^ That assumes the human actually has a choice about if he's going to fight or not. Hell, look at modern police dogs - even when the criminals have weapons a good half of them panic when faced with an angry dog and, when in a panic, the inbuilt mammilian response is to use *built in* weapons. Which we don't have any to speak of.
Can't help but think that Hina's filling is BAD LUCK. Of course now i have thought this i just can't get my mind off the question of 'what would Bad Luck taste like anyway?'
@Power Crows are pretty vicious birds, and IIRC are pretty infamous for attacking livestock. Admittedly they would be more likely to rip a yukkuri apart there and then rather than to fly off with one (i don't think they can actually carry stuff with their feet anyway, but i'm not 100% sure on that)
I think i mentioned this in the previous thread. There is a type of candy product in japan which contains THREE candies. Of these only ONE is super-sour, the other two are normal candies. There is NO indication of which one of the three this sour one is.
The joke here is that the mother Reimu got the sour one, the kids are eating the two non-sour ones.
In regards to genetic memory, i think it would be safe to assume that any yukkuri action which has become repeatable by the species as a whole made it in. Such as Marisa using their hats for boats. Once a few started it, suddenly every Marisa thereafter seemed to know how to do it. You could probably mix this with a bastardized form of morphic knowledge (seen in reality, with sheeps escaping cattle grids - within a day or two of one discovering how to do it *every* sheep knew how to do it, despite everyone swearing blind there was no possible way they could have communicated this information in any perceivable way). Once an action enters genetic memory, every applicable yukkuri born thereafter knows it. Otherwise we hit major problems with the super-short-term filling memory, because if they were just relying on filling to remember some of this they would be forgetting about sticks / hat-boats repeatedly and having to relearn from scratch each time - which we've never seen them have to do in any stories/pictures. HOW or WHY information somehow makes it into this memory though... hell if i have any idea. Maybe if enough Yukkuri know the same thing at the same time or something it just sorta... happens. (okay yeah, my ideas fall apart around here. heh.) Obviously specific types have certain preledictions to certain skills. (marisa and her hat-boat, youmu's are often shown being better with pointy sticks, flying types know how to fly, meilings are born with guard discipline, etc)
@This Class differences? Although i admit my example was a bad one, i think you misunderstood. When i said every baby i meant *every* baby - regardless of the parents intelligence.
Komachi-types are the only Yukkuri i honestly can't imagine having an edible filling. Mostly because i just see them as sort of living pillows/bean-bags, simply due to the fact that i can't get the idea of using a large one as a living beanbag out of my head. It'd be comfy.
Commenting on the Flan and spear thing, a spear is a logical progression from a pointy stick, and hands - if you have them - are the natural progression from holding stuff in ones mouth. Now, i don't have a problem with a flan using a spear - since it's basically a pointy stick and it's basic use (put the pointy end in other people) is simple to grasp. Now, if the flan *made* a spear i'd have issues, since i don't think yukkuri - even bodied ones - have pregressed that far. Using a spear a mister made, or it found or, heck, just using a longer pointy stick seems more likely, but i wouldn't expect it to do anything more fancy than 'poke stuff with the end until they die' with it.
Yukkuri memory, low, but you forget all Yukkuri also have a genetic memory - most known by as in the fact that koyukkuri know usable (if slurred) language right from the start without, like other animals and humans, having to learn it. This means it must be pre-programmed, and if that is then other concepts can over time become pre-programmed too. (IIRC some ammo stuff had yukkuri being taught not to shit to embed 'not shitting' in their genes. That's taking it too far, as you can't simply *halt* a biological process like that, but the idea is the same.) It's also shown (with that Reimu that kept getting Youmu in trouble) that artificially slowing filling circulation means a higher memory (an thus intelligence) for a yukkuri. We can extend this to DOS types, generally shown to be far smarter than normal types, by suggesting that their bean paste simply moves much slower, or the effect of it's movement is much less, due to their size.
Weirdly this 'pre-programmed' (and non-forgettable, otherwise yukkuri would keep forgetting how to talk) memory is a MASSIVE evolutionary advantage - when a new skill, trait or whatever makes it into this genetic memory then all koyukkuri born from that point will have this knowledge at birth meaning that, unlike humans, knowledge gained this way is *never lost*. It would be like having every human baby born knowing everything stephen hawking knows - the only direction humanity can go in his field of science then is up because you wouldn't have knowledge going missing over time and you'd be saving the, y'know 50+ years he spent having to learn all that in the first place. The only problem is, the very limited bean-paste memory is a massive evolutionary stepback which, for now, counteracts the advantage of genetic memory and likely will for many, many hundreds or thousands of generations.
That could explain the grandma yukkuri in that one pic a while ago, the inside reduced with age, but the outer skin didn't - thus wrinkled old yukkuri.
You know, i rather imagined that Yuka find an 'easy place', decimate the existing flowers/plants, then grow whichever ones that particular Yuka likes (sunflowers, heh). So they're a pest to growers in general, but with some management they can be useful workers for growing flowers with.
i always assumed a yukkuri grew to fit its food supply. Lots of food == big yukkuri. Not much food == small yukkuri. I imagine there would be all sorts of problems reducing in size though, possibly the process is even simply a one way deal - yukkuri can get bigger but not smaller again.
Far be it from me to fall upon the 'easy' answer, but i've had it thrown in my face on other issues so... hey, why not try it myself?
'Magic' They can't evolve 'cuz magic keeps them as they are.
Right, that out of the way. I'd take issue with the idea of the species not progressing, as they have in several ways since they first came about. Admittedly not entirely *effective* ways... but when you compare animals to humans there's not a lot of ways, currently, any animal could evolve to take a human on equal footing anymore. The best most manage is striking through surprise, poisons, or through berserk states after which they often die anyway. Yukkuri suck at surprise, and at berserk states (well, though they may go berserk it's largely inneffectual). Through biological methods we have a few (utsuho, medicine, possible eirin) and unique attacks to some (mokou, iku) but by and large yukkuri have no hope against humans. There was some bandying about early on about psychic waves 'n shit but... bullshit to that, if you want to be honest - it never struck me as even vaguely likely at all. Now, how has the species as a whole progressed? simply put, some have learned. Yuka's who farm are generally accepted by most humans. 500-yen Marisa was shown defending her owners property, and the flower-badge Reimu, while gullible, looked after the owners house to a point where she knew how to receive a package on her own. (otherwise how would she know she'd need the stamp to show it had been received?). The problem, however, is that these Yukkuri only really seem to advance intellectually while in captivity because, sadly, a smart yukkuri in the wild is often one to be taken advantage of (or outright killed for 'not taking it easy') by others.
Contrary to belief, Yukkuri must be *ferociously* smart in certain - very limited - aspects. Many Yukkuri have shown a remarkable grasp for what are otherwise complex things that a human child (which most equate to having a similar level of intelligence) have little hope of understanding. Sadly most of this comprehension is focuses on realizing how they've just been made to despair, but hey it's still comprehension. Hell, gutter trash yukkuri beg for money - unless they had some inkling of the value of money they wouldn't bother to do so.
@Theo Good point on the 'not scared of humans'. Take a look at the Dodo for an example, having had no predators *ever* it was made extinct within a year or so of humans and their pets finding it, simply because it didn't know to be afraid of them.
There have been evolutions in Yukkuri, if you know where to look. Hell, the fact that some have adapted to a gutter trash lifestyle is not much short of an incredible change for a species to go through in so short a time. most animals retain their wild instincts in the cities, which gets them in trouble often, wheras gutter trash yukkuri have reached a point where, i expect, if you took a gutter trash to a country 'easy place' it would die in days or less due to not being able to survive out there. We also see more yukkuri using sticks as rudimentry weapons against other yukkuri (and some humans/animals). That's quite a change from being convinced they in and of themselve could take on others with ease, they've learned that pointy stick == easier dead enemy. And they've passed this on as we sometimes see whole families with pointy sticks. Sadly, they have a long, long way to go before they have a hope of seriously worrying a human. And their base mental philosophy is the biggest problem, anything that improves itself is generally seen as 'not taking it easy' and is killed by the rest. If yukkuri seriously evolve as a species, it'll be done almost entirely in captivity.
for reference, the 'poison' in chocolate is theobromine, and depending on chocolate type between 8oz (240g) and 1lb (500g) is enough to make sick and possibly kill a 44lb (20kg) dog, and almost definately kill anything smaller. Obviously some mammals, like rats (again) either are immune to it or simply don't care about dying from it and will eat the stuff anyway. Not sure how big one would imagine a Chen type to be, but at the very least eating one would make most animals not want to eat one again.
That would be the main reason that 'every animal kills and eats yukkuri' is impossible. Hell, given that Chen types are filled with chocolate, most common animals that eat them would then die from chocolate poisoning. (Remember, chocolate is poisonous to almost all birds and mammals, including humans, it's just that the lethal dose is VERy dependant on mass and body chemsitry. Humans, IIRC, would theoretically need to eat something like 24lbs of the stuff before it's lethally poisonous.) This, along with the spicy 'bad taste' (to animals) of meilings, the poison of medicines, and i'm sure there are others, means that yukkuri predation would be significantly based on filling (as animals would, over time, learn which ones to avoid eating.)
The main division in terms of filling, then, is between 'sweet' (Marisa, Reimu), 'Savory/meat' (Remi, Flan) and 'Milk' (Alice, Patchy) filled yukkuri as depending on filling different animals would be attracted to them. 'Sweet' Yukkuri would by far be more susceptable to larger insects, expecially wasps and hornets, which are attracted to sugary substances. There are also a number of herbivores which greatly enjoy sweet foods - horses and pigs being two i can think of offhand. Most of these sort of animals, however, are of the domestic variety. 'Savory/meat' types, being er, Meat... pretty much any carn- or omni-vore would desire them. But the two big yukkuri of this type, Flan and Remi, both fly and nest high up making them difficult if not impossible for most predators to get. Thus i'd assume their main risk would be certain types of bird as well as lizards and other reptiles. Finally, 'Milk' types. There are *hundreds* of animals which go for custard and creams, even if it's bad for them and even when not necessarily hungry, which makes these type by far the most vulnerable to random predation - Alice Rape tribes however work similar to the defense of fish schools, simply meaning the more there are in one place the less chance any given alice is targeted.
Types aside, the biggest real yukkuri killer in terms of predation would be verminous animals such as rats - who will eat damn near *anything* - and the like. Though this would be far, far more of a risk to gutter trash in a city than it would be to those out in the countryside.