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In Kyoukai no Kanata, are youmu the same as youkai?  
Since half youmu half humans are also called hanyou, I'm assuming they are.

However, if they are, then why are they called youmu instead of youkai?


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2013-10-03T00:46:02.467
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2013-10-03T06:34:13.953
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beyond-the-boundary
In Kyoukai no Kanata, are youmu the same as youkai?


> In Kyoukai no Kanata, are youmu the same as youkai?

There is no such thing as _youkai_ (妖怪) in the world of Kyoukai no Kanata.
There are only _youmu_ (妖夢).

Keep in mind that _youkai_ is a very loosely-defined term in Japanese, and is
generally used to refer to a rather motley collection of supernatural
creatures, so it isn't even really all that meaningful to ask whether some
term is "the same as" _youkai_.

(Aside: note that _youkai_ and _youmu_ share the character 妖, which means
something along the lines of "strange or bizarre".)

> However, if they are, then why are they called youmu instead of youkai?

This is a question of authorial intent, basically. If I had to guess, the
author chose to use _youmu_ instead of _youkai_ in order to avoid bringing
along the semantic baggage that the word _youkai_ carries. Every Japanese
person has an idea of what a _youkai_ looks like, but _youmu_ is an original
coining, so you don't really have the same preconceptions in that case.


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