Analysis: Yukari Yakumo
Ah the dull… The dull go through so much trouble don’t they?
A quick note
While this isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, because some feats will come up from it I should address the “canon status” of PC-98. While its events are not important to modern Touhou, it has been noted that the settings between PC-98 and Windows are the same. It’s also been noted that the characters from PC-98 are still around and have simply “retired”. At worst Windows lore takes priority over PC-98 lore but beyond that there’s no reason to separate the two eras.
Backstory
Apart from being one of the sages who existed prior to Gensokyo and her longtime friendships with Yuyuko Saigyouji, Yukari’s origins are a relative mystery. Even her name is something that she likely gave herself, with her full name being defined as “A strong fortress to keep the gods trapped inside.” What can be safely said is Yukari’s presence would bring about many actions that paved the foundation for what Gensokyo is today.
Her first major action began 1000 years prior to the main events of Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, in which she led an army of youkai to invade the moon to seemingly obtain an infinite energy source to have them play all day. Unfortunately the Lunarians advanced technology and magic caused the youkai to be effectively stomped, and ever since then youkai have never attempted to expand their territory beyond Gensokyo. This may have been intentional however, as about 500 years after that event Yukari would enact the “Youkai Expansion Project” in order to return power back to the youkai who were weakened by the Outside World. By creating the “Great Hakurei Barrier” Yukari was able to establish Gensokyo as an illusionary world and the Outside World as the “real world”. This event would cause a massive flock of youkai from all over the world to migrate to Gensokyo, freeing themselves from human imagination and obtaining true freedom.
More often than not Yukari sleeps all day and when she wakes up barks orders at her Shikigami to do the work for her. Despite this Yukari has had a hand in several events in the series, often through manipulating others around her. These include but are not limited to:
Writing the “Vampire Pact” and potentially ending the “Vampire Incident”
Weakening with the boundary of life and death at Yuyuko’s request, causing “The Phantom Commotion”
Invading the moon again to terrify the shit out of Eirin and send a message.
Assisted in resolving several incidents such as the Eternal Night Incident (IN), the unnamed weather Incident (SWR) and the Perfect Possession Incident (AOCF).
In spite of her constant schemes and manipulations to the point where she can’t keep track of them all, Yukari always acts with Gensokoyo’s best interests in mind and seeks to maintain its balance and order.
Weapons
Parasol
As you can tell by the image of an abused Ran Yukari can use a parasol to beat the shit out of people with.
Ability Cards
In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody and Hisoutensoku, there are abilities known as System Cards that anyone in the game can use. These provide the user with different abilities be it a time stop, repelling projectiles, or using poisons that can damage the soul. A list of them can be found here.
Shikigami
Shikigami are servants to Yukari who must obey any command that she proposes and can be summoned at any point by her. Treated often like computers, Shikigami have a set of orders that they are programmed with, and unlike objects like dolls which need to be pulled or moved, Shikigami can simply respond to orders and follow them. Should a Shikigami properly follow the orders of their master, they can obtain power equal to Yukari. The two Shikigami Yukari have at her disposal are Ran Yakumo and Chen, who happens to be the Shikigami of Ran.
Ran’s main ability is to control Shikigami, though her main Shikigami Chen is considered too unreliable to rely on. More notably Ran is incredibly intelligent and can perform complex calculations far above any human in an instant. At one point to kill time she calculated the width of the Sanzu River, something which was seen as impossible to others but to Ran was child’s play.
Powers and Abilities
Youkai Physiology
Youkai are born with several notable superhuman characteristics. On the most basic level they contain longer lifespans than humans, and can regenerate easily from being split into “five parts.” To properly damage a Youkai, weapons with an “origin” are recommended over traditional physical damage. The true core of a Youkai is not their body however, but their mind, as that contains the core of their entire existence. Due to not being bound by the material world, they are not made of flesh and blood, and concepts like DNA. Other powers Youkai have displayed include:
The ability to shapeshift and change their appearance, often to that of humans.
The ability to see through illusions.
Spirit Manipulation
The primary power source throughout the Touhou series and what a majority of the characters use to fuel their attacks. Spiritual power emits from everyone's bodies, and is directly tied to other concepts such as “Temperament” which are fueled by emotions and the subconscious. Other forms of life such as chi or stamina have also been likened to spiritual power. Spiritual power has multiple uses, primarily being used to fire off bullets. The stronger the spirit the stronger the bullet.
Spell Cards
Spell cards are big techniques named by the individual in order to showcase their beautiful and powerful “danmaku” power. When creating a spell card, the user will give it a “name” and “meaning”, and in the process the “meaning” gives the spell card its power and usually defines what the attack is meant to do. A magical circle is often present when using a spell card, allowing for oncoming attacks to slow down, and some big spell cards can clear out other projectiles in the process.
While Spell Cards are usually designed for non lethal combat, there are occasions where lethal intent has been used within the confines of Spell Cards. Yukari herself has threatened to kill Tenshi and Junko’s entire Spell Card Kit is designed to kill.
Yukari herself has a total of 47 named Spell Cards
Immense Intellect
Yukari is a very very very smart individual who by her own words wins and achieves strength through wisdom. She has often been the mastermind behind many schemes and always seems to come out on top regardless of if she “wins” or “loses”. Arguably the most notable example comes from the Second Moon Invasion where:
She goads Remilla into invading the moon thus attracting one of the Watasuki Sisters
Causes Eirin to believe that Remilla is a decoy and Yukari herself is the one invading and tries warning the other Watasuki Sister
Except actually no actually Yukari is ALSO a decoy and the real invader was Yuyuko
This worked because Yukari and Yuyuko secretly made a plan on their own to have Yuyuko fake not wanting to attend the invasion leaving her free to sneak on to the moon and not gain any attention.
All of this just so she could steal some treasure and prove to Eirin (who’s basically a god and also one of the smartest characters ever) that she couldn’t predict everything and fear the unknown.
This last part semi backfired because Yuyuko didn’t steal treasure but stole a bottle of sake and basically trolled Yukari. However unlike treasure sake couldn’t be simply stolen back if it's all gone and is even more mundane than treasure so Yukari won anyways
This invasion straight up left Eirin with a permanent mental scar, knowing that if something mundane as sake could be stolen, any real damage Yukari could inflict would’ve been much worse.
Even beyond her super planning Yukari is just a natural mathematical genius. Ran outright admits she couldn’t solve any of Yukari’s equations, citing her ability to calculate things like the bottom of Avci and how long it’d take Ursa Major to devour the North Star in an instant.
Boundary Manipulation
(Fan Gif from Touhou Cannonball)
Yukari’s main ability is the ability to “manipulate boundaries”, an ability that has been defined as “logically speaking, affect anything.” All of existence is built upon the concept of boundaries. If there is no water surface, there can be no lake. If there’s no skyline, there are no mountains or sky. Boundaries are so important to existence that without them, everything would exist as a large singular object. Yukari can remove the boundary between anything she sees fit, be it Gensokyo and the Outside World, the worlds of the living or dead, human and youkai, and even day and night.
The most noteworthy usage of this ability as noted prior is her ability to create the Great Hakurei Barrier, and the “Boundary of Fantasy and Reality.”
Widely recognized as its creator, The Great Hakurei Barrier is the Barrier that covers all of Gensokyo. This barrier affects all living things around it and like other “Otherworlds” contains its own set of laws and properties to it, such as time passing extremely slowly. The Barrier reacts to anything with a conscious, and prevents any movement in and out. Trying to find the “Barrier Line” will only cause the scenery to stretch out. While concepts like the sun and movement of clouds can happen, this is because of the “wall of sense” the barrier has. Even when Remillia’s group traveled to the moon, they technically never left Gensokyo because of the barrier.
The “Boundary of Fantasy and Reality” is the second barrier surrounding Gensokyo. This is what establishes Gensokyo as a world of fantasy, and the Outside World as a world of reality. Because Youkai can prevail and increase their strength within Gensokyo, and the humans have expanded their territory and forces worldwide, this has the effect of gathering youkai towards Gensokyo. Because of the barrier's influence on the “inside” and “outside”, it has a worldwide effect, causing Youkai to arrive overseas.
Gaps
The most visibly consistent ability that Yukari uses within the series. Gaps are well…gaps in space that act as a kind of portal that Yukari can use, but seemingly no one else can. Yukari most commonly uses gaps for travel and can even siphon energy in a gap to use later. Yukari has plenty of attacks in which she uses a gap, such as separating herself in the middle of attacks and often summoning objects such as traffic signs or the all mighty and destructive force of nature: The Train.
Dimensional Travel
Yukari’s gaps often can be used to travel to different worlds, primarily through Gensokyo (which is again established to be its own separate world) and the Outside World. Gaps can also be used to simply peek into other worlds, as seen with Maribel (a user who only began awakening her boundary powers) peeking through multiple worlds through gaps. Other examples of this include:
Yanked Sumireko out of the Dream World
Weakened the barrier between the Netherworld and living world, making it easier for people to travel between them
Maribel has also used this power to travel back 100 years in the past.
Other Boundary Powers
Yukari has a notable amount of abilities and powers that are in some fashion connected to her boundary manipulation. Due to their ability to affect “anything” Yukari has a variety of unique skills because of this.
Dream and Reality Manipulation: With the Spell Card “Barrier ‘Curse of Dreams and Reality” can attack with an “eternally expanding dream” and a “rapidly shrinking reality”.
Antimatter Manipulation: The Spell Card known as “Universe of Matter and Antimatter” implies some manner of utilizing antimatter.
Fusion (Potentially): While not explicitly shown by her, the nature of the existence of boundaries implies that removing certain boundaries could fuse objects together. Marisa has also questioned her abilities before as a “Fusion type of thing”
Void Manipulation: The Spell Card “Border Sign ‘Boundary of Form and Emptiness”, which gives the target nowhere to hide as described by Aya.
Life and Death Manipulation: Has been noted multiple times to manipulate the boundary of life and death. She has even threatened Mokou with a near death experience by having her cross said boundary.
Light and Darkness manipulation: Her spell card “Barrier Mesh of Light and Darkness” burries the opponent in a mysterious light and seemingly darkness. She also lit up a lamp so bright it knocked Luna Child out.
Physics Manipulation: Border Sign “Boundary of Wave and Particle” manipulates waves and particles.
Space-Time manipulation: Manipulates the border between day and night casually (33:24-35:23).
BFR: Can “Spirit Away” people which drags them from the Outside World into Gensokyo.
Existence Erasure: As stated in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, boundaries are a power of creation and destruction, and Yukari can create or reject an existence, thus destroying it.
Invisibility: Becomes invisible when using “Boundary of Humans and Youkai”.
Non-Physical Interaction: Beyond interaction with spirits, Yukari can fire danmaku comprised of Dreams, Shadows, and Illusions.
Law Manipulation: During AOCF, she managed to flip the border between “master and slave”, thus allowing Reimu to possess Joon rather than Joon possessing Reimu.
Sleep Manipulation: Can manipulate the border between asleep and awake, thus causing noctambulism.
Weather Manipulation: Has stated she can easily manipulate the border between winter and spring
Durability Negation: Can use boundaries to cut people and in her card “Boundary of Intellect and Feet” its stated drawing a boundary on anything means there’s nothing she cannot cut in two.
Clairvoyance: Her “Magic Eye Laplace Demon” can detect weaknesses in enemies and seemingly help her know what’s going on in Gensokyo at all times.
Power Nullification: Dispelled Reimu’s illusion and forced Suika out of her mist form.
Attack Reflection: “Rest on Stone, Rinse on Rivers” absorbs enemy attacks and shoots them back out.
Gravity Manipulation: “Barrier Charming Quadruple Barrier” sucks the opponent in.
Vector Manipulation: Implied through the Spell Card “Barrier Balance of Motion and Stillness”
Misc. Powers
Telepathy: Luna Child could still hear her voice after all sound was cut around her.
Paralysis: Her “Yakumo’s Nest” can paralyze enemies.
Manipulating Equations: Can use math equations to raise the power level of Ran.
Resistances:
BFR: If using her powers wasn’t a basic counter, Reimu used boundary powers to avoid being banished out of the “Land of the Backdoor”. This was cited as being something Yukari likely taught her.
Madness Manipulation: Youkai naturally resist the full moon which can drive people mad.
Illusion: As pointed out above, Youkai are both naturally immune to illusions and Yukari casually saw through Reimu’s illusion.
Biological Manipulation: Because Youkai lack concepts like DNA and Blood, its likely they are immune to different forms of biological manipulation.
Transmutation (possibly): Due to Youkai having the ability to manipulate their forms and shapeshift, its possible for them to resist transmutation
Extreme Heat: Its mentioned that Youkai cannot suffer heatstroke
Mind Manipulation: Wasn’t affected by Suika’s ability, which can gather the thoughts of people. She can also survive being around phantoms who are noted to affect the minds of people around them.
Poison: Has visited Marisa who’s house is in the “Forest of Magic”, which contains mushrooms that worsen a human’s health just by breathing them.
Sleep Manipulation: Can fight and take hits from Doremy, who can weaponize Dream Souls. These souls on contact can put people to sleep.
Death Manipulation: Can survive being around ghosts, who can kill with just a touch.
Soul Manipulation: Survived being within Tenshi’s scarlet mist, which was absorbing souls.
Feats
Strength
Casually blocks a mallet swing from Rinnousuke, who described it as hitting a pillow.
Her powers are described to “undermine all of reality”
Speed
Flew across the Sea of Serenity, Sea of Rains, and Ocean of Storms on the moon.
Can fire bullets of light (Milk’s power is specifically bending light)
Durability
Scaling
Yukari has been regarded as really powerful in multiple profiles, even at one point called “the strongest youkai”. While this title may not fully matter she’s the only boss in the entire series with the title of “Phantasm Boss”. She has duked it out with multiple top tier characters such as Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and Remilla (even if its implied). With this in mind she basically gets every major feat in the series thus far.
Reimu
Flew to the corner of Makai, an infinite realm (as well as the other protagonists of UFO)
Marisa
Her Mini Hakkero has been stated to turn a mountain to ashes
The Asteroid Belt Spell Card has been stated to separate two large planets.
The Master Spark is treated as light speed in the series. Yorihime outright cuts it stating how easy it is to cut through light and uses a mirror god to reflect it. She has also claimed it could counter one of Keine’s spell cards because the speed of light is unchanging through space time.
Suika
Has shattered the Heavens while drunk
Other
Meiling’s energy would be used to power the Catfish who will cause the Earth to tremble and the lands to disintegrate.
While this was a dream, it should be noted that dreams are equal to reality, implying the accomplishments shouldn’t be impossible for Meiling.
Sakuya has been stated to be “faster than light”
Miko can create a realm called “Senkai”, which contains its own moon
Tenshi’s Dream Self was capable of shaking and almost destroying Heaven
While Heaven doesn’t have a 100% confirmed size there have been multiple citations for its size. Notably a god named Amitabha resides there and is 6×10125 yojana tall. This would come out to being over 1.82 Untrigintillion times larger than our own universe. (Credit to this blog for the calc)
Other sources note that there are as many Heavens as there are gods, which would at the bare minimum be 8 million gods, though as the source notes the number would likely be much higher.
Another note is that it is stated to be bigger than the Netherworld (and contain multiple worlds to boot) and by proxy bigger than Hell. Hell has been noted to be infinite in size
Doremy can consume and create dreams, which have been stated to be other realities.
Shinki created Makai, which is infinite in size.
Weaknesses
On the real in spite of everything Yukari is not completely infallible. Her boundary powers in some cases have had limits, as noted when she could not reach the Fantastic Side of the Moon without a full moon. It’s noted however that a trap had been set prior after the initial first invasion, implying it was possible beforehand.
Yukarii also seems to not be immune to the effects of possession. She was possessed by a spirit during the events of Foul Detector Satori and while she could rewrite the rules of “Perfect Possession”, this didn’t remove the possession, merely changed who was possessing her.
Lastly, as shown by the image above, even Yukari can occasionally be put out of the loop, though this is usually by people just as smart as Yukari (which is very small).
Overall
So if you couldn’t tell by some of these descriptions Yukari can be a preeeeeeeeeetty hard opponent to deal with in most circumstances. Her general status in the series gives her practically every form of notable scaling in the series which leaves her with some very good AP, Dura, and Speed stats overall, especially if you go with the high ends of “infinite” statements.
The real difficulty comes in with her many abilities, mainly through her boundary powers. Their abstract nature in series essentially gives her many different applications behind it, giving her many options of dealing with an opponent in battle. Between simply just manipulating gravity or outright erasing you with them, Yukari’s powers are a force of nature that most won’t have an understanding of at first. Her shikigami can also be summoned at any time, being just as strong as Yukari and having their very own set of abilities to boot.
Arguably Yukari’s intellect is the most dangerous part of all of this. A master manipulator at heart, Yukari can figure out people pretty handily and if possible use that to her advantage. Her powers may be dangerous but the real trouble is the fact that she is one of the smartest people in Gensokyo, and no matter the situation is always three steps ahead of everyone, no matter how strong or how weak.
Possible Opponents
Tsurubami Senri (Len’En Project)
Probably the idea that really resonates the most with me for a Yukari opponent.
Extremely powerful characters who debut as extra bosses
Maintain the balance between their illusionary worlds and Outside Worlds
Manipulative as fuck and are behind major events of the series
Exoteric powers that relate to alternate dimensions
Yukari is a Youkai while Tsurubami is a Youkai Hunter so woo
If the name wasn’t obvious Len’En is a Touhou inspired series with the series creator being responsible for remakes of the PC-98 games
While Len’En does have obvious Touhou inspirations it has branched off into its own thing with the most recent game being a weird hotel RPG, so it has its own unique qualities to it and wouldn’t puuuuurely be Touhou vs Other Touhou.
Ecolo (Puyo Puyo)
Something something dimension hopping powers. I just had this to fill out more than one.
Palutena (Kid Icarus)
Not a fight but like an hour long philosophical conversation over the nature of humanity and if it's truly beneficial to the survival of beings that are not of human nature like just give them a podcast or something.
Or they can fight as well that works too.
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