Panther tribe

The Panther tribe.

The Panther tribe (豹猫族, へうねこぞく, Hyōnekozoku, "Leopard Cat Tribe") was made of leopard cat yōkai and led by the Panther King. Members of the tribe include the Panther Devas (Tōran, Shunran, Karan, and Shūran). The tribe members are either bipedal cats or are humanoids with cat ears, fangs, claws, and a tail. They will correct anyone who calls them a cat demon. Most of them wear ninja-like outfits.

Trivia

• The term "Panther" demon used in the English dub is a mistranslation, as they are distinctly referred to as leopard cats in Japanese. This explains why the less human members of their group all resemble cats, rather than panthers. The fact that they are wildcats and not big cats explains why Hachiemon refers to them repeatedly as "cats", though he does distinguish that they are different from bakeneko and nekomata, implying that they are more powerful, or at least more aggressive. Nevertheless, Karan stresses the fact that referring to them simply as "cats" makes them angry. The fact that they are misidentified as panthers in the English dub therefore makes these frequent misunderstandings more confusing than humorous.
• While panthers are not native to Japan, neither are leopard cats, the tribe's actual basis. Leopard cats are a species of wildcat native to China, from where many legends about monstrous cats living in the mountains and attacking humans spread to Japan. However, since the leopard cat is not a native animal, these legends were instead applied to regular wildcats, called yamaneko in Japanese. These demons are lumped together with nekomata (called "nekomata of the mountains"), despite the fact they lack the defining feature of the nekomata, a split-tail. Furthermore, as Karan stresses, the leopard cat demons are not ordinary domestic cats, as bakeneko and nekomata are, but wildcats. Bunza and his tribe are also wildcat demons who live in the mountains, and it is possible that the two groups are related, and the Panther tribe originates from China. In the series, it is said that Panther tribe comes from "the West", but it is never specified whether they mean Western Japan or China; given that the tribe wears Japanese clothing, unlike Menōmaru or the Shitōshin, it could be they have merely adopted Japanese customs or that their ancestors migrated to Japan.