Hello Inconsistently Heinous Wiki, this is my second proposal here, and today's candidate is another Touhou character who is recently approved as Inconsistently Admirable. Here we go!
What's the Work?
Copied from my own Inconsistently Admirable proposal because I'm too lazy to write them all over again.
Touhou Project is a Shoot 'em up video game series developed by Team Shanghai Alice, as well as its spinoff manga and book series. The story takes place in Gensokyo, a remote realm which is created by Sages of Gensokyo through a barrier to isolate itself from outside world. The Gensokyo is a place filled with various types of Youkais, many of them would cause Incidents that violate the balance of Gensokyo and cause harm to the residents in it. Reimu Hakurei, a shrine maiden who is in charge of managing the Hakurei Border, and her best friend/arch-rival Marisa Kirisame, a human magician resides in the Forest of Magic, is tasked with resolving the incidents and exterminate the youkais who caused them.
Who Is She?
Yukari Yakumo is an ancient youkai known as the "Youkai of Boundaries" and one of the sages of Gensokyo. She is responsible for creating the boundaries of Gensokyo and holds the highest authority in Gensokyo.
What Makes Her Heinous?
Background
About one thousand years ago, Yukari Yakumo organized an army of youkai to start a war against Lunar Capital, a kingdom located on the moon. Through her ability of manipulating the boundary, she sent herself and her youkai army to the moon through of the moon's reflection on the lake's surface. However, the Lunarians have much more advanced weapons and technologies, so the youkai army were easily defeated and retreated to the earth. Since then, no youkai chose to expand their bound of territory.[1]
About 500 years ago, youkai around the world ware pressured by the increase in the human population. Yukari brought up a "Youkai Expansion Project", creating the border between illusion and reality on her own, sending the youkai outside to Gensokyo, making it a place youkai can continue to exist. Youkai need human's fear to exist, so more humans are also needed to keep the balance of Gensokyo. Yukari used her ability of manipulating the boundary to send humans outside to Gensokyo, which is known to the outsiders as a phenomenon as Spirited-Away (神隠). Humans outside of Gensokyo generally have little knowledge of Youkai, so almost all of them are caught by youkai and eaten at once, or get eaten once the youkai lose interest in them. Only a few fortunate ones who find the Human Village or Hakurei Shrine can be sent back to safety, while there are also rare cases that choose to stay in Gensokyo (e.g. Sanae Kochiya).[2]
120 years ago, Yukari along with other Youkai sages came up with the plan to create Great Hakurei Barrier, which isolated Gensokyo from the outside world. Since the establishement of Great Hakurei Barrier, humans and youkai achieved temporary peace, but it made it more difficult for youkai to attack humans. If youkai don't attack humans, humans would not fear them, which would endanger youkai's existence. As the collective willpower of the youkai began to fall, Remilia Scarlet, a vampire from outside world gathered a number of subordinates to conquer Gensokyo. The vampire was defeated through the efforts of the most powerful youkai (which is implied to be Yukari herself).[3] As the settlement of the vampire incident, Yukari created a "Vampire Pact", a contract that placed a series of exhibition on youkai attacking humans. The contract says "Youkai may attack humans but do not eat them recklessly. Humans from the village are generally not for their eating under the agreement in place", the humans outside are not protected by the contract, so that Yukari can enable the humans who come from outside are still kept being eaten by youkai for their survival.[4]
Present
Since Yukari is an incredibly lazy youkai who prefers to sleep all day long, she usually orders her Shikigami Ran Yakumo to handle the things when she's not around. Yukari sees Ran as a tool, refering Ran as a computer, and when Ran does something wrong she would physically discipline her, which is noticed by Aya Shameimaru as "animal abuse" (Ran is a fox youkai).[5]
In Perfect Cherry Blossom, Yuyuko Saigyouji gathers spring's essence from Gensokyo to make the youkai tree Saigyou Ayakashi bloom, not knowing the corpse is Yuyuko herself who was buried to seal the tree. This caused Gensokyo to turn into winter, making the heroines, Reimu, Marisa and Sakuya set out to bring the spring back. The heroines defeats Yuyuko to put a stop to the eternal winter. Yuyuko requests Yukari to use her power to repair the border between the Netherworld and Gensokyo, but Yukari is too lazy and has always been sleeping, which causes the conflict between her and the heroines.
In Silent Sinner in Blue, Yukari orchestrates a invasion to Lunar Capital a second time in the name of procuring its technology to improve the life of youkai, but this time the invasion is much smaller in scale, since if her start a war again it would draw too much attention. Yukari and Ran invade the home of Watatsuki sisters, but fall into a trap by Eirin Yagokoro and captured by Watatsuki no Toyohime. Yukari surrenders to Toyohime and they are sent back to Gensokyo. However her true plan is by detracting Watatsuki sisters outside, Yuyuko Saigyouji stalks into Watatsuki house and steal the valuable items in it. The plan worked and Yukari used the wine stolen from Lunar Capital to have a feast with the heroines in Scarlet Devil Mansion.
Heinous Standards
There are lots of youkai that cause incidents that endanger Gensokyo, listing every single of them would be abundant, let's start with the relatively heinous ones (copied from my own Tenshi Hinanawi's proposal).
- Remilia Scarlet, who tries to dominate Gensokyo into a place for vampires and releases a red mist that block the sun.
- Yuyuko Saigyouji, who turns the entire Gensokyo into winter by gathering the spring essence, and tries to use the spring essence to make Saigyou Ayakashi bloom which would unleash a great evil in Gensokyo.
- Tenshi Hinanawi, who uses the Sword of Hisou to slay plenty of phantoms and invokes earthquake all around Gensokyo.
- Kanako Yasaka, who tries to take over Hakurei Shrine to acquire faith for her own, and bestows power to Utsuho Reiuji which unintentionally caused Utsuho Reiuji's deeds.
- Utsuho Reiuji, who attempts to incinerate Gensokyo with nuclear power and take over it by force.
- Seija Kijin and Shinmyoumaru Sukuna, who uses the Miracle Mallet to make the youkais in Gensokyo to go violent and attack people with the intention to screw over the entire society and make it a place where the weak dominates the strong.
- Junko and Hecatia Lapislazuli, who plunges a war against Lunar Capital and tries to destroy it by poisoning it with fairies' impurities.
- Okina Matara, who caused the seasons in Gensokyo to completely out of whack that causes the youkais to go violent, and drains the life energy of fairies in Gensokyo that turns them into crystals. (Okina is a strong IH candidate too and I have plan to propose in the future)
- Yachie Kicchou and Saki Kurokoma, who causes the beast spirits prey upon the humans in the Animal Realm and leads the beast spirits to invade Gensokyo.
- Mizuchi Miyadeguchi, who possesses on many residents in Gensokyo and drain their power, causing great pain in her victims and has lots of personal villainy to the Reimu.
But even with so many villains in Touhou, Yukari easily passes the heinous standard for two worst actions.
Firstly, she once led a group of youkai to start a war against Lunar Capital. While she didn't cause as much destruction as Junko and Hecatia Lapislazuli did (who almost destroyed the capital and caused the Lunarians to try to mitigate to Gensokyo) because the youkai army were defeated by Lunarians rather easily, the attempt is still there. No matter the outcome is, Yukari does put the Lunar Capital and all the denizens in the danger of a brutal war.
| “ | Kasen: So, could it be that the ultimate goal of youkai is to... Yukari: Don't think any further than that. After all, Gensokyo is getting enough food to fill the stomachs of all its youkai from somewhere. |
„ |
| ~ Yukari Yakumo when Kasen Ibaraki asks her why she spies on human village. |
Secondly, she is also responsible for many humans from outside world "Spirited-Away" and transport to Gensokyo, while almost all of them would end up being eaten by Youkai. Yukari is fully aware of that humans would be eaten, and deliberately send humans to Gensokyo with the full intent to let them fill the stomach of youkai, which is furder evidenced by several scenerios:
- In the chapter 14 of Wild and Horned Hermit, she states that she use Zashiki Warashi to inspect humans village in case the gathered humans would do "bad things", and when Kasen asks the ultimate goal of youkai is, Yukari refers to humans as "food", which not only explicitly shows she intentionally lets the humans from outside to be eaten, but also implies she eats humans too.
- In Symposium of Post-mysticism, there were human skeletal remains found in human village, but no humans in the Gensokyo were missing. Yukari settled this by explaining this is a "misunderstanding" and claimed that "silver birch branches being mistaken for bones", but she never mentioned humans from outside world. Humans outside Gensokyo are not protected by the contract, so it's strongly implied that these remains are someone Yukari transports to Gensokyo and eaten by youkai.[6]
Since Yukari is manipulating the boundary of Gensokyo for hundreds of years Gensokyo ever existed, during these years the number of humans Yukari sent to Gensokyo to fill the stomach of youkai would be approximately hundreds to thousands, giving her one of the highest caused kill count in the Touhou franchise.
What Makes Her Inconsistent?
Despite how ruthless she is, Yukari is an Anti-Villain and well-intentioned extremist whose worst crimes are for the greater good of Gensokyo, even if she knows it would sacrifice the innocents' lives to achieve that. Although she started a war against Lunar Capital and was defeated, her true intention is using the defeat to teach the youkai a lesson that starting war of conquest would be a bad idea. And even though she has sent countless humans to Gensokyo with the full intention to make them eaten by youkai, she did this because youkai in Gensokyo need to be feared by humans to exist.
She is On & Off, being both a villain and a hero who has done as many heroic deeds as villainous ones. By creating border between illusion and reality, she gave youkai who are endangered for nobody fearing them a place known for Gensokyo where youkai can survive, and by creating the Great Hakurei Barriers she made Gensokyo a stable place where youkai can live with humans. In many installments she plays a heroic role, providing help to the heroines resolving incidents and sometimes stepping in to resolve incidents herself, making her pass the admirable standard of Touhou series to the point of being Inconsistently Admirable.
Last but not least, even though she is very manipulative and treat others as pawns to achieve her goal, she is genuinely affable towards everyone, having little to no hostility to others unless she is enraged. Her affability is much more prominent to her close allies such as Reimu Hakurei, who she serves as a mentor figure to and provide many guidance and beneficial help in Reimu's job as a shrine maiden; Yuyuko Saigyouji, who were a good friend to Yukari over thousands of years ago when she was a human, and continues to befriend Yuyuko after Yuyuko was a ghost; Suika Ibuki, who she had been friend with ever since Suika was in the underground, and they entrust each other in rebuilding the Hakurei Shrine in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody or helping to investigate the underground.
Final Verdict
I would give a yes to the Mastermind Behind the Spiriting Away.