THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM MTV'S 'TEEN WOLF'

In the Japanese culture foxes are often referred to as kitsune's. Japanese folklore says that kitsune's have up to 9 tails which are all depending on their age, wisdom and power. The only way to kill one is to cut off its tails. It can also shape-shift into a human but it has to be a fox for 100 years to gain the ability to shape-shift.

They are often refereed to as trickster spirits as well. They usually trick overly proud samurai's, greedy merchants, and boastful commoners, while the crueler ones abuse poor tradesmen and farmers or devout Buddhist monks. [ credit ]

If that all isn't enough there are also 13 types of kitsune in the lore.


  • Wind
  • Earth
  • Fire
  • River
  • Heaven
  • Thunder
  • Mountain
  • Void
  • Spirit
  • Time
  • Forest
  • Ocean
  • Music
[ photo creds ]



Teen Wolf used this lore for their TV show during season 3B. There was a Void Trickster spirit among the characters and trying to find out who it was, was part of the twist. They mainly used two of the kitsune's in the show but all of them were mentioned. They based an entire season off of this lore adding their own things in and exploring the original Japanese lore of it all.

The way they killed this kitsune trickster was by stabbing it through the chest with a sacred sword that had put it down years prior. Since it had taken human form there was no way to chop off its tails.

Another twist the writers threw in was instead of actually shape-shifting from a fox into a doppelganger of another person, it sort of 'possessed' it by entering its body through the mouth.

The Void spirit, specifically, strive off chaos and pain so throughout the season, the spirit would turn people against one another to stir up chaos in the town and would purposely hurt or kill people to take their pain. Every time it did, it got stronger.