Those who are curious shall be rewarded.
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Article#12 : Wriggle Nightbug, The Bug of Light Wriggling in the Dark
リグル・ナイトãƒã‚°
[size=12]Wriggle Nightbug [/h]
Age : Unknown
Species : Youkai (Firefly)
Personalities : Proud, Caring, Focused but Forgetful
Abilities : Control over all types of Insects.
Occupation : Unknown.
First Appearance : Imperishable Night ( Touhou 8.0 )
Wriggle is a firefly youkai with the ability to control other insects. She likes using her ability to direct concerted performances for her own amusement. She also likes using it to attack humans who underestimate her significance or the importance of insects in general; she seems to take it personally when someone offends insects.
She can't stand the cold or insecticide.
Perfect Memento[/h]
- Main place of activity :
Bushes, clumps of grass, etc.
- If you want to talk about a youkai that humans find unpleasant, Wriggle Nightbug is a good example. As to why she's considered unpleasant, she always appears with a large number of bugs and can control bugs at will.
- This youkai appears similar to a human child. Fortunately, she doesn't look completely like a bug; she has antennae and wings, but other than that doesn't look any different from a human.
- Wriggle is a bug youkai, but to be exact she's a firefly youkai. Fireflies, unlike most bugs, are popular with humans. Since this type of bug can avoid extermination by humans, it's easy for them to mature into youkai.
- In addition to fireflies, butterflies are similarly quite popular with humans, so it's easy for them to become youkai.
- Since long ago, bug youkai have been the equal of oni and tengu in terms of inspiring fear, but lately they've lost that feeling of dignity.
- The fact that this bug youkai, who could be called the bugs' leader, has the appearance of a young girl could be considered a symbol of this.
- The reason why the bugs' power has suddenly declined needs to be investigated.
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Eyewitness Reports
-"I lifted up a big stone and there were a whole bunch of bugs under it. It was disgusting." (Anonymous)
Comment:This may not have much to do with this youkai, but it's technically a report regarding bugs.
-"There were a whole bunch of centipedes under the overhang of my roof. Give me a break." (Anonymous)
Comment: This may not have much to do with this youkai.
-"There was a cave cricket at my back door. I hate those things." (Anonymous)
Comment:This has nothing to do with this youkai.
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Countermeasures
- The thing that makes bugs frightening is their numbers.Individually they don't have much power, but when they come in large groups they're hard to deal with.
- This is particularly true for bugs such as hornets; while killing one or two means nothing, if they land one sting it can kill a human.
- The most effective countermeasure is building a fire and using fumigation in order to keep bugs away from a large area. Also, they're generally weak to the cold. They're active from spring through fall, but they almost never show up during winter.
- If you're trying to exterminate youkai, your best bet is to go after this youkai during winter when she's alone.
- Also, among the bugs that this youkai controls, the ones you need to be most careful of are the harvest mites. Harvest mites are devil bugs that can't be seen by the human eye, and you don't even notice that you've been bitten. Later, small black bite marks will appear, but by then it's too late; you'll get a high fever and collapse, and there is a high probability of death. There is no effective treatment.
- If Wriggle doesn't seem to have any bugs with her and yet looks really confident, that's the most dangerous time. She could be gathering harvest mites.
Bunbunmaru Trivia
# Wriggle's appearance and name are both quite androgynous compared to other characters, so it used to be a point of some contention whether Wriggle was a male or female character before the release of full version, her wearing pants certainly didn't help either.
# The full version's official profile declared that she is in fact female. However, with lack of male presence in the series she is sometimes converted to male in R-rated fan-fiction, with both writer and readers being fully aware that she is officially a girl. Additionally, she is often made fun of in fan comics as being a crossdresser--either as a girl that dresses like a boy or actually being a boy who's just pretending to be a girl.
# Due to insects being near the very bottom of the food chain, Wriggle is sometimes portrayed as "food" in some fan comics. Especially food for
Yamame Kurodani, a spider youkai, or for
Mystia Lorelei, a night sparrow (who in turn is food for
Yuyuko Saigyouji, a glutton).
# In fan works, she is often seen with other lower level, childish characters such as
Cirno,
Rumia, and
Mystia.
#She is occasionally called or labelled "G" (short for gokiburi, or cockroach). A common nickname for Wriggle is 「りãるん〠or "Rigurun" similar in style to "Yukarin" for "Yukari."
# Pairings of her with
Yuuka have become common. This could be because bugs pollinate flowers, they have similar hairstyles, or maybe
ANGELTYPE is to blame.
# According to an interview with ZUN, Wriggle could have made an appearance in
Touhou Hisoutensoku, however, due to a lack of time, she was removed.
# In Imperishable Night, the player can go up to the top of the screen and focus to collect items without being at full power (the Magic Team doesn't even have to focus to do this). For beginning players, sometimes they would be caught off guard in the middle of stage 1 trying to collect point items and lose a life due to Wriggle coming from the top of the screen while the player is at the same location trying collecting point items. This sudden fly-in from Wriggle is sometimes referred to as the "Wriggle Kick" in the fandom and is parodied in fanart and fangames such as
Touhou Soccer and
Touhoumon.
# In the multiplayer game
League of Legends, there is an item named after Wriggle Nightbug that's called "
Wriggle's Lantern".