Rumia

Rumia (ルーミア Ruumia)[1] is a youkai with the ability of manipulating the darkness. She is one of the few youkai that doesn't seem to belong to any particular species.

Rumia first appeared as the Stage 1 Boss of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, and later as a Level 1 target in Shoot the Bullet. She also made an appearance as a background character in Hopeless Masquerade.

Personality Rumia is apparently quite simple-minded and doesn't like the sunlight nor the summer heat; in fact, she uses her powers of darkness to surround herself in a mass of dark, as to avoid the heat and the light. It is also said that she only uses this power as a supportive ability when attacking others, using pure strength as her main asset. She seems like to fly around aimlessly during the day and the night, sometimes bumping into trees since she is less capable of seeing obstacles through her veil of darkness.[2][3] Despite her innocent appearance, she eats humans and thinks that a youkai's job is to hunt them down, but she also seems to be quite lazy and has commented that it is generally a pain for her doing it.[2] Rumia's skin and hair are photosensitive, so maybe that is the reason she surrounds herself with shadows although she can't see through them.[2]

Ability Manipulating darkness Rumia has the ability of manipulating darkness. By covering herself in pure darkness, she is able to prevent sunlight from passing through the darkness, as it is magical in nature and can render even traditional lights such as torches useless within it. Because of this, people who happen to go inside the darkness would not able to see anything, but it looks like Rumia herself is also less capable to see, as she might crash into trees while flying. However, she was still able to read Aya's newspaper even with almost no light, while Aya herself couldn't write notes nor reading her notebook. She has also shown that she can control how much light can pass through the darkness, as she let only a bit of it entering to be able to read the newspaper. The appearance of the darkness outside its region looks like a spherical circle that is moving. Rumia says "I'm fine in moonlight" meaning she doesn't need such ability at night, and although she dislikes heat and sunlight, she was seen without darkness in broad daylight in various occasions, even in summer.[4][5][6] In-game, this ability is used as part of Rumia's Darkness Sign "Dark Side of the Moon" spellcard in Shoot the Bullet, during which she becomes impossible to photograph when she is covered in darkness. The names of her spell cards are also related to night and darkness (Moon Sign, Night Sign, Darkness Sign).

Name "Rumia" (ルーミア), possibly meant to be romanized as "Lumia", seems to come from the Latin word lumen ("light") or its English descendants (luminous, luminescent). Supporting this possible origin is the subject matter of her first spell card, Moon Sign "Moonlight Ray". If "Lumia" is indeed the intended romanization of her name, then it may be that her ability to manipulate and create darkness works by absorbing light. ZUN, however, has used "Rumia" in a 2004 diary post (although he also used the rather erroneous "Frandre" in the same instance), and even supervised an official correction from "Lumia" to "Rumia". "Rumia" was also used on her Perfect Memento in Strict Sense portrait.

Origin ZUN has mentioned in an interview[7] that because it was the first Windows game, he decided to go with the concept of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil as a deochi (出落ち, lit. "punch line on the entrance") as a main theme. This is why her ability (manipulation of darkness) is an example of deochi; it seems like it would be appropriate to a final boss, yet she is only a stage 1 boss.

In the events of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Rumia bumps into either Reimu Hakurei or Marisa Kirisame near the Hakurei Shrine during her aimless wanderings and attacks them, as other youkai won't do. She is defeated quickly.

Design Rumia's design shows that she has red eyes and short blonde hair. She wears a black vest and skirt, and white blouse with a red tie bordered by two large red beads around her neck. She also has small red ofuda tied to the left side of her hair, making it look like a ribbon. However, she can neither touch nor remove the amulet. According to ZUN, her height is that of a human in her early teens (from 10 to 14 years old).[8]

It's been a long time since the last title, so I wanted to have a character that's full of surprise, and here she is. She's a girl with a serious power that controls darkness yet her first line is so bright and casual starting with "so-nanoka-." I like her because she's the representation of Touhou's world being contrarian where the savage becomes relaxed. Although she's not an important figure in the narrative, her ability to be in the dark at any time was set to create an association with vampires who despise sunlight. Her ribbon was designed to have some secrets within, but it hasn't been used so far. (lol)

When interviewed by Aya, Rumia complained that other youkai were coming into her darkness because the article Aya had written suggested they could also avoid the light and heat like her by doing so. She also complained when Aya requested there be enough light for her to take notes, as it seems that being often in the darkness makes Rumia's eyes very sensitive to light. Aya was a bit disappointed that Rumia has no goals in life.

"I am Rumia, Youkai of Darkness~! can't you see my small frame in the dark~?" "Or did I scare you so much that you lost your sight~?" *Rumia playfully chides you*

Youkai of the Dusk Rumia Ability: Manipulating darkness Stage 1 boss. A youkai. She is of no importance to the story, and isn't up to anything in particular in her life. The ribbon tied to her hair is actually a charm; she can't touch it even though there have been times when she wanted to take it off. There is no evidence of her ability to manipulate darkness in the game, but in truth, places around her are always as dark as night. Total of three card attacks

EX Rumia: It's broadly rumored among fans that the amulet-ribbon is some kind of "seal", and that taking it off will release her true power. In some doujinshi, when the amulet-ribbon is removed Rumia develops an EX form in which she looks more mature, has wings, and/or wields a giant dark sword (usually a Stormbringer).

Man-Eater: Because of her in-game dialogues, and her being described as a man-eater in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, she is often portrayed as a glutton that is extremely fond of meat (most notably humans and Mystia Lorelei). Rumia, Yuyuko Saigyouji, and Yoshika Miyako, are sometimes seen together and are known as the "hungry trio" in the western fanbase. (Although the rule that Youkai should not hurt and kill human villagers are stated in recent works.)

Team ⑨: In fan works, she is often seen with other lower level, childish characters like Cirno, Mystia Lorelei and Wriggle Nightbug and Daiyousei. "Team ⑨" is a term used in the Western fandom. In the Japanese community, they (Cirno, Mystia, Rumia, Wriggle) are referred as the "Bakartet" (バカルテット bakarutetto, "baka" + "quartet").

Sonanoka~: Her catchphrase in fan works is Sōnanokā (そーなのかー) which is a pretty childish way of saying "Is that so~." Rumia first says this in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil during Reimu's scenario. This is reflective of the childish and ditzy personality she's given in most fanar

She loves meat, preferably human meat.

She hates vegetables, mainly cabbages.