>>50202874
My head canon is that the village is a big form of entertainment for the Youkai, in the Truman show sense.
I mean, from their perspective, they get to watch evolving social dynamics and the passing of generations, so they could conceivably follow a human being from cradle to grave, maybe even intervening a bit if they grow fond of their antics or want to influence them in some way. There's probably all sorts of claims and counter-claims on who gets to mess with which humans and who's off-limits because they saved a fox from a bear trap when they were young and that fox turned out to be the daughter of a high-ranking kitsune who'll blow your head off if you mess with her daughter's savior.
Sort of like what's been discussed here: >>50212957 but with the added element that the Youkai have an emotional connection to the village, so even if they one day were ALLOWED to eat humans, they wouldn't be able to bring themselves to do it because the world would be less interesting.

It's kind of like the super ego of Youkai got seduced by the super ego of humanity.