danogoat said: There are lots of stories of bodied yukkuris evolving into youkais, not humans
Ignoring the fact I can't fucking tell the different between demons and youkais since the terms tend to be used on the same thing, they become human enough to count as humans. Beside I was looking for ones a non-bodied yukkuri -> bodied -> human/youkai/demon premise.
Shinobi said: Don't forget anko1748 and the other one made by nodachi.
That's not an evolution, that's SCIENCE!!!! but a worthy alternative.
Wiki has an article on it, but the overall idea is that Youkai (or ayakashi as an alternate title) is the name that encompasses all supernatural creatures in japanese mythology and media. They don't need to attack or harass humans, in fact, many yokais are friendly or even benefitial for mankind.
Sometimes the J-Media Stories uses Yokai as a term for monsterkind and spiritkind that are as sentient and sapient as human beings or similar advanced beigns, disregarding if the monsterkind itself is form european mythology or not.
Dunno if that helps, but you can always check the wiki article of it to learn something, or, well, "just google it".
Youkai is more of a general term for spirits, monsters and like JIE said supernatural creatures. This happens to include monster-gods, popular ones being the Tengu and the 9-tailed fox.
Interesting fact: ghosts are not considered youkai though they are frequently protrayed alongside youkai.
For our fanfics and yukkuris, "youkais" are more closely related to the touhou fanfic type of youkais where they have human forms, walk about and on occasion consume humans.
Seems that Yukari is one of the kind Youkai(along others) that wasn't based from japanese mythology like Tengu, Kappa, Nine tail fox(Gumiho in korea), etc. Well if I'm correct that is.