The Zashiki Warashi Content Revision Thread

[DontTalkDT]

Alright, I finished reading Volume 4 of the series and there are some additions to be proposed.

Self-Sustenance (Type 1&2)​

Yukari states she doesn't need to eat.

“I’m a Youkai that can’t be killed even if I’m stabbed or shot, so it’s nonsense to think I’d get drunk. I technically don’t even need to eat. I just do it if I feel like it.”

Another Zashiki Warashi is mentioned to have no need to breathe.

Mei’s lips parted slightly.

The Ver. 40 did not even need to breathe, so this had to be to communicate her thoughts.

So it seems like Zashiki Warashi neither need to eat nor breathe, giving the Self-Sustenance Type 1 & 2.

However, it's not like this is a special Zashiki Warashi property. As the series states frequently Youkai are invulnerable to any non-magical damage and even Youkai as weak as the Sunekosori is impossible to kill for a normal human. It seems logical that drowning them would not work, given these statements.

Aburatori Range Upgrade​

The Aburatori's range is currently listed as tens of meters. However, that basically only reflects its natural skewer throwing range.

The Aburatori looked like a farmer hiding his face behind his hat and his arms and legs looked like tree branches. Every time he rotated, he scattered several dozen skewers like a shotgun. He seemed to have an unlimited supply because a few dozen more would spread out like a fan each time the old man moved his fingers.

A distance of twenty meters was nothing to that Youkai.

What it doesn't reflect is the range he has using his teleportation and other abilities. Let me list his feats/statements for those from most to least impressive.

The most impressive would be distance as a whole just being irrelevant to him.

A distance of twenty meters was nothing to that Youkai.

He would appear, kidnap, and kill without anyone knowing. The concept of distance likely did not fit well with him.

The concept of distance was meaningless. There was no such thing as close range and long range.

The Aburatori clearly believed that because he gave up his own advantage and took a step toward me.

Now, that's a NLF, so let's look at some more precise stuff.

“Calm down,” said the Aburatori. “This should be quite obvious. I have surpassed time and space, so you might think there is nothing I can’t do, but there is still something impossible for me. Has it come to you yet? It is your specialty, after all.”

“…”

“You don’t want to answer? Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly it. Even if I can surpass time and space, I cannot fight unavoidable destruction. Let’s say a giant meteor is going to hit in three days. What can I do? No matter how far back in time I go, I cannot change its course. And even if I escape to the future, I will only find an ice age after the destruction is over. And even if I try to escape through space, I have no guarantee there are any other planets as comfortable as Earth. See? I am still fragile. I may control time and space, but I am powerless in the face of overwhelming destiny. I am wholly powerless and that is terribly frustrating.”

Here, the Aburatori states that he is able to escape to other planets, which would indicate Interplanetary range at a minimum.
The next best feat is when his power was used in the human control package. There his power was used to control organizations on a global scale.

As a part of the Comfort Association, the Japanese branch of a large criminal organization, they had secretly completed a Package involving an Aburatori. Due to growing to a global scale, conflicts could break out between the members of different nationalities and cultures, so this human control Package was meant to bring them all together. The Comfort Association wanted nothing more than to keep their business running smoothly, but the foreign members could view it as the Japanese branch attempting to take control of the entire organization.

Then there was the package in which his skewers were sold via an online shop and he stole the organs of anyone that pricked themselves with them after buying the scewers.

“The celebrity advertises it on TV and the customers buy the official goods on the online store. That’s the standard way of doing it.”

“But if you could make a site similar enough to the official one to draw in some of those customers, they would buy a completely different product while thinking they were buying what the famous celebrity recommended.”

“Also, the celebrity on TV wouldn’t know the other site existed. It wouldn’t have any connection to his business, so he wouldn’t even know he was getting his fans caught up in a crime.”

“The true criminals have no connection to the celebrity, so it doesn’t matter if the police search his house. That’s how the criminals are using a national broadcast for their crime.”

Shinobu gave me a blank stare.

The voices had to be reaching him, but they may have sounded like news of a far off country to him.

“Hayabusa-kun, let’s go back over the Youkai being used here.”

“The Aburatori. It originated in the Tohoku region, but unlike other Youkai, it didn’t appear until the Meiji period. That makes it a newcomer. However, its traits make it dangerous enough to overwhelm even other Youkai. Isn’t that right?”

An online store would sell at least on a Japan-wide scale, so it would be thousands of kilometers range.

Considering that distance was supposed to be meaningless to the Aburatori, I would argue that his teleportation ability would at least surpass the range of his other abilities.

Personally, I would advertise going with Interplanetary range for him.

Aburatori's Destiny Manipulation​

Currently the Aburatori's page states

It's unclear if this included the possibility of sacrificing those powers to create a new, previously impossible, destiny.

I would want to change that into a more positive

It's likely that this included the possibility of sacrificing those powers to create a new, previously impossible, destiny.

Why? Because the Aburatori's entire goal in absorbing Yukari was gaining that particular aspect of her power and he never believed to have failed.

“I want your power.” The monster licked his lips. “I want the power to not only bend destiny in my favor, but to create entirely new destinies.”

 

[LordGriffin1000]

Everything suggested seems fine to me.

 

[Everything12]

Seems fine.

 

[LazyHunter]

I agree with Self-Sustenance, if Youkai/supernatural creatures could simply be starved, asphyxiated or drowned the series would not repeatedly state that you need to use the occult to harm them (barring any racial weakness they migh have). If other people are fine with giving him Yukari's full blow use of her power I'm also OK with that, it's left a bit vague given how little he did while having her power which is why I left is as unclear.

I'm not 100% sure about the range. Sure, the novel does claim distance is meaningless to him, but there's little feats to actually suppor that level of power. I'm not sure whether we can use any feats for a Package like affecting people over the entire globe as feats for the Aburatori, Packages can end up surpassing what the original Youkai is able to do on their own.

On the other hand he mentions the possibility of escaping to other planets, and he later does claim to know a way to bypass the inability of Youkai to freely leave Japan suggesting he might have already done so in the past; and powers working at scales vastly beyond other characters exist in the series (Yukari, Mei). So on that uprade mark me as undecides, leaning towards yes.

 

[DontTalkDT]

1 bump for the sake of it.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Alright, if nobody is against what was suggested or has further questions, I will apply this soon.

 

[Antvasima]

This seems fine to apply to me as well.