Heparine said: Everyone's a villain in Touhou. Including the player characters.
There are no villians in a traditional sense in the series at all. Yukari and Reimu must keep the balance of Gensokyou. The closest thing we get to villians in touhou would be characters like Remilia and Yumemi and even those 2 are in a grey zone.
Also, can't tell if serious, but if so, Akyuu,Tokiko,Shikieiki and Komachi says "Hi".
Well the only one closest to being a villain would actually be Utsuho who wants to take over the world or something like that, but still yeah, defeat means friendship
Youkai's diet is human, with some exceptions. Rumia's hungry and there's unlucky sob who cannot play danmaku and so falls victim to be her dinner. Why s/he wander around close enough to be hunted by the youkai Yasaka knows why.
My verdict: I see no villain here, unless Rumia purposely hunting her 'food' with no intention to relinquishing her hunger and instead satisfying her playful desire, mocking the cycle of nature.
lastsinz said: Well the only one closest to being a villain would actually be Utsuho who wants to take over the world or something like that, but still yeah, defeat means friendship
Are we counting "Villian" here for someone who isn't actually Evil? I would say Utsuho is more Chaotic Neutral. She was just a girl drunk on power. She would have stopped her plan if Satori just snapped her fingers.
Heparine said: And yes, I was joking before. In case you didn't know, you can twist the synopsis of every single Touhou game so that Reimu looks like the villain. Kabi would tell you. Glad he can't.
My sarcasm detector usually works well, your comment however was around the boarder line for me.
Touhou is Anti-Heroes vs Anti-Villains. There's vagueness and controversy around that but it's really the closest you'll ever get to a group consensus.
Canon as best as I know:
Rumia tried to eat one person once on a whim and really didn't know what she was doing. That person happened to be the player character and she got beat up pretty bad for it and ultimately decided eating humans wasn't worth it. (From Rumia's interview with Aya) Nazrin and Mystia are better examples of consistent human-eaters.
Human flesh is the tastiest food to a youkai, especially the flesh of depressed or sinful humans. They most often hunt at the Nameless Hill where the ghosts of suicide victims end up. Other than that youkai are fine with any kind of food that humans eat and enjoy it just as much as humans do. While some humans still get eaten by youkai it's not all that common and usually avoidable on the human's part. Forgoing human flesh entirely isn't made out to be a big deal for youkai, those who do eat it just don't care.
It's not like death is a big deal anyway, you are given a chance to literally change your mind about being dead and if you don't take it you go to the netherworld and become a ghost. That is once Komachi gets around to it, so that "chance" is actually a pretty large period of time. Also once you're a ghost you can leave the netherworld and visit your loved ones any time you want anyway.
My Speculations:
Because the conditions of a spellcard battle must be agreed to beforehand high-stakes bets might very well happen. Some danmaku battles might result in a human betting their life for whatever fabulous wealth, knowledge or service a youkai might have. Like I said above it's not like coming back to life is hard in Gensokyo.
Also because 'exterminated' youkai seem to regularly show up later it's entirely possible that "eaten" and "exterminated" are just phrases/trashtalk used by danmaku users to refer to the winners and losers of a fight, a relic of the barbaric past. Think of how often words like "kill" or "slaughter" show up in real life sports discussion.
6163 said: Also because 'exterminated' youkai seem to regularly show up later it's entirely possible that "eaten" and "exterminated" are just phrases/trashtalk used by danmaku users to refer to the winners and losers of a fight, a relic of the barbaric past. Think of how often words like "kill" or "slaughter" show up in real life sports discussion.
I could go into a long winded speech about what I find wrong about the Danmaku system but this is not the time/nor place for it. Anyway, I actually think thats a viable way to look at things. Especially the part about people actually betting their lives on danmaku battles.
...Rumia tried to eat one person once on a whim and really didn't know what she was doing...
...Nazrin and Mystia are better examples of consistent human-eaters...
...Human flesh is the tastiest food to a youkai, especially the flesh of depressed or sinful humans. They most often hunt at the Nameless Hill where the ghosts of suicide victims end up. Other than that youkai are fine with any kind of food that humans eat and enjoy it just as much as humans do. While some humans still get eaten by youkai it's not all that common and usually avoidable on the human's part. Forgoing human flesh entirely isn't made out to be a big deal for youkai, those who do eat it just don't care...
Only wrong parts.
Nobody is eating anyone. It's just a colorful euphemism they used to scare each other for giggles. The place is often called a paradise and stuff like that doesn't really fit that title. A paradise would also be boring if their was no trouble, hence all the incidents. Tenshi's reason for showing up is a good example of that.
There are no hero or villians of any kind. Touhou in general is more or less a giant shaggy dog story about bored immortals amusing themselves with magic and mischief. There's no real aggression. It's all in good fun.