I was watching a Japanese movie and a traveler picks up a woman by the wayside
who is suspicious in some regards and at one point he pats her butt and she
calls him a pervert, and he responds by saying he was just checking "to see if
she had a tail".

Is the idea that she might be a kitsunetsuki, or is it a reference to
something else?
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2020-07-05T00:35:04.340
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2020-07-05T18:32:26.953
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meaning
Why would someone check if a person had a tail?
From the given context, I think it can be safely said that that the guy
(perhaps jokingly) suspected the woman was one of the following:

  1. A beast disguised as a human using a shape-shifting ability.
  2. A person possessed by a beast.
  3. A 獣人 (beast-human hybrid) who has a tail by nature. Many fictional 獣人 are visually identical to human beings except for the ears and the tail (e.g., [_Kemono Friends_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemono_Friends)).

There are countless fictions and folktales related to this topic in Japan (and
also in the world), and I don't know which is the intention of the guy. It all
depends on the settings of the movie and the scene. Japanese mysterious foxes
are strongly [associated with _shinto_
shrines](https://www.tofugu.com/japan/kitsune-yokai-fox/), so if the guy
picked up the woman near a shrine, it may be reasonable to assume this is a
reference to a fox.

Even if your scene is related to a fox, "kitsune-tsuki" may not be relevant. A
Japanese fox is reputed to have the ability to both shape-shift to a human and
possess a human, and the term "kitsune-tsuki" refers only to the latter. In
addition, in many fictions, a shape-shifted beast tends to have a tail whereas
a person possessed by a beast tends _not_ to have a tail.
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2020-07-05T18:32:26.953
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2020-07-05T18:32:26.953
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answer