A type of yukkuri, generally the end result of Pet Yukkuris’ abandonment, an urban environment expanding over forest and rural areas formerly occupied by Yukkuris, or simple overpopulation of wild yukkuri populations causing them to spill over into urban areas.
Featured prominently in Dosu and the City and several illustrations, gutter trash yukkuris are of many different species that, by chance or choice, abandoned or lost their original lifestyle to scrape a meager existence as strays.
Very much like the human homeless population, a gutter trash yukkuri brand of “taking it easy” would be considered a pitiful attempt at scraping a living by forest and pet yukkuris. Pet yukkuri are advised to stay away from strays and in several stories they’re shown looking down at them with contempt and disgust.
Physical Characteristics
Despite having the same base characteristics of their main species, strays are easily recognizable by the byproduct of their pitiful existence.
Where forest and pet yukkuris are obsessed with keeping themselves clean, by doing lick lick with each other or letting their owners take care of them, stray yukkuris, always busy with trying to scrap a meager existence, lacking a steady source of water and routinely scavenging in garbage bags and landfills, are almost always covered in filth and poo poo, always stinking, mostly obviously injured by animals such as birds and dogs and getting bullied by humans and shitheads. Some even lack one eye or their accessories.
Even if they attempt to clean themselves, for example using dust in lieu of water, strays still reek of the garbage they’re forced to eat, which has adverse effects on their overall health. As detailed in Dosu and the City, where forest yukkuris and pet yukkuris, by eating acorns, grass or specific pellets, are able to regulate the growth and clean their sugary teeth, garbage makes them grow warped and spotted.
Where other yukkuris are able to hop around on soft ground, grass and soft carpets and tissues, strays are injured by hopping on the hard concrete of walkways or asphalt of roads, and their bottoms grow callous and scarred. Furthermore, while a forest yukkuri keeps itself in shape by doing its hunt hunt, and a pet yukkuri eats healthy and plays with its friend yukkuris and its human owner, gutter trash yukkuris, while not busy scavenging, feel no motivation to pursue a more active life, thus growing up in a constant state of starvation or, for the lucky ones able to take residence in a landfill, wallowing in the garbage that’s both their home and their “munch munch.”
Because of the lack of food, many strays live in constant malnutrition, while others are on the verge of obesity but still reeking of garbage. Rarely will a gutter trash yukkuri be found that is remotely healthy. Their lack of hygiene increases the risk of developing mold, which, for a stray yukkuri, is one of the most common causes of death alongside altercations with humans and other yukkuris. Especially among orphan koyukkuris, a moldy juvenile yukkuri, unable to leave its makeshift nest and being ineffectively cared for by its older siblings until its death is a very common sight in the gutters.
While stray yukkuris are unable to heal the most grievous injuries they suffer, or even to attend properly to the inevitable scrapes and cuts they receive daily, they react to accessory abuse in more creative way than their forest or pet counterparts. Yukkuri Marisas and komarisas, when faced with the loss of their precious hats, simply replace them with items they feel “similar,” such as small boxes for the adult Marisas, dumpling boxes, ice cream cones and bottle caps for koyukkuris. In nature, losing their accessories would end in a death sentence, but stray yukkuris are able to live avoiding the hatred of their kin. Instead, a yukkuri with an alternate, “artificial” accessory ends up ridiculed and looked down by the rest of its peers but rarely driven away. The fan-favourite “Canrisa,” a Komarisa living in a small can, is one of those strays. Despite still having its little witch hat, it also spends its whole time in the can originally used by its mother to beg, rolling around instead of moving.
In the wild, accessory theft is a serious crime, frowned upon by most yukkuris, but strays are not above bullying their kin to get their accessories as a replacement for a lost or badly damaged one. It may be inferred that the harsher life they lead raised their tolerance for shoddy and stolen accessories.
Since the badge system ensures that whoever finds a silver, gold or platinum badged yukkuri has to bring it back to its owner for a reward, owners willing to abandon their yukkuris usually trick them by “getting a brand new type of badge.” Thus it’s not uncommon seeing a stray with a poorly made fake badge bragging to be a pet and loudly pestering humans to be brought to its owner at once or given food and sweets.
Since being a pet yukkuri is seen as an enjoy