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kitsune
📅 Updated:2019-11-27
🕒 Created:2008-12-16
🆔 ID:243
Description
Defunct tag.
"Kitsune" is the Japanese word for "fox", but for the purposes of e621, the tag will be used in the somewhat inaccurate way English-speakers have appropriated the term: to specifically refer to the trickster spirits from Japanese mythology known to take the form of foxes. Kitsune spirits have a variety of magical powers, including teleportation and shapeshifting, but are not especially offensive-minded, preferring to tease and trick hapless Humans rather than outright kill them. In the most common interpretation of the characters, Kitsune spirits have a lifespan of about a thousand years, and every one hundred years, they grow another tail (having been born with just one), with each tail vastly increasing the power of a Kitsune spirit's magic. Kitsune spirits can grow a maximum of nine tails, and a nine-tailed spirit is both amazingly powerful and incredibly wise (from the simple benefit of having at least eight hundred years of life to learn things).
Several fictional characters have been inspired by the legends of the Kitsune spirits, such as Miles "Tails" Prower from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and the Pokémon Vulpix and Ninetales. Shippo from the manga/anime InuYasha is overtly mentioned to be one, and Renamon from Digimon is often interpreted to be inspired by them.
