As much as I like this game, but I’ve always been a bit disappointed with how they handled the story of the Ashigumo Tribe - and particularily “the” Ashigumo who was never given an actual individual name despite Tama urging Sakuna in-game to find out what his real name is. It just never comes up again. There is no conclusion, the task goes nowhere and is entirely forgotten a few days later.
What irks me, begins even with the species itself. You see, there is a Japanese yōkai called “Kamaitachi” which roughly translates to “sickle weasel”. They’re fierce, proud creatures, quick like whirlwinds, striking from the shadows, delivering merciless blows against opponents, and they can’t be seen by the naked eye if they wish to remain hidden.
(“Kamaitachi” (鎌鼬) from the Kyōka Hyaku Monogatari by Masasumi Ryūkansaijin)
Sakuna uses a bunch of other Japanese yōkai as well, like for example Kappas, and usually stays somewhat true to the IRL folklore.
…and then there is Ashigumo, the weasel-looking, quick, fierce, proud warrior anthropomorphic character wielding sharp blades and dealing merciless blows that even a literal goddess can’t block… he looks like a sickle weasel, fights like a sickle weasel, and he’s a character from a game that makes heavy use of IRL folklore, so he must be a sickle weasel, right?
Nope. He’s an otter. Canonically. Even tho the only thing about him that looks a little more otter-like than weasel-like is his tail, when everything else about him is basically identical to the Japanese sickle weasel spirits.
I have no idea why the devs decided to go with this description, but it rubbed me the wrong way right from the start, especially since he’s such a cool character in general.
Story Spoilers ahead:
Later during the story we find out that the entire tribe was wiped out and “the” Ashigumo is the last living member of his species … allegedly. Because after you defeat Ishimaru, there’s a cutscene in which Ashigumo nonchalantly walks up to the injured Ishimaru, turns into an undead specter, summons a couple of his undead brethren, and slaughters Ishimaru - offscreen but heavily implied, as Ishimaru never appears again.
What a twist! Ashigumo has been dead all along?!
Well … no. I guess? While it is undenieably the same in-game model as Ashigumo, it isn’t exactly clear whether the Ashigumo from the cutscene is the same as the one that has befriended Sakuna, or the hostile specters playing tricks with a disguise … or maybe the devs just copypasted the model because they didn’t want to create a generic Ashigumo version for an eleven second cutscene. In the cutscene, that character has no spoken dialogue so comparing the voices won’t help either.
And parts of the storyline won’t make sense then, as Ashigumo was injured during one of the earlier cutscenes and then nursed back to health by Myrte, which wouldn’t exactly work well if he had been dead all along.
He also appears during later cutscenes and the epilogue again. Did he die after Myrte healed him, fought Ishimaru while he was undead and then somehow turned back alive again for no particular reason? It sounds fishy.
And after the Ishimaru cutscene, Ashigumo’s story is just kind of dropped and forgotten. He’s still there on most days, standing idle on his little lookout post farther down the mountain, talking with generic dialogue. He also still appears in regular cutscenes as if nothing ever happened, talking about mundane, everyday stuff.
Sakuna never finds out - nor seems interested in finding out - what exactly happened to him and his tribe, what exactly his relation to her parents has been (other than Ashigumo owing some sort of debt to Takeribi), it is never resolved what his real name is/was nor what his tribe was called before Lady Kamuhitsuki gave them the mock-name Ashigumo. There is no explanation as to whether the specters were laid to rest (and you can still encounter and battle them as usual after the Homitsubi Specter is gone).
Many open questions, a ton of hints at some deeper meaning behind unexplained factors, but no answers. It just doesn’t feel satisfying.
I really hope that the plot point(s) the devs dropped here are going to be picked up and actually finished in a possible sequel, along with all the other loose ends that were never tied up, like who the Visitors are, how Lady Toyohana got her hands on the Divine Raiment or how she ended up on Hinoe in the first place, or what happened to the former Lady Kamuhitsuki who just “suddenly died” for no particular reason, or who exctly brought Kokorowa the poisoned rice as there is a cutscene hinting at a “traitor in the capital” but then the characters just never talk about it again…
It remains to be seen whether or not these plot points will ever be resolved.