Rumia

Overview

Rumia is a character from the Touhou Project series created by Team Shanghai Alice. Known as the Youkai of the Dusk, she made her debut in Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. as both the Stage 1 mid-boss and main boss, making her the very first boss encounter of the Windows era. Although she is considered relatively weak among youkai, she lives a lighthearted and carefree life.

Appearance

Rumia takes the form of a short, young girl with red eyes and a blonde bob cut. She wears a white shirt beneath a black vest and a long skirt, accompanied by a red tie with two small red beads around her neck, and red leather shoes. Attached to the left side of her head is a red ribbon, which is actually a magical amulet that she cannot touch or remove herself. She is frequently portrayed holding both of her arms stretched wide out to the sides.

Personality

Rumia is naive, simple-minded, and easygoing, spending her days floating aimlessly through the sky without any specific goals. Her speech and reasoning are decidedly childish, and she can be quite lazy, disliking the effort required to set ambushes for prey. Despite her innocent and cute exterior, she is a human-eating youkai who will readily attack any humans she encounters in hopes of making a meal of them.

Abilities

She possesses the ability to manipulate darkness, allowing her to create a spherical region of magical darkness roughly two to three cubic meters around herself. This darkness nullifies light sources such as torches and blocks sunlight. However, the effect also blinds Rumia while active, causing her to accidentally crash into trees while flying. As a result, her umbrakinesis serves primarily as a supportive cloak, while her actual combat relies on brute physical strength.

Background

In Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil., Rumia appears along the path toward the Scarlet Devil Mansion and attacks the protagonists intending to eat them, only to be quickly defeated. Sensitive to sunlight, she primarily operates at night or within dense forests, though she can move during the day by shielding herself in her sphere of darkness.

Relationships

She briefly clashed with protagonists Hakurei Reimu and Kirisame Marisa during the events of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Marisa famously mocked her outstretched arms pose by comparing it to humanity's adoption of the decimal system. In derivative fan creations, she is frequently grouped with other young youkai and fairies, such as Cirno, Daiyousei, Wriggle Nightbug, and Mystia Lorelei.

Trivia

Her iconic posture led to the widespread fan nickname ⑩, derived from Marisa's joke about the decimal system. Her distinctive catchphrase inspired the monthly event tag Every 7th of Each Month is Rumia Day (Maitsuki nanoka ha Rumia no hi), a Japanese wordplay between her vocal quirk and the word for the seventh day. A popular secondary setting, EX-Rumia, depicts her transforming into a powerful form if her ribbon amulet is ever removed.