what is the onibi series?
the onibi series, as called by most people, is a story spread between multiple MASA WORKS DESIGN songs, blog posts, and tweets. its official name is actually "the story of the kitsune and the demon", onibi series is just more widespread (i have no idea why)
youve probably already heard a song from this series, both the spider and the kitsune like lion and the foxs wedding (specifically, the 2011 version; see the next section) have been popular on tiktok and other places, mostly due to their shock factor. the lyrics are incredible graphic, but the songs fucking baaaang.
anyway, most people casually listen to the song and think "wow this is pretty fucked up" in the same way that you listen to gommene gommene by kikuo, but it actually runs deeper than that, borderline arg nowadays (also see next section) and there arent really a lot of places you can go to find a concise, definitive explanation for what this actually is, mostly because the information is so spread out and unconfirmed. but i wanted to try and compile an essay-like explanation anyway, for those as interested as i am-it will probably help me understand it a bit better as well..!
so why the fuck is all this so complicated? (more background & history)
as of 2024, the onibi series is slowly becoming a sort of lost media; masa deleted a good chunk of the songs out of existence a few years ago, probably because they were old and edgy and he didnt like them very much anymore-which is understandable, and i respect that decision of his-but that makes trying to understand the onibi series very frustrating for some. most audio on youtube are re uploads, but masas original animated lyric videos have been lost entirely. the translations of the original videos are still out there as far as i know, however they are fan translations and not official by the people who originally did them for masa.
a while ago, after the spider and the kitsune like lion blew up on tiktok (one of the first songs masa deleted) someone re uploaded it to spotify and was getting paid a shit ton of money for it, which masa promptly advised people to ignore & i believe took official legal action against this person? if not, then it was simply taken down. i am 100% against uploading other peoples songs without their permission, especially when YOU are getting paid for it, thats a peeve ive had with re uploaders for a long time... anyway, that really made masa crack down on the copyright claims, on youtube especially. thats one of the reasons that onibi is so fucking hard to keep track of, all the songs keep running away from us!!!!!!!
another reason this is all so convoluted is that i dont think the casual onibi fan even KNOWS that most of the lore actually came from masas blog. i remember being really confused when first listening to the series, because i saw people talking about the lore behind it and was like what the fuck, did i miss something in the songs? because the lyrics are extremely vague, no names are ever mentioned (except shikyous) and none of the re uploads i watched actually explained what was going on with the series. so, if youre struggling with understanding where the story came from, yeah hi youre not stupid! your reading comprehension is normal! the only place you can find the lore is through translations of the blog posts.
in addition to all this, onibi isnt... officially finished. masas lore blog about it has been completely abandoned by now, all we have left are the translations, post archives, and vague confirmation/debunking by masa himself when he feels like it. its in a state of limbo, where practically anything goes nowadays. there isnt really a canon outside of some names, some appearances and designs, and the song order.
need to touch on the remixes and remakes tomorrow and reword all this but im tired 2night this is what you get
finally, the timeline & story
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theories and where to go from here
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sources
masa works design on fandom dot com - onibi series overview
google doc - mwd onibi lore blog archive by shishikusas on tumblr
google doc - all mwd lore tweets archive by shishikusas on tumblr
youtube - this summary video by puppylover871