time she keeps it covered up to maintain her reputation as a feared youkai.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: A more morally grey example than most, but it's been hinted on multiple occasions that Yukari has a much larger ambition with Gensokyo that she keeps hidden from everyone. What that ambition exactly is, however, is a mystery.
• High-Class Gloves: In at least her Perfect Cherry Blossom appearance.
• Humanoid Abomination: While the cast is absolutely full of these, Yukari stands out, with her inscrutable motives and ill-defined reality-bending powers. Especially if her claim of embodying all of Gensokyo has any truth to it. With her countless schemes piled on top of other schemes, it's easy to think of her as a less hostile version of Nyarlathotep. Her gaping holes in reality that are full of eyes for some reason help highlight just how alien she really is.
• Iconic Sequel Character: One of the most significant characters in the franchise, but only made her debut at the very end of the second game in the modern canon.
• I Let You Win: One of Yukari's most common strategies to resolve a problem is to set herself up as an enemy and let her opponent defeat her. She does this in Silent Sinner in Blue in order to distract the Lunarians from the third party involved in her Kansas City Shuffle. She does it in Wild and Horned Hermit in order to both stop Reimu from investigating the true reason behind people disappearing, and give Reimu some good publicity — the reason she did this was to buy herself some time to actually resolve it without letting people know that people disappearing was actually them getting transported to the outside world. She also does this in the fighting games, and if she manages to defeat an opponent in the story she'll sometimes reveal that she was holding back.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: While the only confirmed uses of her boundary-manipulation abilities are Thinking Up Portals and seeing through barriers, it's implied that she is capable of far more things, like manipulating the border between night and day.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Teased throughout the series. She hints at storing humans for the winter to Marisa in Perfect Cherry Blossom, Perfect Memento In Strict Sense says she might attack humans from the outside world to keep her youkai status, and she openly admits in Wild and Horned Hermit that Gensokyo's youkai's "food supply" comes from the outside world. She also hints at having a fridge full of dead humans.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Most of the fluctuations in the Great Hakurei Barrier that can send clueless humans into Gensokyo are her doing, "spiriting away" some of the folk she finds fascinating (heavily implied to be criminals and suicidal people, whom are more pleasurable for Youkai to consume).
• Insistent Terminology: Yukari will have you know that "spiriting away" is her thing, and suggests that you use some other term if a person disappears without her involvement.
• Kansas City Shuffle: In Silent Sinner in Blue. Relying on Remilia's greed to create a decoy is one thing. Being a second decoy is quite another.
• Lady of War: Being super-refined and super-dangerous are her most pronounced traits.
• Leitmotif: "Necrofantasia" from Perfect Cherry Blossom (a remix/expansion of the chorus of Ran's theme), and "Night Falls ~ Evening Star" from the fighting games.
• Limited Wardrobe: Avoided. She wore a western-style one-piece dress in her debut appearance in Perfect Cherry Blossom, but Immaterial and Missing Power gave her a new dress in a mishmash of western and Chinese styles to further symbolize her boundary-related powers. Although the latter outfit appears to have stuck in the games for the time being, fanworks tend to depict her in either outfit, depending on the artist's tastes. Yukari also wears a unique purple sleeveless dress with white shirt underneath in the Boundary Team ending in Imperishable Night, meaning she averted this trope within a single game. And in Wild and Horned Hermit and Forbidden Scrollery she appears with different sets of clothes.
• Manipulative Bitch: She's incredibly good at either making her ingenious masterplans look like really petty mischief or covering up the fact that her more obviously ingenious plans are way more complex than they appear to be.
• Meaningful Rename: "Yukari Yakumo" is not her real name, but something she chose to call herself; she also gave Ran her current name. Chapter 26 of Curiosities of Lotus Asia features Rinnosuke pondering the possible reasons she chose that name.
• Meta Girl: ZUN originally introduced Yukari because he "wanted a character who could speak entirely from a meta perspective." A few of her abilities also have a meta element to them, such as her "Boundary of 2D and 3D" and "Objective Border" Spell Cards in the fighting games — attack patterns that skid along the edges of the screen as well as the 2d plane the characters are moving along on the ground.
• Mighty Whitey: Maybe. It's been implied that Yukari was originally a Western human (not that you could tell from the art).
• Mundane Utility: In Forbidden Scrollery, she mentions using her gaps to turn off the lights in her bedroom at night without having to get out of bed.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Yukari seems more interested in preserving the balance between humans and youkai (or possibly even helping humans) than in helping youkai, though she tries to cover it up (which is one of the reasons she rarely acts directly). It's implied that she was originally human herself. On the other hand, it's all but outright stated that she eats human flesh like most youkai and in fact provides the "supply".
• Not Me This Time:
  • Most of the fights against Yukari in Immaterial and Missing Power and Antinomy of Common Flowers are the result of the player character assuming that she must be the cause behind the incident and attacking her.
  • Double Subverted in Wild and Horned Hermit 35, where Reimu comes upon Yukari working on a solution to the "humaning away" incident and mistakes her for the culprit. Yukari decides to play along and fight Reimu in order to conceal the incident's true cause.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, her threat level is listed as "Unknown", and Akyuu stresses that "No matter how confident one is in their abilities, it would be wise not to attempt to exterminate this youkai".
• The Omniscient: Yukari is likely the most well-informed person in Gensokyo, deriving from her network of shikigami spies, divination magic, ability to travel to the Outside World and the Lunar Capital, and possibly being from the future.
• Omniscient Morality License: She loves creating a Gambit Pileup all by herself and puts everyone against everyone else for reasons only she could possibly understand but ultimately she has good intentions... we hope.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Generally speaking she is so lazy to the point that even incidents are usually not a big enough concern to get her to go into action, relying mostly on Reimu and her Shikigami to do any work, and if roused into actually putting in effort it's best to steer clear of her.
  • Yukari is conspicuously absent from the events of Urban Legend in Limbo and Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, despite them featuring a plot which could have destroyed the Great Hakurei Barrier and/or led to Gensokyo being invaded by Lunarians. Then, in one of the endings of the latter game, she appears before Marisa to see the Lunar Capital Occult Orb that sparked everything. To Marisa's surprise (and mounting horror), Yukari has no interest in destroying the Orb or even taking it for herself, and instead seems to love that Gensokyo has found such a great catalyst for change.
  Marisa: "What? Sayin' this isn't like you. I was certain you were the type who'd protect the barrier 'n reject change, but..."
  Yukari: "Ufufufu, was that so?"
  • In Chapter 35 of Wild and Horned Hermit when Kasen tells Yukari that she is not on her side as a fellow Sage, Yukari seems genuinely sad.
• Opposites Attract: Despite being on opposing sides of the human-youkai conflict, and even being perhaps the primary representatives of their sides, Yukari and Reimu seem to be helping each other more often than not.
• Oxymoronic Being: According to Akyuu in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, despite being a youkai she has has almost never been seen actually attacking humans (though Akyuu assumes she is just doing it outside Gensokyo).
• Parasol of Pain: She always carries a parasol and uses it as a weapon in the fighting games.
• Parasol of Prettiness: What her parasol is normally portrayed as in both canon and fanon artwork.
• Perpetual Smiler: Is almost always seen having some sort of smile on her face, and as Aya puts it, comes of as highly unsettling to those around her.
  Aya: She always wears ostentatious clothing and an unsettling smile, intimidating all who come in contact with her.
• Portal Network: It's implied that her powers tap into one of these, relying on spiritual similarity between two places rather than connecting any two arbitrary points. However, it has so many entry points that it usually makes no difference. Most notably, she can only access the Lunar Capital by opening a portal inside the reflection of the full moon on a large body of water.
• Prophet Eyes: When drawn by Harukawa Moe she has eyes that look almost like gemstones completely lacking pupils, further cementing her otherworldly nature.
• Purple Is Powerful: Her most well known outfits are purple, she originally had purple eyes, her name means "violet" (as in the color), and she's one of the most powerful beings in Gensokyo. Her Colorful Theme Naming with Chen and Ran also corresponds to the electromagnetic spectrum; since her name means "violet", which ranks the highest, that makes her the most powerful of the three.
• Reality Warper: According to Akyuu (who admits that some of her profiles are exaggerated, but not which or how):
  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 being, or rejects the existence of a being. [...] It's said that this ability is not limited to physical space, but also applies to pictures, others' dreams, and even stories.
• Really 700 Years Old: At the bare minimum, she's 1200 years old.
• Running Both Sides: She effectively controls both sides of the human-yokai conflict, using the Human Village to sustain the yokai through their superstitions, and employing yokai exterminators like Reimu to make sure the yokai don't overstep their bounds and wipe the humans out.
• Sarcastic Confession: Played with in chapter 35 of Wild and Horned Hermit. When Reimu accuses her of spiriting away the humans in the village, she confesses that she is in fact responsible for the spiriting away. However, this comes right on the heels of her making it clear to Kasen that all cases of spiriting away are her doing, and so disappearances that aren't her doing (like those of the villagers) should be called something else. In other words, she confesses to a crime she was never accused of while not actually confessing to what she was accused of, but allowing Reimu to think she was.
• Schrödinger's Butterfly: Footnote 5 in Yukari's entry from Perfect Memento in Strict Sense:
  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.
• Screw You, Elves!: Yukari seems to have a distaste for beings from the Pure Lands in general, with the exception of Yuyuko and Youmu, from her scheme to break Eirin in Touhou Bougetsuhou using stolen Lunarian sake, to fighting Tenshi (and legitimately contemplating the notion of murdering her) in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody because of her interference with the Hakurei Shrine and looking down on Yukari for being an Earth-dweller.
• Shrouded in Myth: Appears to invoke this deliberately, making sure people know as little about her as possible.
• Signature Headgear: A mob cap decorated with a thin, red ribbon tied into a lemniscate.^note The word "lemniscate" comes from the Latin "lēmniscātus" meaning "decorated with ribbons."
• Stone Wall: From Immaterial and Missing Power: "Her fighting style is completely different from a human's measure. It's neither fast nor heavy-hitting. It is uncertain whether she is really tough or not. Her attitude makes you feel as if you're being teased by her, which is really irritating even if you manage to defeat her."
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Has gold eyes in Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, and Antinomy of Common Flowers, and power over boundaries.
• Talking through Technique: Does this with Yuyuko, most famously in Silent Sinner in Blue where it's used to catch the Lunarians off-guard.
• Telepathy: Appears to display this ability in the Eastern and Little Nature Deity short story Fairy of the Moon.
  Luna, who thought she had erased all surrounding sounds, somehow heard a voice calling out to her. [...] Luna instantly knew that the owner of that voice was a dangerous youkai. She had erased all sound, so if she could hear this voice, it wasn't normal. Because it was a voice she heard in her heart.
• Thinking Up Portals: One of the most common uses of her power is using gaps to create portals.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yukari is elegant and manipulative, compared to the tomboyish and honest Reimu. According to ZUN she was designed as a Foil to Reimu with similar powers so that they could team up in Imperishable Night. They are at opposite ends of the colour spectrum as well, with Reimu as the "Red-White" and Yukari as violet.
• Trickster Mentor: Acts this way towards Reimu.
• Trouble Entendre: Yukari is fond of delivering threats through implication, rather than stating them outright. In Chapter 33 of Wild and Horned Hermit, shortly after Kasen has begun travelling back and forth through the Barrier, Yukari appears at the Hakurei Shrine to note that someone has inadvertently carried western dandelion seeds into Gensokyo, which are displacing the native species. She then outlines her plan to get rid of them in front of Kasen - manipulating both humans and youkai into eating dandelions until both species of the flower are overharvested to near extinction.
• True Final Boss: Notable for being the only "bonus bonus boss" in the main series, the boss of Perfect Cherry Blossom's Phantasm stage. Accessing the Phantasm stage is also non-standard, requiring not only clearing the Extra stage, but having captured at least sixty of the game's spell cards.
• The Walls Have Eyes: Her "gaps" are often shown filled with unblinking eyes (and occasionally arms, struggling to get out). Some of her spell cards in Hisoutensoku create singular eyes that shoot beams.
  Magic Eye "Laplace's Demon" - A large number of eyes appear staring at the enemy. Once the eyes see an exploitable weakness, they attack. It seems this is how Yukari knows what's going on in all of Gensokyo at all times.
• The Woman Behind The Woman: May or may not have been this to Yuyuko in Perfect Cherry Blossom, considering she allowed her to go through with her actions.
• The Worf Effect: Yukari is possessed and drained of her energy by the Jailbreak King just as easily as anyone else, just to show the spirit has no limits on who it can and will possess.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Not initially, but she has dark gold eyes in Immaterial and Missing Power and Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. She's also a scheming manipulator.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Yukari's boundary manipulation and the names of many of her spell cards involve the combination of opposing forces.

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