Mitsune are vulpine spirits with three eyes, three tails, and luxurious coats of fur. They thrive on diets of tree sap, burning large quantities of carbohydrates to power a fast metabolism. They are are incredibly mischievous and fun-loving, and they dedicate their boundless energy to all sorts of pranks and hijinks. They love to scream in the dead of night, steal anything they can pick up and carry off, startle travelers, and lead wanderers astray with Will-o-Wisp. They love all things sweet and are easily bribed with candies and sugar cubes. Merchants who leave town almost always carry something sweet to keep their wares safe from the thieving foxes. Travelers must take care to throw their sweets as distractions rather than hand-feed a wild Mitsune, as the latter will cause entire packs to follow them around for more.
Mitsune are capable of generating spirit flames very similar to the kitsunebi cast by Ninetales. It is thought that Mitsune may even be descended from Ninetales introduced upon the landing of the human shuttles, though their three eyes suggest otherwise. It may be an instance of convergent evolution, though an example of this on such a large scale—across dimensional boundaries—is unheard of. Mitsune's spirit fire is much weaker than that of the more mystical Fire-types of Earth, and they overwhelmingly rely on their Fairy-type moveset for defense. Instead, their Fire moves are use for foraging: they heat the tree sap they harvest to produce syrup as a form of emergency food supply, much like honey. Their syrup is difficult to harvest, as Mitsune guard their stores jealously and haunt the interlopers long after they leave the syrup alone. Mitsune can store their syrup or unprocessed sap in a throat pouch for transport between the various hideouts that a pack can maintain.
Mitsune can be domesticated and trained, though doing so requires a great deal of patience. Maintaining a domestic pack of Mitsune allows for the harvest of their syrup and shed fur. Their fur can be spun into magnificently soft yarn, and their honey is incredibly sweet. A sufficiently tame Mitsune can also make a wonderful pet, as they can be trained to play gentler games with their owners. A farmer in command of both a Shiganari and a pack of Mitsune is always a wealthy one.
Mitsune live in forests full of trees that produce sugary saps. Kami trees are few and far between in their home lands. The sap of the kami trees is toxic to Mitsune due to its high concentration of heavy metals, and a stretch of forest where even just a few grow is enough for packs to completely vacate the region. The human evacuation shuttles landed a fair distance away from these forests, and as such Mitsune were discovered much later than Pokémon like Kartana. It took some decades before Mitsune was successfully domesticated and transported to other locations. The introduction of Earth-native species farmed on restricted plots of land have allowed small packs of Mitsune to live outside of their natural range in much smaller territories.