SHIROMORI & MYSTERY: I’VE GOT A THEORY.
SO WE GOT SOME MORE INFO ON THE MYSTERY TREE LADY, WHO IS NOW – DARE I SAY IT – NO LONGER A MYSTERY.
A jubokko is a tree yokai that was once a normal tree… but was fed blood at some point. It then decided it liked the taste, and became a blood-drinking monster.
Let’s talk about Shiromori’s relationship with Mystery.
Mystery happened upon a small flower in an otherwise dead forest… and, in true trickster fashion, decided to use his own blood to feed the flower, allowing it to blossom and grow strong…
…to the point where the flower overtook the entire forest, and the resulting “white forest” (literally Shiromori’s name) once again thrived. Judging by the size of this forest, it had to be drinking MUCH more blood than Mystery could offer – and judging by the discarded helmet and katana beneath the tree on which he’s perched, as well as the fact that our mysterious blue warrior (Vivi’s ancestor, it looks like) seems determined to fight him, we can assume that Mystery has been killing the warriors come to slay the Fiendish Fox in the White Forest and allowing the forest to drink their blood.
The result: a very proud fox demon, lording over his own vast and impenetrable territory, and a very fruitful forest who seems to love her caretaker dearly.
Enough to feel utterly betrayed and embarrased when her caretaker chooses to be with somebody else.
The descendant of the one who slew him, no less.
And speaking of which, let’s touch on that.
We can see in this flashback sequence that Mystery has all nine tails. However, in Ghost, he has six… and in Freaking Out, he has seven.
A kitsune, a Japanese nine-tailed fox demon, can gain tails through experience, wisdom, honor… but can also lose a tail by breaking kitsune law, or occasionally, by dying.
The fact that Mystery still had nine tails when confronted by mystery-warrior-woman implies that what he was doing with the forest didn’t break any kitsune laws, so that’s not how he lost his tails. We can see in this image that Mystery was having quite the fearsome battle with the warrior… I suspect she managed to actually slay him, and when he came back, it was as a defenseless one-tailed kitsune once more.
Eventually, Mystery found his way back to Vivi’s family…
…the Yukinos. (art by @mysterybensmysteryblog and @artsyfeathersartsyblog, respectively) Judging by the blue, we can probably assume that Vivi gets her Japanese heritage from her father’s side… but while her grandmother looks very traditional, her father is wearing modern clothes. He probably doesn’t believe in any superstitious Japanese yokai stuff. Gramma Yukino? Another story entirely.
Mystery has probably been in disguise the WHOLE TIME, and has never properly revealed himself ot Vivi’s family… though Gramma Yukino doesn’t seem to trust this strange white puppydog. After all, the Yukino family has a story about a white canine from long in the past.
ANYWAY. THE MORAL OF THE STORY: DON’T FEED BLOOD TO PLANTS. WE’VE TALKED ABOUT THIS, SEYMOUR KRELBORN