/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>18538866
Regardless of who came up with this, I really like it. It's almost a little depressing knowing that ZUN will never reveal stuff as interesting as this.

So what DO we know about Yukari?

The oldest known record of a youkai matching her description is found in the first edition of the Gensokyo Chronicle, from 1,200 years ago. She was not referred to as Yakumo Yukari back then, and it is theorized in PMiSS that she picked that name herself at a later time.

It appears that Yukari was already very powerful and influential over 1,000 years ago. Somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 years ago she rallied countless youkai in an attempt to invade the moon. The invasion attempt was a complete failure in the sense that the Lunarians quickly defeated the youkai army, and forced them to retreat. While the official justification for the invasion was to steal the Lunarians' power source, Yukari is known for her hidden ulterior motives, and bringing them to fruition with far-fetched, convoluted plans. PMiSS theorizes that Yukari never counted on the plan succeeding, and was just trying to teach the youkai a lesson about overstepping their territory, but in CiLR she shows visible embarrassment over her past defeat.

In the same time frame, between 1,000 and 1,200 years ago, Yukari befriended the living human Yuyuko Saigyouji. When Yuyuko eventually took her own life in despair over her own abilities, an unnamed individual used her corpse to seal the Saigyou Ayakashi, stating: "My wish... is that she will never again reincarnate, and never again suffer pain...". Yuyuko's ghost form is still one of Yukari's best friends to this day, but there's something else to this story which I find the most interesting: it shows (if the unnamed individual was indeed her) that Yukari is capable of strong feelings of empathy, an emotion which is not often ascribed to youkai, and in particular not towards humans.

After these event, there are (to my knowledge) no records of Yukari until modern time, around the Meiji Restoration in 1866, when The Sages group >>18539255 was formed which proposed and created The Great Hakurei Barrier. Yukari then took an active role in managing their newly created, walled-off society (eventually offloading much of the work on Ran), while the other sages went into hiding, only to re-appear in the last 10 years. Yukari seems to have a clear, long-term plan in mind for Gensokyo where youkai will once again rule the night all over the world. When the Zashiki-warashi temporarily re-appeared in the outside world, Yukari saw it as a rare opportunity, pic related.

So in conclusion, is it meaningful trying to discern Yukari's "true nature" or her (its?) origins? We know that she is the immensely powerful youkai of boundaries, capable of manipulating any boundary to a great (but not unlimited, the Watatsuki sisters of the moon have specific powers greatly exceeding hers) extent. Yukari's physical manifestation is that of a tall, young, adult, human-lookalike woman with blonde hair. Some youkai are known for being able to choose their own physical appearance, but we don't know if this applies to her. The trend seems to be that the more civilized and/or intelligent youkai have chosen forms that are nearly identical to that of humans.