Justy said: So, canonically, how many karakasas do you know? How many crow tengu? Wolf tengu? Kappas?
Basically, "if it exists, there is a youkai species of it".
Just because we only know Yukari doesn't mean there aren't other gap youkai in the world.
those are canonically common species in Japanese mythology tho. I can't think of any yokai from ANY mythology that would cover Yukari (and I would stake my George Zimmer that Yukari isn't a Japanese native anyway so that leaves a lot of areas open, and I will admit I'm not the world's expert on everywhere's mythology, I mainly just study Greek and Japanese)
putting aside "Yukari is fooling around again", without anything specific to support others I'm not going to believe there's others of her kind. hell she could even be lying to everyone, and just be an ordinary Human->Magician that has gained a control of magic far above what anyone else can comprehend, and not any sort of special yokai at all.
(as a side note let me tell you Justy, I do enjoy these conversations we have. it really stretches the mind, and helps pass the time)
Justy said: Gotta admit you have a point here. I wonder where ZUN took the inspiration for her, anyway.
And yes, these discussions are definitely refreshing.
I think I might have to crack open the book I bought mentioned in post #531106 and see what I can find
although I wasn't that impressed on my first look when I received it, I found the Japanese mythology section horribly sparse, and some stuff missing from the Greek section as well.
garyseven said: I can't think of any yokai from ANY mythology that would cover Yukari
Actually, there ARE yokai that would cover Yukari. The only reason you don't hear about them is because they're intentionally vague due to the extreme ambiguity of the concept in the first place.
Don't forget, the concept of "space" (ie. "gaps") is a relatively new concept in science. Before that "outer space" was just "the sea of stars", "the great blackness", etc. Well by the extension of "the sea of stars", it stands to reason that there are monsters in "the sea of stars" the same way the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Oceans had "sea monsters."
That said, mythological studies are extremely limited in the 21st century. Other than the classic Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese and Japanese myths, few other mythologies are explored because the culture was virtually/completely crushed (Native American/Mayan)
Gaps are just a rift in the boundary between 'where Yukari is' and 'where Yukari wants to be'. Simple as that. To her, all places can be considered adjacent to each other so 'space' doesn't really apply.
MMaestro said: Don't forget, the concept of "space" (ie. "gaps") is a relatively new concept in science.
Western science. "Void" is one of the five elements of nature in classical Japanese literature. They had a sense of understanding that there is "a space between everything", even if they didn't know of "space outside the Earth's atmosphere".
"Sukima" just means "gap" or "crevice", and doesn't have any connotation related to "vacuum" or "outer space".
