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Human

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Humans living in the Human Village.

Humans (人間, ningen) are a species of mammal scientifically known as Homo sapiens that have spread across the world for around 200,000 years. Their success relies heavily on intelligence, unlike other previous dominant species who relied mainly on their biological weaponry. While the intelligence of humans is an advantage over other animals, they are considerably weaker in physical strength compared to other species of similar size and weight. While the spread of humans has often had negative influence to the natural world, other intelligent creatures like the crow have benefited and are often seen near cities and other urban areas.

Sub-Species

Living Gods

Main article: God

Living Gods (現人神 arahitogami) are humans who have become deities while still alive. Since they are both human and god, a living god is not dependent on faith to maintain their existence; without it they will simply return to being a normal human.[1] Many living gods originated as priestesses, who obtained faith from their gods' miracles being mistaken for their own.

Half-youkai

Main article: Half-youkai

Half-youkai are beings who combine traits of both humans and youkai.

Hermits & Celestials

Main article: Hermit
Main article: Celestial

Hermits (仙人 sennin, literally "transcendent people" or "mountain people") are humans who have attained long life and otherworldly powers through spiritual training.
Celestials (天人 tennin, literally "heaven people") are a more powerful type of hermit who live in Heaven, including both hermits who have earned a promotion and normal humans who have been transformed as a reward.

Humans in Touhou

Several humans appear in the Human Village stage of Hopeless Masquerade
A couple of children shown in Forbidden Scrollery.

In the Touhou Project, humans from the land of Gensokyo are physically similar to humans in the outside world, but are remarkably different in terms of abilities and their dominance over land. In ancient times, brave humans, who knew how to deal with supernatural entities, traveled to a youkai-infested area that we now call Gensokyo. They settled there in order to watch the youkai and keep them from terrorizing the rest of the countryside. These capable humans battled the youkai often. One day, Gensokyo was sealed away from the rest of the world. Having been separated from the rest of humanity, Gensokyo humans have ignored scientific advances and developed formidable innate spiritual power to survive. Today, the normal Gensokyo human is probably a little more powerful than the average youkai, but the population of youkai greatly outnumbers humans. Most humans live in the Human Village, but a few live in other notable locations.

Of course, there exist exceptional humans who can fight on equal terms against the most powerful beings in Gensokyo.

Magicians appear to be one of the species of youkai a human can become. It is unknown if magicians are specifically youkai human or a general class of youkai like the tengu who can originate from different species. All the magicians so far (Excluding Patchouli Knowledge who was born a magician) originate from a human. Therianthropes and hermits/celestials appear to be the only other species originating from humans,[2][3] though they might not be limited to humans. Lunarians resemble human hermits and may or may not be a human subspecies.

In Sanae Kochiya's senario in Touhou Hisoutensoku, Suwako Moriya differentiates between a human and an arahitogami.

The youkai of Gensokyo are not allowed to eat humans from Gensokyo under a recent contract, which may be the same as or related to the absolute unbreakable devil's contract resulting from the Vampire Incident, as well as the spell card contract. This does not appear to stop them from making threats to do so. As ZUN has stated that these threats are akin to the taunts at the start of a pro-wrestling match, any threats to eat a human native to Gensokyo are presumably just posturing.

Outsider

"They immediately put a tool called a 'mobile phone' to their ears, and after that are at a loss as of what to do next."
Hieda no Akyuu (Perfect Memento in Strict Sense)

The term "Outsider" refers to anyone from the Outside World who managed to get across the Hakurei Border and enter Gensokyo. Since youkai are rare in the Outside World (albeit not unheard of), most outsiders are human. Thus the term, "Outsider", typically refers to humans when used by natives of Gensokyo. While magic and other supernatural abilties are supposed to be almost extinct outside of Gensokyo, there are few exception like Sanae Kochiya, Sumireko Usami, and Maribel Hearn showing that some humans of the Outside World might still possess some kind of innate or aquired ability.

According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Outsiders in Gensokyo are also referred to as "Spirited-Away" humans. It is stated in Yukari Yakumo's Perfect Cherry Blossom profile that outsiders generally end up in Gensokyo thanks to fluctuations in the border caused by her. Since the frequency of encountering them is considered to be "low", it might mean that outsiders don't end up in Gensokyo very often, but it could also be due to the fact that most of them get killed by youkai, reducing the potential number of outsiders effectively encounterable. The majority of outsiders that end up in Gensokyo seem to have little knowledge of technology (thus it seems that mechanics, computer programmers, and rocket scientists do not end up in Gensokyo very often). Because of this, any techology they bring into Gensokyo, such as mobile phones, can not be reproduced. However, outsiders still bring knowledge into Gensokyo that's otherwise unattainable, and thus are valued for that.

Unlike natives of Gensokyo, outsiders are not protected by the contract that came as a result of the Vampire Incident. In fact, the unbreakable devil's contract specifically stipulates that the vampires get outsiders to feed on in exchange for not attacking Gensokyo's native residents. Although Perfect Memento's wording implies the contract only applies to vampires, Yukari mentions to herself that "youkai may attack humans but do not eat them recklessly. Humans from the town are generally not for their eating under the contract" in Cage in Lunatic Runagate Chapter 5, showing the contract (or at least, a contract) extends to all youkai and prevents consumption, not attacking.

In addition, most outsiders do not realize youkai are youkai, with the exception of ghosts. This is possibly because most ghosts tend to not be as anthropomorphic as many of Gensokyo's youkai. The implication would be that to an outsider, a youkai looks just like a human with a funny hat or animal ears.

Unfortunately, these two factors results in many outsiders that end up in Gensokyo being eaten by youkai. Sometimes immediately, or sometimes after the youkai lose interest in them.

Sanctuary can be found in the Human Village or the Hakurei Shrine. At the Hakurei Shrine, outsiders may be returned to the normal world, or they rarely choose to stay in the village (though the number of outsiders choosing to stay has been increasing lately). It is not stated if they count as natives of Gensokyo protected by the contract after reaching the village, but it's possible, as Yukari stated "from the town", and an outsider that takes up residence in the village is technically "from the town" from then on. Sanae Kochiya, being transported in along with Kanako Yasaka (and probably as well as being a living god), obviously was an exception to this.

Characters under this Bestiary

Note: "outsider" refers to any human originating from the Outside World, whether or not they still live there.

Touhou Project

Seihou Project

Uwabami Breakers

Books and articles

See Also

References

  1. Mountain of Faith Sanae Kochiya's profile. "Though she didn't really have much faith, Sanae was able to live as a normal human without any real problems, but this would not do for the god she worshiped, Kanako.", as well other information on living gods
  2. Perfect Memento in Strict Sense/Lycaony
  3. Perfect Memento in Strict Sense/Hermits