Added by CarefreeCat

Yukkuris are fictional creatures created by the fanbase of the Touhou video game series. They consist of the (usually) disembodied heads of various characters from Touhou, which are somehow able to move about, speak, and eat, despite the fact that they are only heads. A large amount of cartoons, stories and background concerning them has been created, despite not being official parts of the Touhou series.

They get their name from their catchphrase in Japanese, "Yukkuri shiteitte ne!" which literally means "Do it slowly!" but is more often translated as "Take it easy!" The term "Yukkuri" is Japanese for "slowly", but has connotations of being at ease or relaxing. Thus, their name is literally "Slow" or "Easy".

Origin of YukkuriEdit

The images of Yukkuri predate the catchphrase; once they were combined, the blogger Makako took note and began making comics. For a detailed explanation, see the Book of Genesis. http://riceballman.fc2web.com/AA-Illust/Data/Yukkuri.html

Naming ConventionsEdit

Because Yukkuri are based off of existing Touhou characters, they are usually called "Yukkuri (Name of Touhou character)". Because Japanese names go family name first, given name last, the name of the Touhou character is their "given name", though in practice it acts as a "species name" because many individuals based on one Touhou character exist. It is not clear if the "Yukkuri" in their names should be considered a family name, a title, or an adjective. The Yukkuri themselves most often refer to each other by just the "species name", and even themselves in the third person by their "species name". Humans will often simply refer to them as "Yukkuri".

Because there are multiple individual Yukkuris based on the same character, it is nearly impossible to tell apart different individuals of the same "species". Neither humans nor the Yukkuri themselves seem to use separate names for individuals of a "species" (based on the same Touhou character); They are all referred to by their "species name". In some situations they will append a title, such as "Mama Reimu" or "Big Sister Alice".

Several species have nicknames. For example, Yukkuri Reimu = Yukkureimu, Yukkuri Marisa = Yukkurisa, Yukkuri Shameimaru = Kimeemaru.

Juvenile Yukkuris are called "koyukkuri" or "baby yukkuri" as a whole, but when calling them by name, they use the regular "Yukkuri (Name)" format; people sometimes use "(Name) koyukkuri", or, if the species has a nickname, sometimes they prefix "ko-" to the name to differentiate between children and adults, e.g., "Koyukkureimu" "Koyukkurisa". A similar method is used for "dosuyukkuri", or "boss/humongous yukkuri".

Physical DescriptionEdit

The physiology of Yukkuris is not standardized, and many authors make up their own rules for Yukkuri biology. Some of the properties are contradictory. This section is on the most commonly used properties.

The Yukkuri are (possibly magically) animated manjuu, a kind of pastry. Reimu types are filled with anko (red bean paste), and other types have different filling. (See the comparison table and profile pages for individual types.)

The average "adult" Yukkuri is about the size of a basketball, but there is no actual limit to their size. A Yukkuri the size of a basketball will weigh about 7 pounds (3 kg). If the Yukkuri has enough food, it will continue to grow, reaching a diameter of 2 meters or more. Newborn Yukkuris are usually the size of a small tomato, though they can be as small as a cherry if they're born prematurely. Sometimes, a Yukkuri may grow to become a Dosuyukkuri, which is generally seen as the leader of a Yukkuri group and several times larger than an average human.

They usually move by jumping, though other methods of locomotion also appear. Most notably, some types are able to fly. They are all generally shown to be slower than that of an average human.

They can manipulate items using their mouths and tongues. 

They occasionally behave in loud, rude and obnoxious ways, and are sometimes shown to invade people's homes. This is a reason why people torture or kill them. Some theories speculate the presence of a "Crying moe" psionic field that affects people around them, leading to increased aggression, while others claim their behaviour alone is sufficient.  

A small number of Yukkuri are shown to be kind-hearted in nature, being genuinely caring, loyal and willing to sacrifice themselves in order to protect their children. Much of the time, they will even come to the aid of another Yukkuri they happen across. These kinds of Yukkuri make for popular pets. From the stories written, most yukkuris have been shown to be selfish and rude, only caring about themselves, followed by children and family.  They will demand that humans carry out their orders and give them food. Many will willingly kill or sacrifice another Yukkuri (even their own children) if their own survival is threatened.  "Good" and "bad" yukkuri often come into conflict, with bad yukkuri attacking good yukkuri. Good yukkuris are often taken advantage of by the bad yukkuris and killed off. Malicious yukkuri are often killed by more benevolent anons for their behavior and are sometimes fended off by good yukkuri.

They multiply extremely quickly and are thus sometimes compared to Star Trek tribbles.

Despite apparently possessing anatomical elements such as teeth and hair, as well as accessories made of cloth, a Yukkuri is completely edible. Humans are often portrayed swallowing smaller Yukkuri whole.

Pain, suffering, fear and despair make a Yukkuri’s bean paste sweeter. Conversely, emotionally dead yukkuris taste bad. Koyukkuris are slightly sour.

Yukkuris have various accessories, usually hats and ribbons. These items are present from birth and grow with the Yukkuri. A Yukkuri that has lost its accessory is despised by other Yukkuris or treated with great suspicion. Sometimes they don't perceive the non-accessoried ones as Yukkuri at all, instead viewing them as some strange and hostile creatures.

There are various theories about Yukkuris' accessories. They may be made of tough dough, hardened bean paste or some form of cotton candy. They are more resistant to water than the Yukkuri itself. Yukkuri Marisas are sometimes portrayed using their hats as boats or umbrellas. This resistance to water may be due to the accessory's more dense (concentrated) structure, or simply to magic.

Anything they eat is converted into the appropriate filling for that Yukkuri type. This process is magical in nature and doesn't obey the rules of chemistry—e.g., a Yukkuri may convert radioactive waste into harmless bean paste, effectively transmuting uranium and various isotopes into compounds of mostly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen.

Their intellectual capabilities are low, usually on an animal level, with the exception of the capability for speech (see theories), and their memory span is usually very short. They seem to be able to remember serious injuries and incidents where they were unable to take it easy, however. (This is the way in which certain behaviours can be imprinted into Yukkuri DNA.) This is negated if the Yukkuri is fully healed or fed to make it happy immediately afterwards. Quite a number of artists and writers often ignore short memory span for the sake of story and elaborate situations/torture and give the Yukkuris in their works a full working memory or at least heavily imply that they will remember what happens to them.

As they are made of dough, Yukkuris pose little threat to humans and other bigger animals, and they are easily damaged in accidents such as falls. They cannot swim well and are frequently portrayed as dissolving if soaked in water for too long. Some may have similar abilities to those of their real namesakes, but the effects of these are only on a scale that could harm another Yukkuri. See also: Injuries

There appears to be a link between the rarity of a species of Yukkuri and how many of them have the ability to attack. This appears to have an evolutionary reason; the rarer the species is, the more of them will have powers. This is to increase their chance of surviving by giving them a way to defend against predators such as Yukkuri Remilia, which feeds on other Yukkuri. These powers will eventually disappear within 2-3 generations.

They have strong regenerative powers, augmented by access to food, especially sugar and sweets. Given food and care, a Yukkuri which has lost about 1/4th of its body can fully recover in a matter of several minutes up to one hour.

• Stories generally depict orange juice as being an ultimate medicine for Yukkuri, instantly healing any wounds. Whether or not it can bring them back from the dead depends on the author.

BehaviorEdit

Typical speech patterns of a Yukkuri:

• Proclaiming "Take it easy", also as a form of greeting. Sometimes it's an instinctive reaction to anyone saying "Take it easy."
• Adding "easy" or "slow" in their sentences, even if it makes no sense. (see Take it easy and the top of this page explanations).
• Referring to themselves in the third person, usually using the name of the character the given Yukkuri is based on, e.g., a Yukkuri Reimu that desires food might say, "Reimu wants food easy."
• Employing distinctive speech patterns, catch phrases and idiosyncrasies, which differ between types of Yukkuri. For example, Aya types rarely speak, but when they do, it is often in the form of "Ooh, [Adjective], [Adjective]".

Typical Yukkuri behaviour:

• Entering a human household and eating all the food when invited inside and left alone.
• Digging up and eating vegetables from fields and gardens.
• Demanding and expecting servitude from humans when trying to annex human homes.
• Eating almost anything biological in origin especially if they don't actually know what it is.

Yukkuri can generally be divided into "good" and "bad" ones. For instance, a "good" Reimu is very kind and a good mother, while a "bad" one is lazy and selfish, to the point of not caring about its young. A "good" Marisa is honest and self-sacrificing, while a "bad" one is violent and will gladly betray its friends to save its life. A "good" Alice is haughty but kind and smart, while a "bad" one is a serial rapist, etc. The lines between yukkuri behaviour are often blurred, so a black-and-white distinction is not so useful. A yukkuri may appear to be a kind mother at first, singing happily with its children (but treating all others like garbage) and taking care of them, but when a threat appears it may be all too happy to leave the children behind, or purposely sacrifice them. Another common behaviour is that the parents are kind, take good care of their children and are friendly with other yukkuris, but don't think anything of stealing from humans. Indeed, they may be very good towards other yukkuris, but will be very active trying to break into human homes.

Yukkuri LogicEdit

Even good yukkuris, the "niceheads" (as opposed to the "shitheads", the "bad", Deibu-istic Yukkuris) may fell prey to the "Yukkuri Logic", the effects of their simplicistic, child-like mindset coupled to their utterly animalistic nature. When trying to understand a "nicehead", it should always taken in account that, being Yukkuris little more than dumb animals, intelligent as very little children at their brightest, they may unwillingly commit some mischievious or outright "wrong" actions without meaning to do harm.

Yukkuris, as they live a communal, simple life, lack utterly the concept of private property. A wild yukkuri usually burrows in the soft ground, digging a nest-hole, or takes its residence in an abandoned hole or small cave: thus a Yukkuri coming across an empty human house may think perfectly reasonable move in the "empty Easy Place" with its whole family, eating uninvited all the "easy food" it can find (believing it to be abandoned for good by its former owners) and refuse access to every other individual, yukkuri or human alike, even trying to drive away the home owner. A combination of Yukkuris lack of long term memory, forcing them to live in the present without being able to call upon their memories without some effort and their limited knowledge will make them think that the "Easy Place" has alwasy been, and will always be, their new "Easy Place", and the parent Yukkuri has the duty to protect its family easiness. Usually in those cases a human can safely send the Yukkuri family away by asking their permission to "Take it easy together", and then expel (violently or peacefully) them.

For the same reasons, even a good Yukkuri can resort to steal: in fact, Yukkuri have a very limited concept of theft, as the only permanent possessions they own are their own accessories and koykkuris' "Mister Treasures" (their simple toys, mostly shiny rocks in the wild). Unable to grasp concepts as farming, Yukkuris staunchly believe that vegetables and fruits, as grass and flower, grow on their own, ready to be taken by any Yukkuri doing hunt hunt for its family. As such, upon reaching a human settlement, Yukkuris will be utterly dismayed when finding a fenced, enclosed garden, accusing humans to "Hog all the Mister Vegetables" from themselves, denying Yukkuris for the rightful fruit of their hunting. Some more intelligent Yukkuris may be taught the concept of farming and working, by telling them that since human work hard to make "Mister Vegetables grow easier", stealing them detracts from their easiness, a capital sin for a species devoted to "Take it easy" at every cost. However, those intelligent Yukkuris are a really small part percentage of the total population, and it's just safer and easier getting a guard Yukkuri Flandre or Remilia or use capsacin-based poisons, convincing the would-to-be thieves that the vegetables owned by Mister Humans are "uneasy".

A Yukkuri may also, due to its faulty logic, be unable to connect properly the given clues: in a single case, for example, a Yukkuri Marisa, upon seeing a seemingly "Easy Mister Human" eating tea and biscuit, came near pestering him for biscuit and eating some of them without waiting for the answer. As the human lectured it about the dangers of stealing from humans, the Yukkuri "gratefully" deduced that, since the "Easy Human" didn't drive it away or acted angry whatsoever, he was letting the Yukkuri have food, they were "taking it easy" together and they've just become easy friends, even if the human didn't want to have anything to do with a Yukkuri.

Yukkuri's faulty logic is cause of tragical and comical misunderstanding: when two or more koyukkuris are merrily playing together, if one of the kos ends casually hurt, its parent may assume the other koyukkuris assaulted it, and "punish" them with death. Even when a yukkuri is hurt because of an unanimate item, or sees someone close to it (its koyukkuris or its mate) being hurt because of that (for example, when a koyukkuri drowns in a bird fountain, or hurts itself on a rock), it may try to enact its vengeance towards the item itself, unable to understand the concept of "accident": a Yukkuri will always assume that the "Uneasy thing made Yukkuri uneasy!" and act accordingly.

A Yukkuri understanding of human orders may be flimsy at best: a Yukkuri punished for a mishap may be unable to understand exactly what it did wrong (much like a dog, if punished too late after being caught doing something bad, will be unable to understand the meaning of the punishment). In such a case, a Yukkuri will merely bemoan loudly its suffering, telling the Human that it knows that "[Yukkuri name] was punished because is too cute". Some niceheads, and almost every shithead, will outright lie to avoid punishing, almost comically.

Since a Yukkuri, even a bad one, lacks the mental acuity to be a malicious being, it's not uncommong seeing a Yukkuri, while trying to sneak on a fellow Yukkuri or a human, loudly repeating "Slowly...slowly", thus vanishing the effects of its slowed down movements, or lying so badly to actually confess the truth it's trying to hide (such as telling "There's nothing to see. Reimu's not pregnant. Reimu's belly is not bigger. Give sweets to Reimu because Reimu is not having little ones").

However, Yukkuri aren't devoid of a faint sense of "Justice". In the wild, Yukkuri may have trials, mostly overseen by a Clan Council or the Dosu. In those trials, the guilty part often gets condemned to death or exile. The most reviled crime in Yukkuri society is Yukkuricide, that robs the dead yukkuri from the ability to take it easy more (a dying yukkuri always cries something on the line of "just wanched to ghet eaji more..."), or every other act meant to prevent a fellow yukkuri from taking it easy. However, even their justice is lackadaisical at most, with many yukkuris getting away for their crimes, and other ones being lynched on the spot. Koyukkuris get the brunt of the lackadaisical justice of their clan, because a Yukkuri parent may have literally right of life and death of its offpsring, punishing them with squashing to punish the other parent, or because they showed partiality towards it, or didn't show enough affection to it. However, if still alive, the other parent may avenge its offspring, thus ending their story in tragedy.

Yukkuri Logic may also be used as a tool to outwit, outsmart or abuse Yukkuris, shithead and niceheads alike. In a known case, a single Anon was able to wipe out and entire population of Yukkuri breaking it its property by casually complaining behind a fence that he was "scared of Yukkuris, especially lots of little ones". The Deibu behind the fence, unable to understand the blatant lie, brought in his garden every koyukkuri in the clan, instructed to "bully" and "threaten" the "old geezer" for sweets, allowing the Anon to wipe out an entire generation of Yukkuris at once.

Also a female Anon was able to cause a breakdown in Deibu acting Deibu-istic herself, by stealing and retorting back the abusive Reimu all its phrases and mannerism, causing it to be unable to retort.

Generally, Yukkuris are unable to understand the concept of sarcasm, irony and are very poor both at lying, both at aknowledging lies, thus is also possible, as another example of Yukkuri Logic brought against a Yukkuri, kill or maim a single Yukkuri parent (making it unable to move or reach to its offsprings) and tell its offsprings to wait for their parent in a certain place: the koyukkuris, unwilling to believe their parent or the "Easy Mister Human" a liar, will simply wait until rain melts them away or they starve to death.

Other "mind tricks" to use against Yukkuris are based on their "Take it Easy" philosophy and the average "reverse psychology". By forbidding a shithead from doing something dangerous, or "daring it" to do something, pointing out how dangerous it is, the deibu-istic Yukkuri will do that anyway to prove its inherent superiority, even coming down to outright suicidal behaviour out of sheer spite.

In some other stories a suspicious Yukkuri was convinced to follow an abusive Mister Human by the simple promise that "Mister will be very easy" and "Mister's home is a very Easy Place". Generally every Yukkuri, especially the most innocent ones or koyukkuris, upon meeting a human would ask him how easy he is: as they value "easiness" more than anything else, they won't be able to doubt that the "Easy Mister" they just met is a liar and a bully. In their logic, liars and bullies are "uneasy", whereas an "Easy mister" never tells lies or bullies a Yukkuri, stealing its easiness away.

Relations To Non-YukkurisEdit

Yukkuri generally annoy most humans and other "normal" inhabitants of Gensokyo (and the outside world, too). In most of the fan comics, the Anons get rid of them using indescribable violence, but several have been depicted as taking a liking to the Yukkuris and keeping them as pets/companions. Some people who love yukkuris and hate their abuse will put effort in to terminating those who harm yukkuri, to prevent the abuse from continuing.

There exist a number of groups raising Yukkuris in various factories (although just the term "factory" is used to refer to them) under often inhumane conditions. Their activities involve torturing Yukkuris for the fun of it, breeding normal Yukkuris on a mass scale as well as ones which have certain genetic characteristics (such as constant crying or modified basic behaviours to make them more easy to keep as pets), breeding rare Yukkuris, producing various Yukkuri-based products (such as just-add-water Yukkuri ready-meals) and buying/selling Yukkuris. Stories generally depict Yukkuris as having an instinctive fear of the "Factory."

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