This is Kyūri.
He's a Kappa.
And, he's my friend. 😊

So, the road to making new Youkai for my series was rough.
Originally, I felt adding more than Sakura at first would make Rigby feel "cheap" and "in-unique", as there would be more creatures like him in the series, so what's the point? (My same argument for why having more than one of a breed or species of animal in WTFF was a no-no (excluding Dobermans, as I'm biased).)

After a while, I started getting more involved with Youkai (not extremely much, but enough) for me to consider at least the POSSIBILITY of adding more characters. So, the next issue was... Making characters I care about.

A huge problem I have is creating characters for their design, not their personality. (I also stopped adopting characters permanently for this. I love how they look, but the intimate process of creating a character makes them more personal for me. I end up letting them rot as a result of this.) This often results in a cute character, but shit personality, which makes me less likely to revisit them in the future, unless it's to tweak it. For me to make such a wide variety of new creatures with such vast and interesting history behind them, I had to do it slowly. I assure you when I'm offline, I'm usually pacing back and forth in my living room to kitchen brainstorming ideas (and criticizing Bitch Fartman for the failure that he is).

I was trying to figure out, based on each yokai... What is it that would make them memorable to me? These need to be CHARACTERS, not PRODUCTS. I looked to characters I like and traits I like. Every character NEEDED to feel real. They needed a purpose. They needed a reason to exist. Because, it'd be the same thing again.

Kyūri is a great example of why this mattered. I fought with how I didn't want to include a Kappa, as they were too "humanoid" for a universe that involved small animal Youkai. How was I going to fit a Youkai I liked into a universe in which I'm exclusively going to exclude humanoid Youkai???

I'm going to make him a turtle, that's how.
It was genius. I even got an idea in my head. This is EXACTLY what I mean. Making a design to fit a PURPOSE, rather than my selfish aesthetics.
...wait-

Then, another idea struck: instead of having them hide in the city all the time or live among humans (yuck), they all live in a seemingly normal forest nearby, tending to get into shenanigans when they DO arrive in the city at times, due to their inexperience with it! *runs hands together, cackling madly* Yes, YES, it's all coming together now! 😈 I love this so much! I love "forest animals unaware of how human society works"-types stories!

And, this guy? Yeah, he's got a few stereotypical traits going for him. But, I'm not doing the "turtles are slow" thing. I hate that. I had a turtle and dude could RUN. Or the "their shells are detachable" thing. It's attached to him. To his S K I N. He's also not dumb. Mostly. Just kinda... "Food motivated". But, the cucumbers thing is the best part about them, couldn't ignore that.

It's hard to explain why he works, while the 900+ dogs I made on the backburner (who I STILL haven't drawn yet and probably won't) don't.

I realize I blew most of this writing a fricking essay instead of discussing the character-

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Kyūri is a laidback turtle-frog-bird thing that lives in the small foresty area with Rig and the gang. He's extremely fond of cucumbers and the like (loving the taste of pickles as well when finally gets to try one) and tends to wander into trouble trying to get some. He seems to have a bottomless stomach, too. (Like dang man, how many do you need-) He's more peace-loving than the rest of the rowdy bunch, tending to keep his thoughts to himself and enjoying his friends company and the world around him. He's quite the avid swimmer in his own time and tends to lend himself out as a "boat" of sorts for others (I tend to take full advantage of that). He stays out of any action we get into. He's not super slow, but not super quick either. Basically, he's pretty chill. Not sure if the inconsistent "stories" about us apply to him or not... I mean, I've never seen him doing anything suspect or murderous... I don't he has it in him. (Then again, we supposedly still "impersonate Buddhist monks" and uhh... 😬)