Ran Yakumo

Ran Yakumo is a character from the Touhou Project games.

Ran is a shikigami possessing a youkai fox, who attacks the heroine when her shikigami Chenloses to them and to avoid waking her master, Yukari Yakumo.

In the Heroes Coalition fics, Ran is a former student at the Vanguard Academy.

Appearance
Ran has yellow eyes, short blonde hair, and nine fox tails. She wears a white dress with purple cuffs and collar, an indigo tabard with a white print, white and blue footwear, and a light pink two-tailed hat with many amulets that hide her fox ears. According to ZUN, she is fairly tall.

Personality
Ran does Yukari's work for her while her master sleeps.

Ran is usually portrayed as a motherly figure, especially towards Chen.

Abilities
While being a shikigami, she has the privilege of strong youkai of being able to use shikigami. However, perhaps because she does not have the level of power that Yukari Yakumo has, or perhaps because the power of the youkai turned into a medium wasn't enough, different from herself, Chen has only the level of wisdom of a child. Also, although she's not able to turn against what Yukari says, this doesn't mean that Chen perfectly listens to what Ran says. Because of this, she sometimes has to lure Chen with catnip to make her listen. Matching up with Yukari, she has super-human intellect, and excels at mathematics. According to Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, she was somehow able to formulate and prove an equation for figuring out the width of the Sanzu River. Nonetheless, more than inventing new things through her intellect, it seems to be her speciality to process formulated calculations; even on this point, the shikigami of Gensokyo have been often likened to the PCs of the outside world. As for her other abilities, one of her spellcards shows that she is capable of quickly increasing her physical capabilities, but other than this, nothing more have especially come to light. As a strong youkai, she is probably able to use various other kinds of sorcery, but since she pretty much never performs actions alone it's still unclear.
 * Using Shikigami
 * Clear Intellect
 * Miscellaneous

All along, she usually makes appearances as a means for Yukari to attack, so when she flies around, she often spins around. Perhaps the way Chen spins around and around may be also be related, or due to her influence.

Trivia

 * The characters for Yakumo literally mean "eight clouds", and Ran "indigo". All of the Yakumo family are named after colors.


 * Ran Yakumo is apparently not her real name (along with Sakuya Izayoi), according to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, and is only a name given to her by Yukari. Her real name is unknown.


 * One of her Spell Cards, "Princess Tenko," made her one of the most popular joke characters in the Touhoucommunity, second only to "Chuugoku" with the silliness of its sound. It might have something to do with a famous Japanese illusionist, considering how foxes are known for their tricks and illusions in folklore.


 * Even though Ran is only a boss in two games and has never been a playable character, she's a fairly popular character and is often seen in fan comics partly because of her master Yukari, who is another popular character.


 * Ran is supposed to be a 9-tailed fox (called a "Kyuubi") which, according to ancient Japanese folklore, would be at least 800 years old. Foxes start life with 1 tail and gain an extra tail once every hundred years. So at 100 years old they would have 2, and at 800 would have 9. At this point, assuming Ran follows traditional folklore, she will eventually start losing tails until she has 4 and will be considered a "Tenko" (heaven) type of fox and will then be one step away from divinity.


 * Ran is very good at math, being able to solve complex equations in her head.


 * Ran is the only stage mid-boss in any Touhou game that is immune to bombs.


 * Ran is also the only Phantasm Mid-Boss.