Yukari Yakumo vs Tsurbami Senri
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.” Other Youkai such as Yuuma have shown to regenerate from being destroyed completely. More than likely they can regenerate from their souls with this in mind. 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, 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.
Komachi can increase the Sanzu River’s width to be infinite
Sumireko used the Lunar Occult Ball, which had “infinite power” flowing out of it like a “white hole”
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).
Tsurubami Senri
It's quite tiring, having to hold myself back in one fight after another like this...
Backstory
The head priest of the Senri Shrine, little is exactly known about Tsurbami’s past beyond the fact that they hailed from the Outside World. What is known is that at some point they made it into Mugenri and tyrannically ruled over it with an iron fist, oppressing its people and its youkai. Because of their immense power that nobody dared to challenge, several youkai began hiding during the day. For a while this was life for the people of Mugenri, and despite their dictatorship style of ruling, Tsurubami kept the nation from collapsing upon itself.
Things would begin to change one day when Tsurbami decided that they needed a vacation and wanted to go to the Outside World (though it's speculated they had other reasons). Mugenri however needed a priest to attend to youkai extermination while they were away. To accomplish this Tsurubami would drag several people from the Outside World, then disguise themselves as Tsubakaura to test the strength of the outsiders. Afterwards they would confront Yabusame and the real Tsubakura to who were the top candidates of being worthy successors. After the two passed their test Tsurubami would take off to the Outside World for their vacation. Unfortunately their absence caused a major rise in youkai incidents, leaving Yabusume and Tsubakura to fend them off on their own.
Since then Tsurubami has continued their vacation, with many unknown of their true motives. What can be said is when they finally return, a new age of Mugenri will surely follow.
Weapons
Charms
The charms that are around Tsurubami’s clothes are stated to be their weapons that they can words on
Swords
While not fully elaborated on, one of their attacks produces seemingly “Double Swords”
Spell Cards
Like Touhou, Spell Cards are the primary method of attack throughout the series. While it takes a while to make one, once created the user can make indefinite copies of them. The cards can be used by anyone, but because a card contains a portion of the user's power a card can be too strong for the user in question and be weakened in the process. Only the original user can make use of a card's true power. Tsurubami themselves has around 28 spell cards to use.
Powers And Abilities
Youkai Extermination Techniques
BFR
With one of their jobs being to maintain the Mugenri Barrier, Tsurubami can “spirit away” people into Mugenri, a world that’s separated from reality. Tsurubami in particular spirited away people to the Dimensional Airspaces within the Dimensional Cave, an area that only opens up when two dimensions are connected. The airspaces are noted to be in “interdimensional space”
Dimension Related Techniques
Tsurubami has some ability to create and mess with general dimensions. They is noted as the creator of the airspaces within the Dimensional Cave which are tailor made for specific characters. After the events of Evanescent Existence, she was able to close off these spaces as well. They also seem to have the ability to manipulate or utilize gaps, as their ending mentions them lying down in a dimension gap
Manipulating Letters
One of Tsurubami’s main techniques. By writing on talismans with ink Tsurubami can disguise themselves as anyone they please and imitate their attacks. They can perform this relatively quickly and seemingly switch between the disguise and their main form at a rapid pace. Throughout the main story of Evanescent Existence Tsurubami disguises themselves as Tsubakura in order to test the characters of the story.
Raising Poultry
The other main ability Tsurubami has is the ability to “raise poultry”. More specifically they can raise the latent potential of something besides themselves. She can do this either through touch or by deploying a barrier that utilizes the ability in question. While there isn’t a blatant size for the barrier, we see it surrounds a large portion of the area in Evanescent Existence.
The most notable part is after they accomplish this they can make use of the strength and effectively copy their opponents abilities, regardless if the ability was already present or awakened through her power. This has allowed Tsurubami to make several techniques based on other opponents they have fought in series.
Copied Powers
Crossing Dimensions: Yabusame’s main ability, which as the name makes very clear, allows them to barge into other dimensions easily. They are capable of creating hyper dimension pockets, allowing them to store objects within them. This has even allowed them to enter areas that aren’t accessible to others, such as the corridor within the Dimensional Cave.
Manipulating Ink: Tsubakura’s main ability. Despite the name its described as utilizing nanomachines, allowing them to materialize swords made of ink and change its shape depending on their mood.
Manipulating Whirlpools: Aoji Shitodo’s main ability. This allows them to create whirlpools, be it in gasses, liquids, or solids.
Controlling hot and cold: Hooaka’s main ability. While specializing primarily in heat Hooaka has shown using both hot and cold effects, with implications of sub-zero attacks.
Manipulating Gravity: Clause’s main ability. Clause is able to manipulate gravity of all things, and is able to focus said ability into black holes and other gravity related danmaku.
Reverse Front and Back: Kruoji’s main ability. They are able to use this ability to reverse things, be it the danmaku they fire or even the positions of themselves and the opponent.
Resistances
Electricity, Confusion, Death, Critical Hits, and Evasion Debuffs/Effects: In “Book of Cafe” Tsurubami has resistances to the named spells, debuffs, and status effects.
Probability Manipulation (Possibly): Its established that Xeno A and Tsurubami often fight to the death, with Xeno A admitting they are the only person to make them feel real terror. Xeno A’s ability allows them to manipulate probability, to the point where they can reduce their chances of injury or accidents down to zero, something which is referenced as making them immortal. While its not fully clear how Tsurubami accomplished this, they are the only one to give Xeno A a real battle, meaning its very likely they can possibly nullify or are just immune to probability manipulation.
Time Manipulation and Memory Manipulation (possibly): Due to copying the powers of Yabusame, it's arguable that they can resist the powers of Suzumi. Suzumi is able to overwrite memories and rewind history as a whole. Despite this, it is pointed out that rewind doesn’t work on Yabusame and memory overwriting is “faint”.
Feats
Strength
As mentioned above is responsible for creating the dimensional airspaces. One of these spaces includes entire stars, with the final stage specifically being called “Sun That Casts a Shadow”.
These suns could be contested however. It’s pointed out that the sun in the “Sun That Cast a Shadow” was releasing the opposite of light, possibly sucking it in. It has also been referred to as a “star-like object”. That being said it's been stated to just be a sun at different points and the sun in the previous stage appears to be a normal sun.
Speed
Durability
Is the only character to never have a traditional “damaged” portrait
Lol I got nothing for this one
Scaling
Tsurubami is confirmed to be the strongest character in all of Len’en Project. They consistently hold back against everyone and many characters have noted they wouldn’t stand a chance against them. JynX even states he doubts anyone can defeat Tsurubami. Needless to say they get all the notable feats in the series.
Adagumo splits the sky which is confirmed multiple times
Lumen blows up multiple mountains, which tears a hole in the Mugenri Barrier
Weaknesses
While they seem invincible, Tsurubami does have some notable cracks in their armor. While it is easy for them to spirit people away inside of Mugenri, it's notably difficult to actually send themselves or others back into the Outside World. Even Yabusume’s dimension crossing ability is noted to have a difficult time exiting the barrier that surrounds Mugenri.
Book of the Cafe also seems to give them other weaknesses, namely spirits/illusions attacks, defense and special defense debuff spells, and sleep and fear status effects. They also seem to not be immune to soul manipulation, as it's stated their soul can be consumed, though the user would not gain the power of Tsurubami as a result.
Lastly their powers seem to notably weaken outside of Mugenri, making them fighting in the Outside World seemingly pointless.
Verdict
Stats
So if it wasn’t pretty well established Yukari takes this category by a very large margin. The absolute highest you can currently argue for Tsurubami is Star level based on the suns that are present within the airspaces in the first game and FTL via Clause’s Black Holes, both of which can be contested. Going with what would be considered “safe” would cap Tsurubami at City-Large City level via the mountain explosions, and Mach 2 from Tsubakura’s flight speed.
Meanwhile Yukari’s low ends would reach the same levels as Tsurubami’s high ends via the Suika black holes. When using the more realistic ends Yukari starts hitting Universal at least. This can be arguably way higher given the nature of Heaven’s size and the many ways to go about it. Her speed can have various numbers as well, but using the Palanquin Ship’s feat of traveling to a corner of Makai would net at least Quadrillion C numbers, and arguably infinite speed.
Needless to say Yukari has a massive edge in this department taking both at their acceptable ends. Even when just using her low ends Yukari would match and arguably outdo the highest Tsurubami currently has.
Powers and Abilities
Both have extremely weird and out there powers to say the least. However as you begin to dissect them both you star to realize who has more cracks in their armor.
Yukari’s Boundary Powers have just blatantly better applications all around. Her gaps basically give her free roam of any world she pleases, allowing easy maneuverability and trickery on her end. As attacks they also provide far better options and counters to the powers Tsurubami currently has. Whether it's redirecting any projectiles with gaps, summoning her shikigami to increase her numbers, detecting weaknesses with her clairvoyance, or just being able to outright cut Tsurubami in half with her boundary powers, Yukari’s options are plentiful. To make matters worse, abilities such as manipulating the boundary between asleep and awake and attacking with dreams and illusions directly target weaknesses that Tsurubami is noted to have. By contrast, none of Tsurubami’s copied powers have any direct counter or can properly answer the arsenal Yukari can throw at them at basically any given time. Even the “youkai extermination” techniques are extremely vague and given Yukari’s encounters with people like Reimu, it's unlikely she’d be put down easily by the aforementioned techniques.
The only power that could turn the tides is Tsurubami’s “raising poultry” power, which would allow them to copy Yukari’s abilities and stats. Said situation wouldn’t be impossible to happen as it requires a simple touch, and Tsurubami can deploy a barrier that would allow them to copy as long as Yukari is within. Granted Yukari’s stats would just make this situation nigh impossible but let’s just say Tsurubami does pull it off. Does this turn the tides?
Well not exactly. While having all of Yukari’s powers would be extremely useful, it's never established that Tsurubami gains instant knowledge of all the powers they copy, just the ability to use them. While some of the powers are familiar like the gap related abilities, some of them would be completely foreign to Tsurubami. It’d be Tsurubami trying to figure out how to use all of their new abilities against Yukari who basically knows her powers inside and out and has used them far longer. Even if Tsurubami had some perfect knowledge of every ability possible and how to use them, they have one weakness that Yukari can exploit easily: They’re powers weakening outside of Mugenri.
Even when they copy powers, Tsurubami’s powers are noted to be weaker in the Outside World. All Yukari has to do is take the fight in any way outside of the confines of Mugenri, and the advantage swings back in her favor. Given Yukari’s intelligence, it wouldn’t be hard for her to figure out Tsurubami’s weakness throughout the fight and eventually exploit it.
In short, Yukari’s options are way too varied and tricky for Tsurubami to properly deal with. Even if Tsurubami manages to copy Yukari’s powers, their lack of knowledge on how to use all of them on top of still having a major weakness would give Yukari the edge in the end.
Tertiary Factors
Being thousands of years old gives Yukari far more experience and more knowledge in general, especially when she has fought and even taught Reimu techniques before, someone who is also a youkai exterminator. She has also shown just more impressive plans of intellect in general, albeit this largely comes with the territory of having way more games and content in comparison. Not helping Tsurubami is the fact that Yukari’s world is full of geniuses, making Yukari’s ability to play practically all of them far more notable for her planning and manipulation.
In short short, Yukari simply has more experience on her hands and far more documented crazy billion IQ plans, thus giving her the edge in this category.
Summary
Sooooo yeah if it wasn’t clear Yukari seems to have a clear edge in all big categories. This is largely because Len’En Project doesn’t nearly have the same amount of content as Touhou, leading to Tsurubami falling behind, but this also just due to Yukari’s powers and abilities being extremely overwhelming and having blatant answers to weaknesses that Tsurubami is noted to have. Possibly in the future this can change, especially given how blatant some of Len’En Project’s feats tend to be.
In Summary:
Yukari takes the stat trinity in spades. Even when sticking to her absolute low ends and Tsurubami highest of highs, at worst it evens them out. At best Yukari has a massive edge that Tsurubami cannot match.
Yukari’s powers are far more varied and capable of overwhelming Tsurubami at multiple points. She also has abilities that directly answer noted weaknesses that Tsurubami has such as dream related attacks and sleep manipulation.
Even if Tsurubami could copy Yukari somehow, they would not have full extensive knowledge or experience using these powers, and this wouldn’t remove the key weakness of their powers being massively weakened when thrown out of Mugenri
Yukari has been around longer, has fought and even taught similar youkai exterminators, and has far more and better examples of intellect and planning within her series.
The winner is Yukari Yakumo
So yeah this wasn’t exactly debatable, largely cause Len’en isn’t exactly has extensive as Touhou but I figured I would just make this as a little bonus since I had looked into both characters. Hope you enjoyed it and all that noise.
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