Yukari Yakumo (八雲 紫, Yakumo Yukari) is a devious, gap youkai that serves a huge role in Touhou Project. She is one of Gensokyo's sages who shaped Gensokyo to where it is, but that also means she's rather old as reflected by her nocturnal schedule and hibernation patterns.

While she is highly intellectual, she often comes off as suspicious due to her strange methods and tendency to manipulate situations. That aside, she has a programmed shikigami named Ran Yakumo who executes tasks like maintaining the Great Hakurei Barrier.

Yukari is a tall, slender¹⁾ woman with tied ribbons in her long blonde hair, eyes of purple or gold, a mob cap with a big red ribbon, and white gloves at times. Her main outfit is a simple purple dress with frilled edges. Meanwhile, her alternate outfit is a Chinese-style tabard, indicative of her origins, over a white dress. She has some other looks in the print works as well, but those are mostly variants of her original outfit.

She has a considerably dangerous ability to manipulate boundaries, which would carry immense pressure to those who aren't as strange as her. Aside from creating gaps to connect distant areas, this ability can manipulate the boundaries of fantasy and reality, water and air, night and day, and so on. She can also use it to mess with the dream world, real world, netherworld, and very rarely, the moon.

Moving on, she also has superhuman intellect and can instantly do complex calculations such as figuring out the depth and width of the Sanzu River, or the time it'd take for the Big Dipper to fully eat Polaris. As for her physical ability, she has youkai strength as one would expect, but not like Hong Meiling or Yuuka Kazami. She can also communicate through one's heart, but nobody except Luna Child has ever experienced this.

“The border between day and night are already within my hands.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Perfect Cherry Blossom, she is the phantasm stage boss who was actually asked to patch up the damage that Yuyuko had done to the Great Hakurei Barrier, but Yukari hadn't finished hibernating yet. Our heroine attempts to rush this but ends up attacking her shinigami, only to be told to return at night. When they return, they find Yukari who gives the heroine a rather stern message before fighting.

• Reimu: Reimu finds Yukari, and Yukari recognizes Reimu as the Hakurei Shrine's miko, but Reimu is more focused on fixing the barrier and complaining about her job, so Yukari doesn't say much.
• Marisa: Marisa notices the moon's brightness as Yukari shows up. Yukari attempts to explain how the moonlight actually strengthens youkai, but Marisa keeps quipping at her.
• Sakuya: Sakuya wonders about the Netherworld's structure, then Yukari presents herself as a rather cunning person before warning her of what lies beyond, though Sakuya seems unphased.

After being defeated, she brings up two of three things: how she was hibernating up until now, how she lives along the northeastern edge of the barrier near the Hakurei Shrine, and spiriting away.

In Immaterial and Missing Power, Yukari serves as the penultimate boss for almost every scenario, except her own and Suika's scenario. She is unlocked once Remilia and Yuyuko are defeated in story mode.

“Jeez, you're full of questions. Your business with me is this?”
– Yukari Yakumo

For the most part, Yukari shows up at the feast around 17:00 (5:00pm) and brought premium ginjō sake¹⁹⁾ to the party, but nobody actually invited her since they didn't know where she lived at the time and Yukari just decides to drop in after hearing Ran talk about it. This causes people to get suspicious about her and attack, but Yukari knew that Suika was responsible for the incident the entire time.

• Reimu, Border Line: Yukari joins the feast with sake, but Reimu doesn't recall inviting her since she doesn't know where she lives and gets suspicious. Yukari plays along and fights anyways.
• Marisa, Border Line: Yukari joins the feast with sake, mentioning that Remilia brought over brandy, but Marisa can't help but deem her suspicious and claims to be after Yukari's premium ginjō sake.
• Sakuya, Border Line: Sakuya asks Reimu for Yukari when she drops in. Sakuya accuses of being the culprit, but she's clueless. Yukari talks about her ginjō sake, but Sakuya doesn't care about it.
• Alice, Border Line: Yukari drops in and Alice explains the incident. Yukari talks about the culprit, but Alice misinterprets her message and ends up attacking Yukari insead.
• Patchouli, Border Line: Patchouli asks Reimu about Yukari when she drops in. They actually have a pretty straightforward conversation about the true culprit. Yet, Yukari decides to step in her way.
• Youmu, Border Line: Yukari jokes about Youmu's slashing and Youmu is surprised that she's here. Yukari explains that she's just here for the feast, but Youmu decides to attack her anyways.
• Remilia, Border Line: Remilia chats with Reimu when Yukari drops in. Now, both of them accuse each other of plotting something and basically figure that they're gonna fight with each other here.
• Yuyuko, Border Line: Yuyuko makes small talk with Reimu, but Yukari drops in and notes that she's rather lenient with info gathering. They insult each other with tea analogies before fighting.

“Alright, play time is over.”
– Yukari Yakumo

On the day of the feast, Yukari bothers everyone about the sake they planned to bring. Remilia had brandy, Alice had wine, Youmu had unrefined sake, Marisa had shōchū, Reimu had premium ginjō sake,²⁰⁾ and Yuyuko had some old sake. In short, she fights everyone and confiscates all of these to show Suika that sake won't be served this time, telling her to share her gourd and end the incident. Suika refuses, so they fight.

Her ending reveals that Suika and Yukari show up to the banquet with Suika's gourd that Yukari claims was hers. Everyone starts to examine the gourd. Suika explains why it only pours one cup at a time and Yukari reveals that her plan was to draw Suika out and have her share it. There's some discussion of the oni's tool being a gourd and hints that the once isolated Gensokyo will see an influx of many foreign things.

In addition, she has three other versus dialogue coded into the game:

• “Shooting, slashing, stabbing, striking, slaying… It's all useless against me.”
• “Gensokyo accepts everything? That's a cruel story.”
• “I'll tell you a secret. My weakness are… nonexistent.”

“She's just like that rabbit from before. There's too many lunatics in here.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Imperishable Night, the prologue reveals that Yukari lives in a old mansion at the edge of Gensokyo and sensed a slight abnormality from an unknown, powerful enemy, so she decides to drag Reimu in who she describes as a bored, carefree person. The two pair up as the “Illusionary Barrier Team” (幻想の結界チーム, Gensō no Kekkai Chīmu), though Reimu is agitated since she woke her up at 11pm.

Yukari promises to repay her, then Wriggle interrupts them. Mystia runs into them next, assuming they were humans. Yukari gives their excuse, but Reimu accidentally tipped off that she is human. The two run into Keine who hid the Human Village. Reimu deems her suspicious, but Yukari insists on ignoring her as she can see through her illusion. They cross paths with Marisa next, get blamed, and fight all the way to Eientei.

Inside Eientei, they find Reisen with the mastermind, Eirin, and Reisen tries to hold them back. They run into a fork in the road next and Reimu will either lead them to Eirin (the normal boss) or get a hunch and find Kaguya instead (the true boss). If they pursue Eirin, the two have no idea what she's saying and beat her up. If they find Kaguya, they have a meta joke about danmaku shooters before playing with her.

Depending on the time and final boss, their story can end in three different ways: they'll either get drunk and watch the moon (normal ending) with Kaguya (good ending), or simply ditch the mission (bad ending).

“Would a photo capture this?”
– Aya Shameimaru

In Shoot the Bullet, Aya had trouble with Yukari on Stage Ex-3 but “nothing's a match for her camera”, then Aya says that her spell card on Stage Ex-4 is hypnotic but she's unsure if it could be captured.

“I told you earlier, didn't I? I'm not chastising her, I'm gonna kill her.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Yukari is a playable character by default and serves as: Remilia's final boss, Youmu's fourth boss, Iku's penultimate boss, then Reisen's penultimate boss. Since all of the scenarios interlock with each other, these events are ordered like a timeline. Basically, Yukari meddles around and she winds up causing the Hakurei Shrine's second destruction because she doesn't trust Tenshi with it.

• ※ The Hakurei Shrine is destroyed.
• Remilia, Final Stage: Yukari finds Remilia playing “armchair detective” in her mansion and informs her who the suspect actually is. Remilia can't do much by herself, so she tells Yukari to resolve it.
• Youmu, Stage 4: Yukari pulls Youmu aside from the Genbu Ravine to the Forest of Magic and gives her some training. Youmu would eventually realize that the suspect is in the clouds.
• ※ The Hakurei Shrine starts being rebuilt by the Celestials.
• Iku, Stage 5: Yukari and Iku meet in the Mysterious Sea of Clouds to discuss the next earthquake. Eventually, Yukari gives her the hint that the culprit is somewhere around the Hakurei Shrine.
• Yukari, Stage 1: Yukari finds Reimu fixing up her shrine, spars with Reimu for a bit, then proceeds to chase after Tenshi in order to punish her in person.
• Yukari, Stage 2: As Yukari climbs up (warps to) Youkai Mountain, she finds Komachi at the Genbu Ravine for whatever reason and reprimands her for slacking off on the job again.
• Yukari, Stage 3: At the Youkai Mountain summit, Yukari finds Marisa seeking to nab invaluable items from the heavens. Yukari berates her for this and gets Marisa to leave.
• Yukari, Stage 4: In Bhavaagra, Yukari runs into Iku who has a better understanding of the situation but informs Yukari that Tenshi is still on Earth. Just to make sure, Yukari roughs Iku up a bit.
• Yukari, Stage 5: Yukari returns to the Hakurei Shrine still in repairs and finds Suika who doesn't have much to say to Yukari, so Yukari rests for a bit.
• Yukari, Final Stage: Yukari crashes Tenshi's attempt to reopen the shrine because she figured out that Tenshi had built a room for herself in it. This battle ends up destroying the shrine again.
• ※ The Hakurei Shrine is destroyed again.
• Reisen, Stage 3: Reisen tries to check out the new shrine, but it was already destroyed. Yukari bars her from investigating since she doesn't want Lunarians messing with the Keystone.
• Yukari, Ending: Yukari doesn't show up for her own scenario's ending, but we get told that the oni and tengu will rebuild Reimu's shrine, and that Yukari instructed Suika to look after the Keystone.
• ※ The Hakurei Shrine is rebuilt by the Oni and Tengu.

In addition, she has one other versus dialogue coded into the game:

• “I don't want to be insensitive, but I am insensitive.”

”(If you own shikigami, I want you to program it yourself. With no bugs.)“
– Yukari Yakumo

In Subterranean Animism, she rigs Reimu's yin-yang orbs or Alice's dolls to allow for communication between the heroine and their ally which is how she gets brought up in most of the scenarios. Furthermore, Yukari reprises her role as Reimu's ally, though not physically, and pushes her to investigate the underground in the Reimu/Yukari route.

She starts off by telling Reimu to just beat Yamame and Parsee as they pass through, but then they run into Yuugi and Yukari actually chats with her, mentioning a promise with the oni. After Yuugi spars with Reimu, they head to the mansion where Yukari goes back to telling Reimu to just beat everyone up. Satori gives a bit of insight, Orin leads the way, then they find Utsuho and Yukari can tell that she ate some god up.

For the bad ending, Reimu couldn't withstand the heat and headed home. For the real ending, Yukari gaps into the snowy Hakurei Shrine and brought Orin in cat form over, explaining that she's responsible for the vengeful spirits ascending and suggests that Reimu keep Orin around the shrine. However, dead bodies kept disappearing once Orin started surfacing and humans sorta caught on with a rumor.

In Touhou Hisoutensoku, she isn't in the game by default, but she is playable in versus mode if you configure Touhou Hisoutensoku to look for the Scarlet Weather Rhapsody files. Otherwise, that's it.

In Hopeless Masquerade, she makes a minor cameo as a background character, spectating fights that occur at the Hakurei Shrine from its rooftop while her shinigami spectate from the ground.

In Impossible Spell Card, she appears on the tenth and final day with two spell cards on Day 10-5 and 10-10, but there's no real dialogue in the game. It is implied that Seija took her gap-folding umbrella though.

In Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, she makes a cameo on Marisa's legacy ending where she gaps into Marisa's house to ask about the Lunar Capital's power stone she got from Sagume, then leaves.

“Oh, but aren't all these dream selves rampaging in Gensokyo against the rules?”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Antinomy of Common Flowers, she surprisingly reprises her role as a playable character, but she also serves as: Reimu and Kasen's final boss, Marisa and Koishi's penultimate boss, Mamizou and Mokou's penultimate boss, Byakuren and Miko's penultimate boss, Sumireko and Doremy's penulatimate boss, and Tenshi and Shinmyoumaru's final boss. Of course, she does have her own scenario with Reimu.

• Reimu and Kasen, Stage 4: Yukari jumps in as Reimu and Kasen discuss the incident at the Hakurei Shrine, which gets her accused right off the bat and leads to a fight.
• Marisa and Koishi, Stage 4: Yukari finds Marisa and Koishi at the Concert Stage and congratulates them on tracing the incident there, but challenges them before they get to see the mastermind.
• Mamizou and Mokou, Stage 4: Yukari finds Mamizou and Mokou at the Concert Stage, but she toys with them for a bit before Mokou informs Mamizou of her status and decide to fight her.
• Byakuren and Miko, Stage 4: Miko takes Byakuren to the Concert Stage when Yukari drops in and tells them to leave since she's investigating the incident herself, but the two agree to fight her.
• Sumireko and Doremy, Stage 4: Yukari drags Sumireko out of the dream world into Gensokyo. After fighting, Doremy gives a rather detailed explanation before asking where Sumireko's dream self is.
• Tenshi and Shinmyoumaru, Stage 5: Yukari and Reimu run into Tenshi and Shinmyoumaru at the Concert Stage, hinting at the dream self plot before Tenshi gets frustrated and decides to fight.

After the aforementioned scenarios, Reimu and Yukari find Joon and Shion at the Concert Stage and decide to put an end to their money-thieving shenanigans, so they fight as the concert starts. After a certain point, Yukari switches the Master and Slave role between the groups, leaving Reimu with an awakened Shion. Once again, Yukari isn't in her scenario's ending, but she is mentioned in Joon and Shion's scenario.

In Violet Detector, she is in Nightmare Saturday-1, Nightmare Saturday-4, and Nightmare Saturday-6 where she shares spell cards with Okina, Marisa, and Reimu, but she also makes an appearance in Nightmare Diary-3 where she shares a spell card with the real Sumireko. However, Sumireko doesn't have much to say regarding Yukari if anything at all.

“That youkai girl's smile is terribly ominous.”
– Rinnosuke Morichika (narration)

Her first appearance in Curiosities of Lotus Asia is merely a cameo in Chapter 10 where she reaches for Reimu's rice cracker while they have dinner at Kourindou. Then in Chapter 11, Reimu and Marisa try to summon her after Rinnosuke's heater ran out of fuel, despite it being winter when Yukari is normally hibernating.

At some point, they drag Yukari out and she meets Rinnosuke for the first time in his store, but he's a bit weary of her. Yukari calls his wares are old-fashioned, except for a white box (a music player). Marisa rushes her to refuel the heater, but she already did. Yukari shortly stuffs the portable item into her clothes.

She returns in Chapter 12 as Rinnosuke tries to smash a gray box (a Game Boy) with a mallet, but Yukari's slender hand⁴⁰⁾ intervenes and takes the item away. Rinnosuke figures it was Yukari, so he asks Marisa to speak to her. Yukari, awake at the Hakurei Shrine, sends a message restating that portable items are trendy in the outside world and hints at the existence of a dual-screen handheld (a Nintendo DS).

After that, she isn't mentioned until three years later in Chapter 24 where Reimu mimics Yukari talking about cherry blossoms. In Chapter 26, she appears on the cover but in the chapter, Reimu does describe when Yukari starts training her in Silent Sinner in Blue. Interestingly, Rinnosuke analyzes the etymology of Yukari's full name, suggesting that she picked her surname from a short tanka poem.⁴¹⁾

“The moonlight is far better than the power of sunlight.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Eastern and Little Nature Deity, she pokes around in the bonus comic where she's found at the Hakurei Shrine and blamed for the ongoing incident. Just moments after, she quickly finds the three fairies enjoying their prank and warps beside them, which scares them and makes the trio run away.

However, she has bigger role in the novel, “Fairy of the Moon”, where she stops Luna and determines that the foreign object she had wasn't dangerous. Yukari gives some advice, explaining that “Sankoueisetsu”⁴²⁾ is about the moon's power, and suggesting that fairies and youkai are similar in this regard.

“You treated the tree as a god, did you not?”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Strange and Bright Nature Deity, she cameos in recollections in Chapter 4 and Chapter 7, with Chapter 7 having Reimu recalling Yukari talking about how the outside world's snow has become artificial. Yukari also has a cameo in the Volume 2 bonus chapter that precede the events of Great Fairy Wars.

She finally comes in at Chapters 23, 24, and 25 where she tests the three fairies who plan on moving into a giant tree near the Hakurei Shrine on Gensokyo's boundary. Yukari deems them weak enough and lets them move in, but later figures out that the tree's god simply withered because Reimu forgot about it.

“Radio towers this short aren't used in the outside world anymore.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Oriental Sacred Place, she comes in at Chapter 10 to inform Reimu and Marisa about the radio tower's purpose, later revealing that she was eavesdropping on their conversation using the yin-yang orbs that she used to talk with Reimu back in Subterranean Animism. Reimu promptly disposes of them.

Afterwards, her next appearances are just cameos. Yukari can be seen at Luna's stall next to Suika in Chapter 12, then she's in the Chapter 18 recollection.

In Visionary Fairies in Shrine, she has one cameo in Chapter 6 with Yuyuko and Youmu at the Hakurei Shrine's cherry blossom viewing.

“I'll explain it again for Ran's sake: it's training, not abuse. Ran is a shikigami. If she doesn't do what I say, then she won't be able to show her full power.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Aya had published an article on Yukari titled “Youkai Practices Animal Abuse” in Hazuki Issue #3 of Season 119, which approximately equates to September or October 2004. This corresponds to a time frame directly after the events of Imperishable Night.

The article goes over how Aya ran into Yukari's animal abuse at 2am. Yukari tries to explain that it's not really animal abuse since she's a shikigami, not an animal, and explains that she's just disciplining her before continuing. Aya would then talk about how Yukari sees shikigami as tools.

For the interview, Yukari criticizes Aya's article and refutes her in detail again, yet Aya refuses to level with Yukari the entire interview. In an unrelated interview with Ran, it's revealed that she's able to perform complex calculations in an instant, but she also gives Ran unusual orders that nobody would think of.

“With this, even youkai outside of Japan have began migrating to Gensokyo.”
– Hieda no Akyuu

In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Akyuu puts Yukari down as a youkai who can be anywhere, seems okay with humans, but has an unknown threat level despite her dangerous abilities and the fact that she's a traditional, nocturnal youkai whose behavior is unlike humans. It's also stated that she's over 1,200 years old.⁴³⁾

Her abilities to manipulate boundaries is emphasized as dangerous and terrifying since it appears to be reality-defying, able to create or destroy at will. She also creates gaps to move herself, or parts of her, to different locations. Lastly, she has superhuman intellect with extensive experience and knowledge.

As for her daily life, she's quite talkative and willing to talk about herself or Gensokyo, but much of what she says can't be verified. She also lives among at the Great Hakurei Barrier like the Hakurei Shrine, though nobody has actually seen her house since she's difficult to follow. Additionally, she turned a beast youkai into a controllable shikigami dubbed “Ran” who does her work as she sleeps through the day and winter.

It's then suggested that Yukari had a huge part in Gensokyo's formation, and Akyuu notes that Yukari rarely attacks humans in Gensokyo. Akyuu also brings up a lot of speculative rumors about Yukari, like her house residing just outside the barrier, how she could be a youkai from the outside world who stops by to have fun, and how her dreams might as well be the outside world.⁴⁴⁾

Afterwards, the article goes into anecdotes about how she led the Genso-Lunar War over 1,000 years ago but lost, how she's responsible for Gensokyo's Youkai Expansion Project over 500 years ago, how she's among the sages that proposed the Great Hakurei Barrier which was controversial at the time, and how she purposely damaged the netherworld's boundary in Perfect Cherry Blossom.

For eyewitness reports, we have Reimu who was irritated about Yukari stealing her food, and Marisa saying that she keeps popping into her house. As for countermeasures, she rarely appears in the Human Village, but humans are advised to never challenge her since she can easily make any battle one-sided in her favor. Instead, it's just suggested to be polite around her.

Outside of her article, we see that Yukari is the author of a “Vampire Pact” in the colophon and this may been referenced in the article on vampires as a species where it's said that they lost to powerful youkai.

“Well, it's probably the act of an underground youkai.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Symposium of Post-Mysticism, Aya published an article about Kisume titled “Skeletal Remains found in Dry Well” in Yayoi Issue #2 of Season 98, which corresponds to April or May 1983, several years before the ongoing millennium and suggests that this article is somewhat dated.

For this article, Aya consults youkai expert, Yukari, about rumors that a tsurube-otoshi youkai was scaring humans. Yukari assumes this was the work of an underground youkai who might be looking for trouble, though she believes that the incident was a misunderstanding and hints that the skeletal remains would turn out to be white birch branches. The end of the article would later confirm her theory.

“Gensokyo is, by no means, a closed space. We accept everything.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Alternative Facts in Eastern Utopia, the scrapped tabloid-like newspaper has a rather verbose article on how travel between Gensokyo and the Outside World would impact Gensokyo's social structure. Yukari refused to comment, but then explains how these relations actually strengthen the barrier before pointing to the “Gensokyo accepts everything” rule. We are then told that this is a Hakurei Shrine conspiracy.

“Sixty years. That's the time it takes for all combinations of Gensokyo's natural elements to run its course.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Seasonal Dream Vision, she's the main character of the Phantasmagoria of Flower View prologue story, traveling around Gensokyo and bothering Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and Youmu for details regarding the upcoming incident that she vaguely remembers. She doesn't get much of a response, so she leaves Reimu some vague details before they both head to meet Yuyuko together.

Yuyuko helps Yukari remember and they get into an advanced discussion while Reimu spaces out. Yukari excitedly recalls that all natural cycles in Gensokyo run their course every 60 years and quickly recites everything in order to memorize it, specifically how the three attributes, four seasons, and five elements all make up Gensokyo's sixty-year cycle. Yukari and Yuyuko leave, while Reimu stays in Muenzuka.

“The entrance to the sea where sages live should open up soon.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Silent Sinner in Blue, Yukari's role is foreshadowed in the prologue and we see Yukari preparing for the Second Lunar War in Chapter 1, after hearing about the Lunarians move in. She tasks her two crow shikigami with surveying the land, trains Reimu on a certain technique, and gets a sort of “faction” report from Ran.

The netherworld group recalls Yukari training Reimu in Chapter 4. Eventually, we see Yukari getting a status report from her crow in Chapter 6, though her other crow was killed before they could reach the Lunar Capital. She has another cameo in Chapter 13 as Marisa suggests an alternate way of fighting.

As Yorihime is distracted, Yukari and Ran fly over the moon's lunar seas and the sage's sea in Chapter 16, leaving a dented umbrella behind as a marker for Yuyuko and Youmu. They do arrive at the Watatsuki's residence in Chapter 17, but get teleported back to Gensokyo's bamboo forest where Toyohime and Reisen II confronts them. Yukari oddly concedes to the Lunarians in Chapter 18, and gets tied up in Chapter 19.

The Watatsuki Sisters claim victory and deliver a message to Eirin, but in Chapter 21, Yukari reveals that this wasn't the case after her crow relays a message to her. She heads to the Netherworld with Ran where it's revealed that Yuyuko and Youmu carried out Yukari's plan to steal from the sisters while both were distracted. Yukari and Yuyuko would then show up to the Scarlet Devil Mansion party with their ancient sake.

“Exactly, the trap was set up long ago, by the much-despised sage.”
– Yukari Yakumo

In Cage in Lunatic Runagate, we have Yukari and Ran's viewpoint of the story as they watch the moon phases in Chapter 5. Ran informs Yukari of the party celebrating the rocket's completion, but Yukari asks Ran to think about the moon's strange 28⅓ day orbital period and 27⅓ day rotation period.

Over the next few weeks, we're given analogies of the moon phases as the rocket slowly progresses towards the moon. During this time, they start to prepare and Ran comes up with the idea that a full moon is rarely a true full moon because somebody must've tampered with the moon's rotational period to slow it down.

The night before the full moon, Yukari tells Ran that Earth realistically doesn't stand a chance against the Lunarians, so her true plan is to steal something from them as a tax since the Eientei group moved into Gensokyo as humans, but don't really fill the roles of humans as they don't fear youkai and everyone thinks of them as weird humans. The next day, the rocket finally reaches the moon.

We're then shown the events prior to Chapter 16 in Silent Sinner in Blue where Yukari and Ran observe a lake reflecting the moon that they'll use to teleport there. Yukari actually informs Ran of her hypothesis, believing that a Lunarian sage tampered with the moon's rotational period in order to trap her. Of course, this was later confirmed by Toyohime in Chapter 17 of Silent Sinner in Blue.

“And what strange turn of events led to this?”
– Eirin Yagokoro

In Chapter 8, we learn that the Watatsuki sisters had offered Reimu and the others their unique sake before sending them back home, but the sisters get an idea of Yukari's plan in the process. Once again, Yuyuko carries out Yukari's plan, then the two show up to the Scarlet Devil Mansion's party with the Lunarian sake.

We are then shown a slightly altered Chapter 21 in Silent Sinner in Blue, where Yukari actually invited Eirin and Kaguya to the party. Eirin immediately feels uneasy realizing that Yukari was the mastermind of what recently transpired. Yukari offers Eirin sake which she accepts, but the taste of it puts Eirin in a shock. At that moment, she unveils its origins with an ominous, scarring smile.

In The Grimoire of Usami, she steps in as a judge in Section 2-2 after Seija and Shinmyoumaru crash the danmaku fireworks festival and provides some judge commentary until Section 2-8. Aside from actual commentary, she notices Okina stopping by in Section 2-3, worries about the audience's safety at times, and takes some humoresque jabs at Okina's spell cards in Section 2-7.

After the festival ends with Reimu in Section 2-9, Sumireko takes note of Reimu and Yukari's spell card that informs people that unauthorized danmaku photography is prohibited after it was over. In Sumireko's afterword, Sumireko mentions Yukari saying that Sagume was invited in case they ever needed her ability to convert the chaotic event into a peaceful, boring one.

“Talks weird, fires danmaku in a suspicious manner, and sleeps all the time.”
– Reimu Hakurei

In Volume 1, the basic terminology recap states that the Great Hakurei Barrier is maintained by Yukari and Reimu, except Yukari is more meticulous with it being Gensokyo's overseer. This barrier is then surrounded by a “Boundary of Fantasy and Reality” set up 500 years ago in the Youkai Expansion Plan.

In Volume 2, Yukari is in a cross-review where Reimu, Marisa, and Sakuya give their opinions on characters in Perfect Cherry Blossom. Reimu gives her a 5 because she's all-around shady, Marisa gives her a 10 for being dangerous than she looks, and Sakuya gives her a 9 for being a true youkai-like youkai.

For her “Gensokyo Human-Youkai Directory”⁴⁵⁾ page, it's reiterated that she's a youkai who can manipulate boundaries, can be anywhere, and maintains the barrier. Yukari was asked by Yuyuko to redraw the Netherworld's barrier, but slept this off until Reimu got tired of phantoms passing through and confronted her. To this date, she is the only “Phantasm” stage boss in the series.

The page describes her as a shady individual that a normal person would have trouble understanding, and her nocturnal schedule leaves her shikigami in charge during the day. She lives near Gensokyo's edge, opposite to the Hakurei Shrine, but this means nothing as she could be anywhere, and nothing says that her activities are restricted to Gensokyo either which is said to be the most frightening thing about her.

Her ability to manipulate boundaries is beyond powerful as it can affect anything, so a spellcard system was put into place. She was involved with the creation of the Great Hakurei Barrier, the spellcard system, and controls who gets to show up in Gensokyo. She also controls shikigami and manipulates them as if they were a computer, though she's only able to task them with chores or odd jobs.

As for ZUN's comments in this volume, Yukari was designed to be a “meta” character that could speak from an outsider's perspective. Yukari and her familiars' names being colors were also jokes on Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's red theme. As for her stage, ZUN designed the “Phantasm Stage” with a “Danmaku Barrier” in mind, making her spell cards seem impossible until the player could solve the puzzle.

In Lotus Eaters, she has a cameo in Chapter 1 during a nightly banquet at the Hakurei Shrine with Yuyuko, but hasn't reappeared beyond that yet.

• This isn't explicitly stated in this article, but it's suggested that Yukari is nocturnal because she's just that ancient, so she has the nocturnality of a traditional youkai.
• The trigrams on her Chinese-style tabard are “dui” (☱) and “kun” (☷). According to the Yì Jīng, they correspond to Hexagram 45 (䷬), meaning “clustering” or “gathering (together)”.
  • When you convert the trigrams into heavenly stems by finding their line values, you will get “ding” (丁) and “gui” (癸), whose elements are “fire” and “water”. Furthermore, “fire” and “water” typically represent the colors, “red” and “blue”, which can be mixed to make the color, “purple”, the same color that her name usually stands for.
• Mamizou's spell card transforms Yukari into an "axolotl" (アホロートル), also known as a “wooper looper” (ウーパールーパー)⁴⁶⁾ or “mexican salamander” (メキシコサンショウウオ), and it seems to reference how axolotls retain larvae characteristics growing up alluding to her eternal youth. They are also critically endangered, but this is probably just a dark coincidence.
• At the 2016 Anime Expo, it was reported that ZUN had called her nasty, but this was an out-of-context mistranslation. He actually said that Yukari was nasty because her spell cards were nasty.

• Yakumo Yukari on Touhou Wiki [JA]
• Yakumo Yukari on Niconico Encyclopedia [JA]
• Yakumo Yukari on Pixiv Encyclopedia [JA]
• Yakumo Yukari on Touhou Motoneta Wiki [JA]
• Yakumo Yukari on THBWiki [ZH]
• Yakumo Yukari on Moegirl Encyclopedia [ZH]
• Yakumo Yukari on Namu Wiki [KO]
• Yukari Yakumo on Touhou Wiki [EN]

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