Kitsune, a Japanese fox spirit known for shapeshifting, cleverness and a love of deep-fried tofu, has enjoyed such tremendous, enduring popularity in her home country that she has long reigned unofficially over the little clique of Japanese archetypes. The recent rise in popularity of anime, manga and Japanese culture in other parts of the world has raised her stature, and she’s spending more and more time outside of her little group of monsters and ghosts. This has caused somewhat of a re-evaluation of her persona, as she would like to impress the big shots of the English-speaking world — the ones with the near-lock on Hollywood movies. Kitsune would quite like a movie or two. The first one doesn’t have to win an Oscar; she’s not picky. She’s thinking rom-com, at least to start with.

She always used to wear kimono to the ball, thinking that they make her look more refined and more in touch with her roots than the foreign archetypes in their showy gowns, but in recent years she’s tried out some masquerade dresses herself. The other archetypes in her old clique, who haven’t enjoyed quite the same popularity, felt threatened by this. Last year Kappa (another Japanese archetype) picked a big fight with her, mocking her Western-style gowns and accusing her of feeling superior to the rest of them. (Kappa has never quite recovered from reading the Harry Potter books; she was thrilled to hear that kappas were mentioned in one, and absolutely crushed when she found out that Professor Snape claimed that kappas were found in Mongolia.)

She doesn’t want to lose their good will, but she was really rather enjoying her forays into the world of fancy dress, so this year she opted for a daring new look: a wa-lolita dress. (Wa-lolita is a subset of a Japanese fashion subculture called “lolita” which emphasizes frilly, hyper-feminine clothes based on fairy-tale Victorian styles. Wa-lolita makes use of Japanese design elements like wide obi-style belts, kimono sleeves and Japanese patterns. To see examples of lolita and wa-lolita outfits, check out my Pinterest “Lolita style” board.)

Kappa, Oni and the others still think she’s putting on airs, but somehow it’s not quite as galling as seeing her in a knockoff of whatever Dragon wore last year. They’ll forgive her, Kitsune thinks, when she gets her rom-com and gives them all parts in it. (Little parts, of course.)

A couple little cultural notes about the dress! The blue ornament over the obi is a kitsune-bi (狐火), which are mysterious lights said to be associated with kitsune. The color of the fur is “kitsune-iro” (きつね色), or “fox color” — an actual color word in Japanese, often used to refer to things like the color of nicely cooked bread. The leaf pattern is based on Japanese maple leaves, “momiji”　(紅葉); you don’t have to be a Japanese studies major to guess that it’s a fall-themed design element. Also, the fur brush I used was created by CoyoteMange and is extremely useful even for a fur beginner like me!

Next week will be our final guest at the Mythic Ball, Phoenix, and an opportunity to vote on this year’s Queen of the Mythic Ball. In the meantime, you can download combined color and black and white PDFs of all of my 2014 dolls and outfits for free! Also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest for sneak previews, paperdoll thoughts and the occasional lolita dress. If you enjoy my work, I’d also appreciate your support through Patreon.