Certain places are more spirit prone… Possibly because for thousands of years here people saw spirits in everything spirits became a thing in everything! That reminds me, maybe I should do an arc based on the Mothman or American cryptids made real… XD
They’ve scarpered! Probably lucky they did, or she’d have to take them by the ear and have a stern word.
Maybe, maybe not, we don’t know what sort of relationship they have yet. But by the look on Yuki’s face, NOT waiting for her to come back and definitely earned Inari a talking to.
I thought Inari was a dude.
As for the Exorcist, the contract with the Kitsune are probably his most important relationship. So he’s doing everything in his power to keep that relationship. False spirit or no, if he was able to do a lot of the work by being self taught. Then there is some explanation to being arrogant. It takes a lot of effort to teach yourself and being able to actually do it correctly.
I believe Sage mentioned it before, but Inari is I believe genderfluid, just male-presenting because of how ingrained it is into that society that men are given more respect, and it’s not without merit considering how the exorcist treated Kate.
Inari is more often depicted as female, but is also a shapeshifter, though debatably a illusion based shapeshifter.
That said while yes its for sure traditional based field like that would be full of people who look down on women, that really only applies to human women and those trying to raise up in the field.
Kami and any other supernatural entities that doesn’t apply to. As their traditional hierarchy is kami>emperor>ruler>official>spirit and only then father/familyheads>mothers>children.
Inari as a major kami would face no discrimination for being a women.
This is incorrect twice over. Inari is most often depicted androgynous. And being a powerful entity doesn’t prevent discrimination. A person who hates based on sex or race seeing someone of that sex or race wouldn’t just change their mind because that person is powerful. This is literally one of the most common stories in fiction about discrimination. The poor man after being looked down upon by the rich man flung off his cloak revealing himself as a god and punished the rich man for his moral failure.
I think the point of his statement is that spirits or what we would call Kami traditionally hold a higher place of reverance in Japan/Eastern culture. Technicalities for Yosh variations aside.
It’s why I found the plot point of Exo being sexist super weird when he was borrowing power from a female spirit. As well as the idea that Inari was suffering any kind of discrimination.
It’s ultimately your story, and maybe there are some stories or mythologies specifically that support this angle. I’m not a mythology buff, let alone one specifically for Japan. But it really feels like a western angle shoved into an eastern character specifically.
While being from Japan doesn’t specifically preclude him from these behaviors. It does make them rather odd.
It also seems to go against grain for a culture that specifically (presumably) that is suppose to hold reverance for Kami (spirits) to conduct themselves in this way.
I get what you mean, however the most common trait in the stories is that people don’t know someone or something is a kami when they meet them. Under most circumstances the spirit appears as a regular person or animal, and only later do they start to think what they saw wasn’t a normal person or animal. Stories of radiant beings clearly being god like are far from the norm in mythology. This holds true in most cultures around the world. My correction isn’t based on my stories interpretation, it’s based on the actual mythos and reality. Once you know something is a spirit though- applying gender to them is not really necessary but Amaterasu did generally take the form of a woman, also, considering the guy who has an issue with women had a spirit in his head constantly berating him might have made his feelings towards women worsen.
As for Inari suffering discrimination- I’m not sure where you got that from. The point of taking a male form to avoid the issue is kind of the point to not suffer any discrimination. People don’t have to experience discrimination to take efforts to avoid it, it’s a known issue. More importantly, in a situation where someone doesn’t know Inari by sight, it just makes sense to them to take a form that would avoid unwanted social interactions. Spirits/gods/kami don’t often take kindly to slights against them, often cursing them without a second thought. Inari would want to avoid this just as much as they should and it’s no effort for them to take a form that is less likely to cause issue.
If spirits and Kami had a huge indicator of their status it probably wouldn’t be necessary, but then all the other issues pop up, people seeking deals, help, blessings. The spirits themselves probably don’t want to be bothered to begin with and take efforts to not be seen- as the Suijin lives in a place where people visit constantly, so they remain invisible so no one bothers them. It was the fact that their method didn’t work on Phil that caused this all in the first place and the Suijin let curiosity cause the scene.
I can see where your coming from. It’s feasible that I over read into your previous comment about Inari taking male coded forms for sake of discriminatory reasons.
I just look at it as, if they’re taking the form. It implies that they experienced it before. Which would imply that the spirit has intentionally or otherwise changed theirselves to suit human preferences/culture.
Which as you pointed out would be unrealistic. Because at a snap of a finger they can ruin lives with curses. Even if it’s just something as mundane as always stepping full force on legos.
Between invisibilty and wearing appropriate regalia for a rank and designation as a Kami. Inari shouldn’t really feel the need to cater to masculine forms, at least specifically to avoid discrimination.
It’d be one thing if they were appearing before some random mortal. Though even then I’d argue if they did most citizens would be estatic or frightened to meet Inari in full kit. But the exorcists and other mediums and proxies should be more familiar with Inari than most.
It just struck me as weird that Inari is, for all intents and purposes a god, at least as far a perception goes for Japan. For them to have to reorient their identity seems as counter to the culture.
If there is one place Inari, or kami/spirits shouldn’t have to concern themselves with gender appearances it should be in Japan.
To a degree, Inari isn’t really directly said to be a women, but kitsune lore as a whole heavily leans towards a nearly female only race, or at least only appearing female. Yes they can be male, but very rare thats ever in a story.
But the other thing is Inari’s divinities. As a harvest based kami fertility, and maturity is often attached, which is why a lot of depictions lean female.
No do to the shape changing officially Inari is any gender, also do to being a merger of many harvest kami, many of which were males or females. So the female appearance is generally considered just a form despite being the most common depiction.
The most common depiction is as a Fox. Not as a human, and no sex is given in almost all of those depictions. I have said this before, when you take that out of the picture, you get 2 forms that are most used, Inari as a young woman, and Inari as an old man. The fox form outweighs both massively, as almost all traditional statues of Inari are the fox form. More modern statues depicting female form Inari is basically trying to take advantage of the anime-figurine market that is greatly female character focused. When it comes to how they are most often defined, Inari is gender fluid because of the shapeshifting nature of all Kitsune. The only parts of the lore that make Kitsune more female centered is their seductive nature and their fertility overlap. Calling them a mostly female only race is way off and sounds like too much influence by the large number of lewd stories about Kitsune as they are just more popular, not any kind of proof that Kitsune are mostly female considering they are all shapeshifters. I think you are forming a bias over female form kitsune’s just because the Kitsune Wife trope was popular even in the Japanese Mythos.
It’s like if you had a race of horse people that was 50/50 male/female but the only stories you ever heard about them were about the males because of their crazy long – faces. So all the stories focus on the males and their huge… faces. So now people are like “That race of horse people is like mostly male horses! I never hear about the female ones though I assume they might exist!” The women horse people just dont have impressive and girthy- faces… I guess they could but you get the joke by now.
Modern clergy is joining up with the waifu model market?! Our… Morals are in danger! Think of the children.
Ah, but the Exorcist wasn’t self taught. He abandoned his training part-way through because he didn’t have the power to advance and wasn’t developing the skill needed to compensate. Treating the Exorcist like he was self-taught in exorcism is like treating someone who dropped out of school in Grade 7 like they taught themselves how to read because they managed to download a text-to-speech.
Not necessarily that he didn’t have the power. His wording alledges the general need for exorcists was too great to wait.
While he does admit impatience amd foolishness on his end. It’s somewhat understandable that he did what he did.
Depending on how many people were getting hurt by spirits intentionally or otherwise. It makes sense he’d get frustrated and want to cut corners and help. Stupid. But understandable.
Realistically if it had been an item and not a sapient entity he might have got off scott free. Well other than having absolutely trash fundamentals.
I think we’re focusing on different parts of the speech. You’re focusing on what The Exorcist wants to be heard, and I’m focusing on… well, I’ll capitalize the parts I’m focusing on in the first panel.
“MY ABILITIES are INSUFFICIENT to deal with many of the issues we have. The spirit gave me the ability to deal with almost anything with LITTLE EFFORT. I had the POWER that my distant cousins had. No, I didn’t complete my training. The need for exorcists was urgent, and I was TIRED of the LACK OF PROGRESS.”
Either he wasn’t given the training, or didn’t progress as fast as other’s. I can 100% see the Exorcist being the type of person who put in half the effort of his cousins, and was upset when he didn’t get twice the results. Alternatively, he missed important early lessons that he never fully learnt, didn’t understand something fundamental and thus stalled out due that lack of understanding, couldn’t grasp something instinctive required to progress beyond a certain point, or so many other “minor” reasons could have caused him to be an inferior exorcist to his cousins.
Personally, I suspect it’s the half-the-effort thing. I suspect that he didn’t see value in the Exorcist Training when he was a child, saw the value as an adult when Magic returned, and wasn’t actually able to learn in the rapid manner needed to financially capitalize on being from an Exorcist family.
That’s hard to say. He appears to be be of similar ages to Phil and Co. Meaning he should have similar circumstances to the rest of the crew. If only in the sense of experiencing the flow of magic similarly.
We know from Kate and Naoko some people are just born with rediculiously disproportionate amounts of magic than others. As well as casting one spell used to knock people out.
For people with high levels of magic naturally they tended to turn into Chimera’s due to the Fire magi’s mistake. As for passing out example you can read it in the earlier days of Yosh, before releasing the power seal even creating a single piller and suppression spell was enough to make her pass out.
She’s one of the most practiced and prodigious casters we know to date. I have a hard time believing that the Exorcist or his cousins were working in better circumstances than her.
While I won’t discount your theory. It might legitimately be he had less magic starting off and training under the conditions of the rest of the seals did little for improvement for much of anyone. When Power’s seal was removed, which is rather recent in canon if I recall. Even if it was years ago for us. Monsters and spirits came back rather suddenly.
The conditions for emergency exorcists would be at a premium. Especially in Japan where spirits are abound. If approached by a spirit affecting sympathies with humans as Amaterasu I could see him falling for it. I can’t call it either way, but on face his story checks out.
Power’s Seal was probably removed, canonically, a few years ago by this point. From my vague memories, the Convention they met Blue at was the same Con (different years) Phil proposed to Kate at, and the events with Power happened shortly after that first Con. And, quick check on what Ethan (Phil’s brother) said at Phil’s wedding… nope, only mentioned that his Sister wasn’t early to the wedding.
Actually, Penpen mentioned that Phil has lived with Kate for over 5 years by that point. Since the story started with them living together, I wouldn’t be surprised if they shared a room for about a year before the story started. So, minimum of 3 years since Power’s Seal was unlocked, more likely something around 4.
Sounds about right, I appreciate you ball parking the math. Four years sounds fairish. But realistically half a decade even if we wanted to be super generous wouldn’t be enough time for one to really practice for this stuff.
While we can’t exactly quantify how many spirits are roaming around japan. Let alone how many are malicious. We can at least safely infer it’s a sizeable sum. Given then line from Sage about spirits being in everything. Granted that’s a comic description so hardly canon per se. But I think it’s close enough for it to be taken seriously.
Just through numbers of population alone, the encounter rate must be astronomical. Even if people cannot see or sense them accurately.
The idea that the need for exorcists was too great is feasible, because they’re still in the middle of the outbreak. Spirits seem mild in comparison, but dont forget the celestial and demon gate are now open too. Neither of which are prone to explaining themselves.
Granted I don’t think celestials are going to roll up and start swatting people like the did Phil. But it’s feasibly some took up their previous posts in Japan and I don’t know, some folkd have demon blood or some other monster blood in them starting to activate now. It’s not like they’d explain themselves regardless.
I just feel like on it’s face, his story sounds plausible. Him framing it this way probably has less to do with his opiniom and more to do with Inari telling him to keep his mouth shut and stick to the facts when Yuki returns. If nothing else I say holds credance, considered that Inari made it sound obvious what he was doing from the jump. Let alone Exo admitting that he should habe seen it coming. The government and his family to a lesser extent were probably aware of his circumstances and not only let it continue, but felt he was fit to work a government position.
Something they probably wouldn’t have done unless the need was great enough. Granted it’s a lot of spit balling on my end. But I wouldn’t discount his explaination.
Unfortunately, while it was clever of him to leverage the spirit to amass resources. Specifically knowledge. It sounds like the spirit preyed on his learned helplessness and manipulated him into neglecting practicing his skills.
I think his arrogance was something the spirit exacerbated though. To prevent him from gaining independance. How much of his training he completed before dropping out is hard to say though. Appearently it was enough to see the warning signs at least. Or should have been rather.
Was incapable of handling things without the aid of that spirit, alright. What if he get’s sent overseas, to the States to train under the tutelage of someone who has made a trip to the Celestial Realm?
Inari at the very least is getting a stern talking to! One of the worst things you can do: make a parent look for you!
And now I’m imagining the Celestial Realm equivalent of Yuki standing out on the front porch of her home, yelling out Inari’s name, telling them to come home right now. And it’s in that tone of voice you know as a kid you’d better listen!
Oooh. You know what this means? We’re going to hear Inari’s full name.
Nothing strikes fear into offspring more than when their mother calls out their full name.
Indeed, for the power of invoking one’s True Name is one of the most powerful of all.
Given that his mother’s name is simply “Yuki”, I wouldn’t be surprised if Inari’s full name is “Inari”.
probably went off to get into a more comfortable form..
“Don’t you hide from me, child, or it’s a trip to the woodshed for you!”
Honestly, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if half the American-Cryptids-Made-Real end up just being Goblin Variants. Mothman is a good example, though I know almost nothing about American Cryptids and am basing this off a quick google search. Flying Winged Cryptid that is a prophetic figure & terrifying omen of disaster. Just add in that it tends to initiate the disasters to hunt and you can call that a Nightmare Figure, aka a Goblin.
It could work, especially if you add in a few of the more robust goblin variants, but it also feels like a bit of a waste to sweep them into that bucket. Mothman maybe feels a bit more like an unseelie fae and that’s something we haven’t touched much on. It also makes a bit of sense that they may have followed given that there is a significant Irish population in West Virginia with a smaller Scottish-Irish population that when combined pushes numbers to about 17% of the population.
Jersey devil is probably a goblin or something similar and bigfoot feels like it’s probably either some sort of therianthrope with controlled transformations or a nature spirit of some sort but I kinda feel like the former of those two options would build the world out more and could be an interesting angle to explore the differences between them and chimera in setting. Perhaps some portion of the therianthrope trait is mystically recessive and that’s what was awakened when Fire tried to unlock his powers and failed the first time which influenced what type of chimera they became (this would tie in with Axel technically being a Chimera with demon traits despite passing as human).
Then again that’s me getting off into the weeds again as my brain spins and sparks so I’ll drop it here. Definitely would like to see Phil and Kate get into a few adventures closer to home, especially since Mothman in particular is pretty close to their neighborhood.
If we’re talking “American” as a continent (or two) there’s Wendigo (Canada), Quetzalcoatl, skinwalkers, Coyote (the spirit not the wildlife), various Native American spirit totems, Culpabreas, and quite a few others.
I am reminded of the Snallygaster which was apparently half bird, half reptile with a metal beak lined with razor-sharp teeth and sometimes tenacles that sometimes would carry victims off to suck their blood but could be warded off with a seven pointed star.
There is certainly not a lack of folkloric creatures in America though not all of them are well known outside of local regions and some like knockers, bloody bones and sea serpents pop up in old world folklore and legends.
Moth- mommy!
If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t no body happy
My grandma had a decorative plate with that saying on it.
If you’re looking for American cryptids you could always visit the deep swamps of south Louisiana. In fact I’m pretty sure in a world of magic the place would be pretty spiritually active. Some are just different names for familiar themes like rougarou and werewolf and feu follet and will o wisp but there is also the pere malfait, letiche, Lady Long Fingers, and some others that are a bit more unique.
“Possibly because for thousands of years here people saw spirits in everything spirits became a thing in everything!” Would that mean that the Native American spiritual beliefs would have created more spirits? So ‘Old Man Coyote’ could really be a thing?
Yes, but as spirits start out and often only grow in power thanks to belief, stories and worship- certain events have likely impacted those spirits… T_T
Did she sniff the air?
Maybe? Looked more like glancing around the room. Maybe aura perception or something.
I thought of it was more like the trope of the “mom sense”, (which depending on the setting, could be argued is a type of magic itself) like how they can just KNOW you did something, like taking an extra cookie or you snuck somewhere you were not supposed to, despite them not being home and you leaving no physical evidence.
12/10 This is my head canon now. Even if Sage confirmed my guess right. Mom Astral senses gogogogogogo.
Yeah, more this not sniffing around. Most (but not all) spirits aren’t very odorous. Exceptions being spirits that have a nature related heavily to certain smells. Even then, it wouldn’t linger much.
My comment was more along the line of the trope in how does the sixth sense work in a five sense environment. One author has it work with ears, they “hear” stuff, while others will put actual antenna that detect the sixth sense.
Thanks for the answer.
Ah, yeah I get that, people always tell me scent is under appreciated, and I agree- but also- lot of bad stuff associated with smell and people sniffing the air is VERY often an indicator of foul smells than a tracking thing, so I generally avoid it unless that’s the context. Meanwhile, most of our ability to taste is tied to smell.
Magical practical jokes be like: “Looks like an apple, smells like an orange, but tastes like an onion.”
That look on the last panel took me a little to decode. I finally settled on “irritated my chew toy was taken”. I think Yuki was looking forward to delivering a verbal beating and when Exo just rolled over and fully accepted he messed up she found herself annoyed. She then realized Inari had been there and took her chew toy away before she got a chance to work him over.
A note – lots of people in the comments seem to assume when Exo talked about distant cousins it meant like the mage clans. Another possibility is referring to family in the distant past, ie exorcist from the previous magic age. So Exo could be using old family legacy teaching and have bonded out of frustration that his training was (comparatively) slow and lacking, which could be a result of the seals as mentioned by other posters.I’m inclined to believe this since Exo put a high priority on gaining information, indicating a severe lack of information, perhaps an incomplete legacy or a belief that training methods were flawed as they would return significantly slower and weaker results with the seals in effect from what I understand compared to intended results.
Inari – I assume as a shapeshifter they wear the form convenient to the situation because it takes little effort like we wear hats. We put on hard hats at construction sites (Male form at work) fancy hats at social events and nothing or a baseball cap just walking around home. Assuming they are a very proficient shapeshifter it’s just another piece of clothing to them.