/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I would like to suggest another genre for posts in this thread. It's fine for people to answer questions, but I think contributing with your own original thoughts about characters also has some value.
There is constant debate about how the fandom treats some characters poorly, so I think it's nice to recognize these characters whose personalities are generally well understood and respected. For me, Yumemi is one of these characters.
She is the first outsider to appear in Touhou, and the fact that she is explicitly marked as so demonstrates that ZUN already had at least some idea of the different space which would be later named Gensokyo. Her personality is very interesting, but what really shines is her fascination with magic.
Really, Yumemi's outside world is so similar to Renko and Maribel's that I refuse to believe this is a coincidence. A world where humanity enjoys the apex of science; Yumemi states that humans in her world think that everything there is to be discovered either is or will be, and with their Grand Unified Theory no existence outside of its paradigms can be accepted. She was laughed out of academia (and later literally kicked out) because of her simple suggestion that there might be something more.
From where she got her belief in magic is unclear. She herself is uncapable of magic, as is her world's Chiyuri, so it's unlike Renko and Maribel who enjoy the use of supernatural powers. To counter that, she has knowledge of the occult, and such a profound knowledge that she manages to switch Kana's place of haunting, freeing her from her prison at a place that no longer cared about her. This knowledge of the occult she shares with the other outside world residents to a large extent, but where she really shines is her knowledge of science. She has so many incredible feats: she is a professor at 18 (Renko for example is just a student), she made all of her and her world's Chiyuri magic out of positively-charged photons, and she somehow has a ship that wades through dimensions; and with this ship she managed to find the one place where all of her theories were true; the place of magic, Gensokyo. Her true biggest desire is to make that power hers. But what is magic? Magic is the childlike innocence of power; magic is the rebellious power that resists being explained by the harsh laws of physics. In a world where everything is explained, there is nothing new to discover. In a world where there is nothing new to discover, there is no innocence; no awe; there is only concrete and skyscrapers. Yumemi resisted that; and she resisted despite all of the insults hurled towards her. In all the endings, after discovering magic, the one thing she wants to do is share it: to solve her world's problems, to combine it with religion to restore hope. Yet even then she is unsuccessful. Her theme, Strawberry Crisis, for me represents her rage at academia and her hope, the hope that only she has, that the world is something more. What is magic? Magic is something that makes what you desire. In a world where you don't have magic, you can't fulfill your desires. In a world without magic, there are no dreams. Yumemi has a dream.
Also, the last ending in PoDD is Chiyuri's ending, since Yumemi gets stuck in her world because of the energy imbalance. I truly believe she would be one of the easiest characters to bring back from PC-98 (oh, I solved the energy imbalance. I'm back).