/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Okay so I've gathered and took note of every single prediction I've seen from Futaba (in my 2 weeks of lurking there daily since the time the cover was revealed) and other places. I'm ordering them from most likely to least likely (IMO). Unlike HSiFS where the silhouette was figured out within a day, no general consensus exists on who these characters are supposed to be.
(quoting futaba and other sources)
>Three Animal Spirits
Well the obvious conclusion here is that these silhouettes are the wolf, eagle and otter spirits that are accompanying you. The evidence here is that the title, Kikeijuu, is remarkably similar to Kiseijuu (the Japanese title for the manga/anime series Parasyte), implying that the animal spirits possessing you are malicious parasites that will eventually turn on you. Kutaka herself says not to trust them and the prologue says the spirits are mysteriously quiet. It's speculated that the "horns" on the right figure are actually part of a samurai helmet that the otter is wearing (otters are known shapeshifters). When considering that Youmu herself is a samurai and her main spirit is the otter, this theory then becomes even more plausible. The long shaggy tail the sillhouette has is also in line with Japanese river otters. The only problem with this is that we already have two wolves, one of them even being the same species (Japanese wolf, Kagerou) as the spirit. Will ZUN really do yet another dog-like charcter after Momiji, Kyouko, Kagerou and Aunn?
>Three Animal Spirits (Alternate)
Another theory proposes that ZUN is just trying to troll everyone into thinking the antagonists are the three shot type spirits, when in fact they are actually telling the truth and other evil animal spirits from Hell are indeed planning to take over Gensokyo. The actual evil animal spirits are believed to be referenced on the appearances of each protag. Reimu's is a canine of some kind, Marisa's is a cat and Youmu's is a dragon/snake. Of course the problem with this theory is that the left figure appears to be a bird and none of the animals speculated fit that description.
>Three Poisons
The three poisons are the root of all dhukka (unsatisfactoriness and suffering) in Buddhism. They are greed/lust (symbolized by a pig), hatred/anger (symbolized by a snake) and delusion/aversion (symbolized by a bird). The sins are kind of similar to the animal spirits' personalities (barbaric, arrgogant, wishy-washy). To fail to resist the three sins leads to rebirth in Hell. It's also said that the demon king Mara's three daughters that tried to seduce the Shakyamuni Buddha symbolize these three poisons. Mara (魔羅) is the lord of all obstacles and constantly tempts those who try to take the right path. In Japanese Buddhism hindering demons are sometimes called 魔鬼 (Maki). It's also an alternate name for Mara. Mara is also considered to be the giant demon holding the Wheel of Life (in which the Three Poisons are present in the middle of the wheel) on Buddhist diagrams. In Japan said demon is called The Great Oni of Anitya (無常大鬼, Mujou Daiki), with anitya being a Buddhist term meaning "Impermanence". The kanji 鬼 appears in the game's title so could this be the connection? Could Mara be the extra boss and could his three poisons be the final bosses? Maybe. The only issues we have here is that in Chinese/Japanese traditions, the bird is almost always depicted as a rooster (and we already have a chicken in the form of Kutaka). Earlier Indian/Nepali depictions use just a generic eagle/falcon, however, so it's possible that ZUN can just go for that. Also a snake doesn't really have horns, does it? But this can easily be remedied by the fact that Japanese mythology heavily conflates snakes and dragons (also because the Sanskrit word "naga", snake, was translated as "dragon" for Chinese/Japanese texts). Also, could there be another Buddhist themed antagonist directly after Okina?