Characters / Erma

The characters seen in Erma.

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Main Character

Erma Williams

The titular character of the webcomic, Erma is a young Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl Half-Human Hybrid with a human father and Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl mother and probably the cutest ghost since Casper. But don't let her appearance, supernatural powers, and fondness for the creepy and macabre fool you, she's a sweet little girl who just wants to spend time with friends, watch her favorite shows, and play with her dog.

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• Absurd Phobia: Santa Claus of all things is one of the few things that frightens Erma. Especially amusing, considering Clausophobia (or a "fear of Santa Claus") is a common fear among normal children her age.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Is implied In The Aftermath Part 1 that she's starting becoming afraid of her monstrous form she unleashed in japan, as it appears in her nightmare to torment her.
• The Ace: It is implied that even though she is still in early grade-school, she is obscenely powerful even by Youkai standards, a factor that she had inherited from her mother.
• Adorable Abomination: She's a cute little girl of a supernatural nature and powers that one would normally see in an evil being, including Body Horror transformations and Mind Control. Also, looking into her ears allows one to see the gates of a Hell-like realm.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Spirit's Bloom has the strange invisible top hat man implying Erma will help bring about the end of the world.
• Ax-Crazy: A rare heroic example. Not in a psychotic way or to the point of harming people, but she really goes to town on a pumpkin when her father tries to teach her how to carve a jack-o-lantern. What makes it scary was that they were scooping out pumpkin innards first. She is somewhat aware of this trait of hers and tends to become quite embarrassed when caught, somewhat like a kid getting carried away.
  • Don't get us started about what happens if you piss her off.
  • Played for Laughs whenever she gets frustrated. In an attempt to catch a rat, she escalates in power usage and ends up sending a barrage of utensils at the rat. She only stops when her friend asks why she didn't just levitate the rat itself; her look on her face indicates that she was too blinded by rage/annoyance to consider that and appears to be mentally chastising herself for it.
• Badass in Distress: In the night parade Erma is kidnapped by the Yokai Thug Trio and the yokai children by sealing her with powerful chains and talismans that render her powerless. It doesn't last long as she manages to break free from them, with disastrous results.
• Bad Powers, Good People: She's an onryo (an inherently malevolent form of youkai) with telekinetic, shapeshifting and mind-control powers that attracts every manner of unfathomable horror and buggaboo imaginable and is implied to be an Apocalypse Maiden. She's also a sweet girl with a strong moral compass, lots of human friends and is a big fan of an Expy of My Little Pony.
• Berserk Button:
  • Her friends, whether it be them abandoning her (as Wittle Wallace!possessed Felicia taunted her with in the "Secrets" arc) or them being hurt (as seen when Sidney sent a wave of rats to overwhelm them during a fight in the "Rats in the School Walls" arc).
  • When one of the Yokai thugs cuts off a lock of her hair she goes on the warpath.
• Beware the Nice Ones: As cute and sweet as she is (barring her penchant for Jump Scares and pranks), you do NOT want to push Erma past her breaking point, else you will see exactly how scary she can be.
• Body Horror: Erma can do this, though she mostly does it when annoyed/angered.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: It seems Erma doesn't really remember her former babysitter. When she comes upon her house to sell some chocolates, she doesn't react with any familiarity to her despite the woman clearly glaring at her. Either that or her Madness Makeover was enough so Erma could not recognize her (though given Erma's puzzled look, she might have thought of her as familiar).
• Cool Big Sis: Erma may be annoyed and exasperated by her cousin Emily's hyperactive energy, especially around her, but that's because Emily adores Erma and loves being around her. One notable moment was Erma climbing the wall Ring-style to get away from Emily and after noticing Emily's attempts to climb the wall, she rolls her eyes before going back and lowers herself to give Emily a piggy-back ride. Cue Emily glomping Erma from behind and Erma crawling on the wall with her cousin in tow. It's clear despite their differences, Erma loves her cousin.
• Creepy Cute: The most adorable little Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl one will ever see, though, granted, she's usually not that threatening. It's implied that she looks much more frightening to regular people and we the audience mostly just see her drawn cute.
• Daddy's Girl: Subtly implied she's this considering that we see her interactions a bit more with her father Sam, including going fishing with him and even kidnapping his favorite athlete and presenting him to her dad on Father's Day.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Erma may be a half-ghost who enjoys the scary and macabre, but she doesn't have an evil bone in her supernatural little body.
• Dark Secret: The theme of the Secrets Arc. Erma considers being a fan of Warrior Unicorn Princess this, to the point that when her babysitter finds out and teasingly asks her, she gathers her collection of Warrior Unicorn Princess toys and takes them into the woods to burn them. "Pathetic" has Wittle Wallace-possessed Felicia taunt her with the fact that she's scared that everyone, including her friends and crush, will mock her and laugh at her for enjoying the show.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: A couple of strips actually have her scaring off monsters. For example, she ran into Pennywise from the 2017 version of "It" and got the drop on him in the sewer drain. Poor guy tried to run and... well, let's just say the only thing we see of him is Erma playing with a balloon while passing by one of her friends.
• Everybody Has Standards: While Erma has a penchant for pranks and certainly does not scare easily, she has little patience for bullies and would most certainly reap the kind of vengeance appropriate for an Onryo onto them. She immediately takes a disliking towards her cousins Mitsu and Momo when they try to steal her toy For the Lulz, is visibly disgusted when they extort youkai peasant children for money and gives a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to a trio of thugs who try to kill them.
• Extreme Omnivore: She once ate a rock she got while trick-or-treating.
• Face Framed in Shadow: If she really goes all out. Her entire face goes completely dark and only the pupil of her eyes are seen.
• Fair-Play Villain: Played With during the dodgeball game, when the coach tried to shoehorn her in the villain role for his amusement, by having her play against the other kids (see his entry below for quote) and even put Erma and Amy as team captains. When, predictably, all kids wished to join Erma's team, leaving Amy alone, he ordered at least ONE kid to team-up with Amy. The one who switched sides to join the underdog was, of course, Erma.
• Fangirl: Of Warrior Unicorn Princess. She is quite embarrassed of it and hides it from her friends, ashamed they might tease her for it.
• Friendly Ghost: While she may be a bit scary, she's one of the nicest kids you could hope to meet... as long as you don't get on her bad side.
• Generation Xerox: It's been noted plenty of times that she's quite similar in appearance and capabilities to her mother, Emiko, especially by her maternal relatives.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's a pretty sweet kid despite her penchant for jumpscaring people for fun now and then. However she's no pushover either and will fight when aggressively prompted. Examples being against Wittle when he kept mocking her about loving a favorite kid show of hers, against Sidney when she sicced a tidal wave of rats on her and her friends and even against Mitsu and Momo, her two full yokai cousins when first meeting them at an airport when they tried to steal her doll with their powers. Then there's her 'fight' against the Yokai thugs after they pushed her too far, though that was less a fight and more a Curbstomp Battle in Erma's favor.
• Hair Reboot: Any attempts to cut her hair result in it growing back almost immediately, and she had to use a bear trap as a hairclip to pin it back. Her mother has special scissors to avoid this.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Not on the human side but several on the Yokai side have made snide remarks about her being half human.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The daughter of a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl mom and a human dad, though she takes after her mom more than her dad.
• Hates Baths: Two comic strips have featured her running away from her parents to avoid taking a bath. Subverted in that it seems she doesn't so much hate actually taking the bath once she is in the tub as much as getting into the tub in the first place.
• Heroic Mime: In a non-video game example, Erma is never seen talking on-panel. It's implied she can speak, given how when the principal denied there being rats in the school, Erma actually raised her hand and opened her mouth, but was cut off by her friend before she actually said anything.
  • In general, whenever Erma is shown attempting to talk, something comes up to interrupt her such as the neighborhood exploding or her mother showing up to pull her away from her youkai relatives.
  • A few times she makes screeching sounds or speaks in an unintelligible language that has a mind control effect.
• Hidden Depths: "The Search Pt. 13" confirmed that Erma is bilingual, but considering that her father was taught Japanese by her mother, it's not so surprising that Emiko would have made sure that her daughter learned her native language.
• Horrifying the Horror: Erma tends to do this when paired up with other horror beings (including Freddy and the monster under her bed).
  • On the other hand, her younger cousin Emily has this effect on her, namely because of her lack of fear and extensive perkiness leaves Erma overwhelmed. However, she does indeed love and watch out for her cousin.
  • Visiting a mall Santa Claus for the first time, the man gets irate with Erma being quiet when it was her turn to sit on his lap and ends up unnerving and scaring her, at which she used her powers in self defense mode. The incident left her with a fear of Santa; what sounded like jingle bells on Christmas Eve being enough for Erma to grab a knife to protect herself. During another Christmas, she fell asleep on the couch with her parents and had a nightmare of them revealing themselves to be a monstrous version of Santa and an elf, who then tie her up, cover her in gingerbread dough and shove her in the oven to make a 'little gingerbread girl' (it's a shoutout to a Calvin and Hobbes comic though instead it's with aliens).
  • She also got into a fetal position in her corner when Sam and Emiko began shouting at the TV during an American football game, freaked out by how angry her parents got.
  • Despite loving jump scares, she got spooked during her surprise party.
• Intangibility: Erma can become intangible to float through walls/floors or allow things to pass through her.
• Jump Scare: Erma is pretty fond of these, but never goes any further beyond that. Ironically enough, she isn't immune to them herself.
• Literal-Minded: Erma's interpretation of the phrase "Paint the Town Red" and catching animals with her phone.
• Mind over Matter: Among her powers are telekinesis and mind control. In fact, Erma rarely carries things with her hands, preferring to carry them telekinetically.
  • One obvious application as mentioned are snowballs, but when she joined her friends for team water gun fights with food-colored water in super soakers, she used water balloons instead.
  • Erma requires concentration for fine manipulation of a large object, but when enraged, can grab multiple heavy objects (like tearing off branches the size of small trees) and hurl all she has collected at a target.
  • She can also telekinetically channel the air around her into hurricane-force wind speeds in front of her for several minutes.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Has this reaction when she nearly impales a Wittle Wallace-possessed Felicia in a rage.
  • She's horrified when she overheards her parents talking with her aunts about the damage she did to the city during her uncontrollable rage rampage.
• Nice Girl: Yes she may be spooky, but Erma is ultimately a nice girl who wants to live a full life and loves her friends and family. Don't mess with her though.
• Nice Mean And In Between: She effectively form this with her cousins Mitsu and Momo, with her serving as the nice one among them thanks to her regularly cheerful and caring nature. Mitsu is the mean one as she had a hard time accepting what happened to Erma as her fault when the Yokai Kids had been bullying them too, with Momo being the in-between as while she took part in bullying Erma alongside Mitsu, she went on to make amends and remorse for what Erma had to endure.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Erma is this for normal people (well, mostly for adults. Her fellow kids just think she's fun to hang around with). She enjoys scaring people for fun, although she's not malicious about it.
• No Kill like Overkill: Seriously, don't try to get into a snowball fight with her.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Much like the ghost movies she's inspired by, Erma can do this.
• Off with His Head!: Erma tends to do this with her dolls (save her Warrior Unicorn Princess dolls), and can do this to herself as seen in this and this comic.
• Oh, Crap!: Gives one when her friends find the voodoo doll she made of Connor.
• Person of Mass Destruction: She destroyed grand part of the yokai town during her Jubbokko rampage with her hair and could have been worse if her parents and cousing didn't arrive in time.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Jesus Christ, yes. In a one off strip, she managed to defeat Pennywise with little effort, and when pushed to a breaking point by three adult yokai in The Search, she mops the floor with them. To say she's this is underselling it.
• Power Floats: Will sometime just use her powers to float rather than walk.
• The Prankster: She loves taking advantage of her abilities to play tricks.
• Prehensile Hair: Erma's stringy black hair can grow in length and ensnare/crush people like an anaconda.
• Puppy Love: Connor, Erma's buck-toothed classmate, has a very large crush on her. Erma in turn is very fond of him and it's implied she returns his feelings. However, her indications are a lot more subtle than Connor's.
  • For unknown reasons, she has made a voodoo doll of him and is very very shocked when her friends find it. Her friends immediately tease her on why she made one of him before they proceed to use it. Erma's immediate nervous reaction says it all.
• Rapid Hair Growth: She's tried to cut her hair on several occasions, but it immediately grows back.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: At the last panel of Part 53, Erma's eye began to glow red of anger while she's harassed by the other spirits inside the Jubokko and struggles to break her chains, becoming powerful enough to break herself free, with her eyes now tainted red.
• Scary Teeth: She apparently doesn't brush very often as another visit to a dentist showed that not only are her teeth smelly and rotten, but they also have bugs crawling around as well. Yeesh.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: She has from time to time used to her powers to cheat at games, such as hovering during jump rope or summoning an avalanche during a snowball fight.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Erma, much like her mother, takes obvious inspiration from Sadako and Kayako.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Erma looks nothing like her dad, but is basically a smaller clone of her mom, so much so that Emiko's siblings comment on it. Lampshaded by Ena when she says that Erma looks so much like her mother. Both Yori and Kentaro separately state that the resemblance is "scary/freaky".
• Stubborn Hair: Her long, unkempt hair is not by choice. Whenever she attempts to cut it short, it immediately grows right back. It takes a bear-trap just to hold it back in a pony-tail.
• Television Portal: Due to being based partially off Sadako, Erma is capable of doing this. She once used it to get onto a football field to help her dad's team win by scaring an opposing player. She can use something as small as a handheld screen, doing so to get Terry's attention when he was too wrapped up in his game system to pay attention to her.
• Thermal Dissonance: Due to being half-ghost, Erma seems immune to cold temperatures, as seen here and here.
  • She does wear a scarf around her neck in winter, but it seems this is for seasonal accessorizing than anything.
• 13 Is Unlucky: It's revealed she was born on October 13th, with the strip coming out on Friday the 13th. How is it unlucky? Refer to Apocalypse Maiden as seen above.
• Unskilled, but Strong: At least when it comes to her power. She displays large amount of power and capabilities that even her yokai family members note is beyond the norm (only matched by Emiko, her mother.) However, while she doesn't suffer from Power Incontinence, she is still a gradeschooler and thus quite inexperience, prone to negative impulses and short-sightedness Case in point, when she attempted to catch a rat, she hijacked every utensil in the cafeteria trying to stab the critter before Amy just suggested to just levitate the rat itself. The look on her face just screams "Why I am such a moron?!" before levitating the rat (though it still gets away because it spits in her face to distract her.)
• The Voiceless: There's been some debate regarding whether Erma is this or The Speechless, but there are a few instances that imply she's capable of speech, but just never speaks on-panel.
• Voodoo Doll: Erma has some, including one of Connor.
• Wall Crawl: Likewise can do this; it's even lampshaded at one point when she's trying to get away from Emily who tries to follow her by doing the exact same thing. Naturally, Emily is human and can't do it, and Erma, feeling sorry for her, goes back and gives her a lift.
• Weirdness Magnet: While Erma is fully capable of finding and/or causing the various supernatural hoo-ha that happens in her town, half the time it just happens to be there and Erma just happens to get involved with it (like Wittle Wallace or the race of Rat Men living beneath her school
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In the Night Parade arc she ends up as this as result of being kidnapped and betrayed by the bullied kids, then fed to the jubokko filled with damned souls angrily demanding her to let them out.
• You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: She rarely gets mad but when she gets pushed, she's an utter force to be reckoned with. Especially if you harm anyone she cares about. Wittle ended up learning this the hard way and Sidney almost suffered her wrath if not for Principal Phibes calming her down.
  • During The Search arc, Erma, Mitsu, and Momo are accosted by three Yokai. After running and being tormented by them, Erma finally snaps and single-handedly defeats all three in a one-sided Curb-Stomp Battle.
    • The yokai trio and the yokai kids pushed her to her limits by kidnaping her and feeding her to her Jubbokko, resulting in Erma becoming an Eldritch Abomination in the night parade arc

Erma's Family

Sam and Emiko Williams

Erma's parents. Sam is a human and his wife, Emiko (née Yureimoto), stated in the Family Reunion arc that she is a type of youkai. Despite the difference in species, they truly love each other.

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• A Day in the Spotlight: "Spirit's Bloom" showcases how the two first met and fell in love. It was such a large story that it even got its own book.
• Bag of Holding: Emiko's purse is a Hammerspace that she stores knives, blades, mystery liquid in a bottle, a Freddy Krueger-like glove, and at least one chainsaw. On their trip to Japan, she added Sam's suitcase to it, which he retrieved after shaking it out a little.
• Comically Missing the Point: Sam is either missing the point in his situation or his Seen It All attitude is helping him keep calm. In this strip, Emiko's sister Rin wraps her snake body over Sam, with the threat of lethally crushing him. But after Emiko threatens her into releasing him, he thanks her for helping him straighten his back. And before that, when Rin says that he's got the stench all over him, referring to how he smells as a human, he thinks that she doesn't like the smell of his cologne.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Being the husband and father to onryō, Sam has become fairly inoculated to the various horrors expected from such a household. This is later lampshaded when Yori knew that he was her brother-in-law since he did not run in fear from her and her family's antics.
• Cranial Eruption: Sam and his brother Michael received one from their respective wives when it was revealed that they figured out Siris was undead after he was shot three times with the rifle Michael was using, and intended to not say anything right away of the incident.
• Defector from Decadence: Emiko is a bit estranged from her family by her choice, since, well her father is kind of a dick and would rather seek to wipe out humanity (locking her up and claiming she was dead to Sam certainly didn't do him any favors). As such, she would rather live among humans than monsters. For the most part, she seems to be on good terms with her sister, but isn't willing to fully trust her out of fear their father might've turned her against Emiko since they last saw each other. She likewise would rather Erma not interact with them in any way as well if she can help it. Furthermore, turns out her family, the Yureimotos, are very well-off and of high nobility, based on having large amounts of service and definitely lends credence to Osamu being a powerful figure.
• Disappeared Dad: In a family image of the Williams, it consists mainly of Sam, his brothers and their mother along with their spouses and children. Grandfather Williams (Jim) is revealed in a side comic to have died long before Erma was born.
• The Dreaded: Emiko is feared among other youkai. She's a legend amongst her village, and monsters that are interested in eating Sam immediately back off when her name is mentioned.
• Establishing Character Moment: One for each of them.
  • Emiko gets hers when she crawls out of some poor guy's TV, scaring him half to death... then runs out of his house to give Erma the bagged lunch she forgot at home, establishing her as a kindhearted woman and good mother who can be very scary, intentionally or not.
  • Sam gets his when Erma creepily sneaks up on him, and just when she's about to spook him, he threatens to discipline her without bothering to turn around. This establishes him as a reasonable and loving but somewhat stern father who has Nerves of Steel, knows more than he lets on and has plenty of experience with the supernatural side of things.
• Ethereal White Dress: Emiko, much like her Japanese source material, dresses in a white gown. Her fashion sense was more varied until her imprisonment in "Spirit's Bloom".
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Emiko's hair length reflects different stages in her life: it was shoulder-length before she left home, neck-length while she wandered the world, and reached its current length following her imprisonment in "Spirit's Bloom".
• Eyes Out of Sight: Like Erma, Emiko sports these in her design. But unlike Erma, we never really see her eyes, at least when she's in normal form except once in "Spirit's Bloom". All the other times we have, it's always when she was sporting Nightmare Face and Played for Laughs. We finally see her eyes during the Family Reunion arc, where we see her normal eyes in the current timeline a few times.
• Failed a Spot Check: Sam was so focused on his writing, he didn't realized he had a "fan club" around him reading what he was writing until Emiko pointed it out.
• Friendly Ghost: Like her daughter, Emiko is pretty friendly for an onryō.
• Good Parents: The happy couple do a very good job of raising Erma to be a responsible girl all while having fun and setting rules, especially for a unique kid like her.
• Hammerspace Hair: Not so much for storage, but rather quick travel. Emiko can use her hair to envelop herself and others, travel to another location as liquid-like shadow, and gather it to reveal her 'passengers'. Apparently faster then running.
• Happily Married: Most definitely. To drive it home how much they were made for each other, the two really get into watching football games.
• Heroic BSoD: "Night Parade Pt. 27" shows Emiko in one of these following her talk with her father. She sits in a trance all the next day, sitting in the same position with the same expression, completely nonresponsive.
• Hidden Depths: "The Search Pt. 9" reveals that Sam is bilingual (English and Japanese), he says he learned Japanese from Emiko.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Sam is so nice that when goading to drink a special yokai wine that would poison him if he was anything else, he drinks it without hesitation and comes out of it fine.
• Interspecies Romance: Sam the human and Emiko the youkai.
• Loved by All: Sam is so likable, he is able to win over a village full of humanphobic yokai within a day, proving his worthiness after drinking a magical wine that would have poisoned him if he was anything but pure. He also managed to get Fumiko to allow his yokai bar friends to stay and help set up the night parade, and they actually do so because he asked them to. Fumiko notes that when she allows Kentaro to invite them over, they make a mess.
• Mama Bear: Emiko becomes very threatening when she sees the rest of her family around Erma, as she still doesn't trust them.
  • She had to be restrained to stop her from attacking Osamu, her abusive father, who everybody else is mind-numbingly terrified of because he picked up her daughter.
• Missing Mom: Emiko's mother has been conspiciously absent from any mentions of the family thus far, even in the Family Reunion arc.
  • Subverted; she is eventually mentioned alongside Osamu, when it's revealed the two are running late to the family reunion.
• Most Writers Are Writers: Sam is a famous novelist.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Considering the fact that the Yureimotos have a very strong disdain for humanity and have aspirations of wiping them all out, Emiko is a very benevolent onryō, if only because her own family life isn't all that pleasant.
• Nerves of Steel: Sam, in spite of being a human among monsters, is as calm as can be, even when getting threatened by them, as seen here and here. In fact, when one makes an attempt to eat him, his only reaction is a quiet, annoyed glance.
• Nice Guy: Sam is a very kind and patient man regarding the antics of his yokai wife and daughter. He is also willing to shell out international airfare for their trip to Japan instead of just having Emiko teleport them there, solely so Emiko has a chance to calm down before confronting her Jerkass father. As we've seen so far, he is also doing his best to get along with his in-laws.
• Nightmare Face: When she's angry or otherwise not in a good mood, Emiko can make some pretty scary facial expressions that can even scare Erma. For example, "Super Bowl" has her get long, sharp teeth and Glowing Eyes of Doom when the ref makes a call she doesn't like.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: To her sibling's complete shock, she no longer fears her parents. She was going to refuse to bow to her father until her sister forced her to, she talked back to him in front of everyone. Almost attacked him when he picked up Erma forcing her siblings to restrain her, and when she found her mother looking her grandaughter over while holding her in mid-air she burst into the throne room and demanded, not asked, demanded the woman put Erma down.
  Emiko: Now.
• Only the Pure of Heart: He befriends a bar full of yokai by drinking a magical wine that would have poisoned him if he was anything but pure.
• Oh, Crap!: Emiko gets one when she discovers a birthday present with a Japanese tag on it before burning it. The tag mentions "grandfather" on it, signaling to Emiko not only does her dad know of Erma's existence, but where they live and even her birthday.
  • Sam also gets a smaller one when Erma causes a lot of damage when she goes to the dentist, and he will have to pay a heck of a bill.
• Open-Minded Parent: During the arc of Erma going to Japan, Sam is the one trying to keep things positive and letting Erma play around a bit. Contrasting with Emiko, though she is understandably worried given how her family is.
• Papa Wolf: Much like his wife, Sam too had to be stopped from going after Osamu when the old man picked up Erma.
• Playing with Fire: Refer to Oh, Crap!. With a gesture, Emiko can ignite objects, even with said object sitting on her other hand, with flames so hot they incinerate instantaneously without leaving any ash behind.
• Secretly Wealthy: Sam is a famous horror novelist with at least four published works, and working on another. It's assumed by fans that this has made him well off, yet his family lives in a comfortably modest suburban home. Others point out that being wealthy would be the only way they can pay for Erma's more destructive episodes; a wealthy lifestyle would mean replacing things would be much more expensive. It would also explain why such expenses haven't put the Williams in the poor house.
  • This is reinforced by a comment made by Erma's aunt Yori about it.
  • Turns out Emiko herself is this. Her family has plenty of prestige and servants with them, something Sam did not know too much about based on his surprise about learning it. However, it's unlikely Emiko gets any money from them seeing how she wants little to do with her family (or at least, her dad).
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: It's revealed that Emiko (probably) was the only of her siblings who refused to have anything to do with her dad's violent ambitions, which led to her leaving.
• Seen It All: Sam isn't fazed in the slightest about his supernatural family. Best seen when he is first introduced when Erma tries to spook him; he preemptively stops her.
  • Another strip has his reaction to answering the door to a one eyed, drooling, multi-legged monster be to tell Emiko that the visitor is probably there for her.
• Species Surname: Emiko's maiden name is Yūreimoto, which roughly translates to "the ghost origin".
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Like Erma, Emiko sports the design. It brings her closer to the Japanese source material than her daughter due to being older.
• Stubborn Hair: Subverted. While her hair is just as supernatural as her daughter's, Emiko keeps a magical pair of shears that is able to cut her hair effectively whenever it becomes too much of a hassle.
• Television Portal: Emiko can do this, though mostly for Mundane Utility such as needing to get somewhere in a hurry.
  • Yori states that Emiko can also bring at least two others along with her when she wonders why her sister's family didn't do so to get to Japan from the US.
• Unnamed Parent: For a long time, their names weren't revealed until the "Spirit's Bloom" prequel was released.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Emiko calmly asks her sister Rin to let go of her husband with a glare that promises Rin would very much regret not doing so. Considering her opinions on her family over what happened, you can hardly blame her for being cautious.
  • A picture released on Father's Day 2018 has Emiko take a protective stance in front of Sam with Osamu in front of them.
• Walking the Earth: What Emiko did between leaving home and meeting Sam, usually with the places she visited ending up disaster areas by the time she left.
• World's Strongest Woman: It is heavily implied Emiko is extremely powerful to the point other demons left Sam alone after it was revealed to them that he was with Emiko.
• Write What You Know: Sam's profession is a novelist, specifically for the horror genre, and he's stated to be famous because of it. It's implied a lot of his horror stories are inspired by Erma and Emiko.
  • Emiko confirms it and he actually gets a particular look in his eye when he gets an idea.
• Youkai: While referred to as being a ghost more than once, it is later elaborated that Emiko is more properly described as being a type of youkai, with her whole family being different types of youkai. She and all of her siblings are each a different type.

Siris

Erma's pet undead dog she adopted from a woman dressed in stereotypical "gypsy" garb and living in a equally stereotypical "gypsy" wagon.

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• Dead All Along: The gypsy he was bought from mentioned that the dog (along with the other pets she was selling) is of a special rare breed that "not even man can explain". We're supposed to assume she was lying, based on the way she said it, but it turns out she was correct since Siris is undead.
• Dog Walks You: Despite his size he is quite strong, where Felicia gets dragged around by him when she takes him for a walk.
• Foreshadowing: As noted below, his name sounds similar to Osiris, the Egyptian God of the Dead, which indicates that he's technically not alive.
• Healing Factor: Being an undead dog, he can recover from gunshots and getting run over without issue.
• Hellgate: Is capable of rapidly digging into the earth a hole so deep, it reaches Hell. Filling it in is also apparently not a problem.
• Implacable Man: Is completely unfazed by three gunshot wounds to the head and being run over.
• Meaningful Name: Is just one letter away from either "Sirius" (also known as the "Dog Star") or "Osiris", the Egyptian God of the Dead which hints on him being undead. Spin-off comics reveal that he may or may not actually be the reincarnation of Osiris.
• Rubber Face: When Erma brings Siris to the Bring Your Pet to School Day that prompted his purchase, Amy accidentally causes his face to sag out of shape after playing around with it and stretching it out. Quickly promising to fix it in time for Erma's presentation, she used a clothespin at the back of his head to pin back the extra sag, making him look even stranger.
• Sliding Scale of Undead Regeneration: Type IV. No one knew he was undead until they saw him survive three gunshot wounds and being run over. His body will apparently puff back up over time if it suffers any type of crushing damage. Despite being hit in the head, he regurgitated the spent rounds the same day.
• Stronger Than They Look: Dogsitting Siris while the family is out of the country, Felicia finds it extremely difficult to drag the small dog along the sidewalk after he indicated that he wants to go for a walk. When he hears a bell, he runs towards it, yanking the babysitter right off her feet.
• Too Dumb to Live: During the hunting trip Erma's dad and uncle Michael took him on as a hunting dog he got in the way of Michael's gun 2 times, climbed into one of their traps, and sniffed curiously at an open bear trap in the back of Michael's van. Though he can't actually die due to already being dead.
• Walking Spoiler: Hard to keep it secret that he's an undead puppy.

Extended Family

Erma's paternal relatives, The Williams

General

Sam's mother, brothers and sister-in-law. Like Sam, they aren't phased by Emiko and Erma's antics.

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• Disappeared Dad: In the family portrait, we only see Pamela, her sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren. In the Tales of Outcast chapter "The Letter," it was confirmed that Sam's father Jim Williams has died.
• Family Theme Naming: The Williams family plus Sam's buddy Jason are all named after various western horror icons, contrasted to Erma's maternal eastern horror family:
  • There's Sam's brothers, Freddy and Micheal, named after Freddy Kreuger and Micheal Myers respactably. Freddy is Sam's older brother given how he greets him as "little brother." Given Sam's comment on Freddy being "king of the neighborhood" and a "nightmare" back as teenagers, this implies that Freddy is the oldest of the three. It's unknown if Micheal is Sam's older or younger brother.
  • There's Micheal's wife, Regan, named after Regan MacNeil.
  • There's their child and Erma's cousin, Emily, named after Emily Rose.
  • Sam, Freddy and Micheal's mother and Erma's grandmother, Pamela, after Pamela Voorhees.
  • Speaking of which, Sam's close friend Jason is named after Jason Voorhees who's close enough to the Williams to be invited to Thanksgiving. Appropriately, Sam mentions their best times being summer camp and that he's not a good swimmer.
  • Sam himself may be named after the horror character of the same name from Trick 'r Treat (who was named after the pagan holiday Samhaim, what Halloween was based on.)
  • Their family name, Williams, could potentially come from legendary Deadite hunter Ashley J. "Ash" Williams.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Roundly averted. All of Sam's relatives adore Emiko and Erma and are very warm and loving towards them.

Michael Williams

Michael Williams

One of Sam's brothers, Emiko's brother-in-law, Erma's uncle, and Emily's father. The wording implies he's younger than Sam, making him the youngest out of him, Sam and Freddy.

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• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Downplayed. He accepts Emiko and Erma's ghoulishness, but is creeped out by the forest they live near and is freaked out when he finds out that Siris is a zombie dog.
• Cool Big Bro: Possibly. While he is a cool dude, it's not known if he's older than Sam (though given Sam's prior comments on their other brother Fred, Micheal is either the middle child or the youngest.)
• Cool Uncle: Is one to Erma.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Double Tap: Does this twice to Siris to confirm that he's undead after accidentally shooting him in the head, to Sam's aggravation.
• Happily Married: To his wife, Regan.
• Manly Men Can Hunt: Seems to feel this way, since he makes fun of Sam for preferring fishing.
• Seen It All: Subverted when he and Sam find out that Siris is a zombie dog.
• Shout-Out: Named after Michael Myers.

Regan Williams

Regan Williams

Michael's wife, Sam and Emiko's sister-in-law, Emily's mother, and Erma's aunt.

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• Deadpan Snarker: Just like her husband.
• Death Glare: Gives ones to Michael for lying about not knowing about Sirus' undead condition when Sirus spits out some of the bullets Michael shot into him.
• Shout-Out: Named after Regan McNeil.

Emily Williams

Erma's younger cousin through her paternal uncle Michael and his wife Regan, an excitable little ball of energy who is completely unfazed by Erma. Erma, on the other hand, is unnerved and exasperated by her cousin and her boundless energy.

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• Annoying Younger Sibling: Subverted. Although Erma's uneasiness at having to see her seem to imply this, it's quickly revealed that Emily is a nice kid who utterly adores Erma and sees her like a Cool Big Sis. It's just that she's so chipper and hyper that Erma is overwhelmed by her boundless energy. However, she gets along better with her than her maternal cousins.
• Cuddle Bug: Emily seems fond of giving hugs, especially to Erma.
• Genki Girl: She is pretty much incapable of standing still, pretty much vibrating in place when standing in one spot and just bouncing all over the place. Erma is unnerved by this since it means she has no idea how to handle her.
• The Glomp: Seems fond of these. When she first appeared in the comic, she launched herself like a ballistic missile toward Erma, who ducked by entering the ground. Emily proceeded to fly through the open front door, past the adults and only stopping when she slammed face first into a wall. She laughs it off and says she gave the wall a kiss. One Halloween spoof shows her to be more of a glomp than a Facehugger.
• Horrifying the Horror: Downplayed. Erma genuinely loves her younger cousin and the two can get along well, but Emily's Genki Girl attitude appears to be pretty overwhelming to Erma, and combined with her total lack of fear, Erma has no clue on how to deal with Emily.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Seems to want to be as close to Erma as she possibly can, and when left alone near Erma's room immediately goes in and starts messing with everything.
• Speech Impediment: Speaks with a slight lisp.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Erma can handle horrors from film, literature, video games and who else knows. Yet her excitable and fearless cousin leaves her gobsmacked.

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Erma's maternal family, the Yureimotos

General

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• Creepy Family: When you are a clan of Youkai housed in an abandoned village cut off from modern Japan, this is inevitable. Such Youkai include a Rokurokubi (a long-necked woman), a Tengu, an Oni, a nukekubi (a woman with a head dislodged from her body), a noppera-bo (a faceless woman), a harionago (a woman with barbed hair), a nure-onna (a snake with a woman’s head), two onryo (Stringy Haired Ghost Girls, one of them being half-human), a Kappa (turtle-demon), a Hitotsume-kozo (a cyclops), various Tsukumogami (inanimate objects that have gained a spirit), etc.
  • There's also the fact that most don't like humanity, enough to where Emiko cut most ties with them. However, it's looking the case to be more complicated, given how most were only barely aware of Sam (Rin herself seem to be in the dark or in denial about the thing). This implies things aren't what they seem.
• Fantastic Racism: The whole family seems to possess varying levels of apprehension towards humans, though implications veer less around active malicious ideas about the human race and closer towards how one would try to be polite around a foreigner. In the case of Sam Williams, Emiko's immediate family possess an air of awkwardness born from their father's hatred of humans and concern for his safety, fully aware that other yokai would be more than willing to kill and eat him first chance they get. In the end, only their parents and Rin hold any real hostility towards humans.
• Hidden Elf Village: They seem to live in a long abandoned village within the wilderness beyond modern Japanese society, complete with various signs and road blocks meant to deter humans. However they are not completely anachronistic as there are traces of modern society present such as fashion and technology in the form of an elevator.
• Mundane Utility: They all admit to using their supernatural abilities and equipment to make their lives easier.
• Random Species Offspring: Despite most of them being siblings, not one of them is the same exact same breed of youkai (except for Mitsu and Momo, who are twins).
• Species Surname: 'Yurei' most likely refers to the Japanese equivalent of a Western ghost, and 'moto' is a common component of Japanese surnames meaning "the origin". So their name means "Origin of the Ghost".
• We Used to Be Friends: The Yureimoto sibling all use to be extremely close, until their father didn't want them to be anymore. Its shown that Emiko's leaving while understood also bred some resentment for those left behind, especially in Rin and Mayumi who Emiko was the Cool Big Sis protector of.

Ena Yureimoto

Ena Yureimoto

One of Emiko's sisters and Erma's aunt. She's a nukekubi.

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• Cuteness Overload: Ena immediately gushes over how cute Erma is when they meet for the first time, to the point where she forgets that Erma hasn't a clue who Ena is.
• Genki Girl: Seems to be indicated as one, given her general excitedness. In addition, she does warm up to Sam once she overcomes the shock, as awkward as her attempt to do so may be.
• Losing Your Head: As a nukekubi, her head is divorced from her body, being able to float around with a little ghost tail where her neck would be.
• Nice Girl: Once she overcomes her surprise with Sam, she is actually being pretty friendly with him.
• Ship Tease: Gets a bit with Kenji.
• Stealth Pun: She's a bit scatterbrained and her head isn't attached to her shoulders per say.
• Youkai: A different type of rokurokubi than Yori called a nukekubi, a rokurokubi who's head flies around.

Mayumi Yureimoto

Mayumi Yureimoto

Emiko's younger sister and Erma's aunt. Implied to be hiding something...

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• The Baby of the Bunch: She is implied to be the youngest of Emiko's siblings, having difficulty opening up to others like a Shrinking Violet teenager, Emiko remarking how much she had grown since the last time she's seen her and Rin threatens Mitsu and Momo if they try pranking Mayumi while she is spending quality time with Erma.
• The Blank: Mayumi is a noppera-bo, a yokai that looks human except they have no facial features. This appears to be voluntary, as she can give herself a face at will by shapeshifting.
• Broken Pedestal: Much like Rin it's shown that Emiko's running away greatly hurt her to the point she will hardly even acknowledge Emiko's presence.
• Emotionless Girl: Justified due to having no face. She does have body language and even gave a thumbs up. Averted when she uses shapeshifting; she looks visibly upset over the Night Parade when disguising herself as a servant.
• No Mouth: Despite this she can still eat. The readers never see how. Erma does, but from the girl's expression, she's still as confused despite seeing it as the readers are. She can give herself a mouth, and whole face, though.
• The Speechless: Because she has no mouth, it is believed that she is incapable of speaking. Ena and Emiko still interacts with her as though she can. Turns out, she can actually give herself a mouth with her shapeshifting, but she doesn't talk while she has a face, edging the possibility that this is voluntary. However, Reunion's End Part 7 reveals that she can speak, even when she doesn't have a mouth, subverting this trope.

Kentaro Yureimoto

Kentaro Yureimoto

Emiko's older brother and Erma's uncle. He's an oni.

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• Big Eater: How big? He once ate two thousand bowls of noodles!
• Big Fun: A large heavyset oni, he seems to be on friendly terms with everyone and holds records in eating and drinking contests.
• Big Red Devil: His colored picture shows he's red and well, he's an oni. A big friendly fellow though.
• Closet Geek: Secretly into Warrior Unicorn Princess.
• Cool Big Bro: He's a good-hearted brother who fought six bullies to protect his sisters.
• Cool Uncle: Seems to be shaping up to be this to Erma.
• Fascinating Eyebrow: Has been giving one to Sam for the past few pages, though out of intrigue and curiosity.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Is quite proud of his leopard pants, and defends his choice in good humor.
• Nice Guy: He's a pretty friendly fellow and is amicable to Sam. Not long after meeting, he already offered to show his new brother-in-law some of his favorite eateries. He even accompanied Sam in searching for Rin and kept him safe.
  • Among other things, he once fended off a gang of six oni bullies single-handedly for his sisters.
  • His father gave him a kanabo club to fight with. He mostly uses it as a backscratcher.
• Oni: The type of yokai he is.
• Where Did We Go Wrong?: While Kentaro has his own list of achievements and interests and is generally well-liked in the yokai community, his father thinks he is a disappointment.

Fumiko Yureimoto

Fumiko Yureimoto

One of Emiko's older sisters (heavily implied to be the oldest Yureimoto child actually) and Erma's aunt. She's a stoic and stern woman with some harsh and critical appearances, but ultimately looking out for the family's best interests and genuinely caring of her siblings.

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• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Her attractive looks, long hair, fashion and general demeanor channel this.
• Body Horror: Her art supply box has some severed fingers, a tongue, an eyeball, and whole teeth.
• Cold Ham: Being The Stoic, her passion is usually kept with a straight face, just as she boasts about how Yuyu's tea would be the perfect drink for that year's parade.
• Deadpan Snarker: Similar to Yori, but Fumiko's more critical.
• The Dreaded: Relatively downplayed compared to Osamu, but Fumiko also strikes some fear into lower-class yokai. One village resident questions her on her family's affairs in a rather rude way, but a silent glance from her shuts him up.
• Green and Mean: Downplayed. She wears a green and black ensemble as shown in her colored picture. However, mean is stretching it as while she can be harsh and critical, she is ultimately a good person who watches over her siblings.
• I'm Taking Him Home with Me!: According to Yori, this is how her relationship with Haru started: gandering, then wrapping him with her razor hair. Not tactful with first impressions, this one.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: At first glance, she seems like a cold and harsh person and Emiko has noted on her being critical. However, she is actually a fairly decent individual who accepts her niece and brother-in-law, unlike her sister Rin. Furthermore, while she does show annoyance at the complications that their presence will cause, Fumiko doesn't seem to hold anything against them because of it. In fact, she takes charge and proceeds to lead everyone to go somewhere private for minimum fuss and to ensure their safety. Indeed, it's why she urges Emiko and her family to leave while they still can, since it could put the three in danger and is reluctant to accept Emiko's insistence on staying. Everything she does is to make sure everything goes smoothly and to protect everyone.
• Not So Above It All: She may be serious most of the time, but she has a couple moments in levity. There's her Cold Ham moment involving tea and in a series of pictures showing Erma interacting with her aunts and uncle, Fumiko is in a staring contest with Erma, one that has Erma desperately trying not to lose and Fumiko with a not that subtle smirk on her face about it.
• Odd Name Out: A variation. While Emiko refers Erma's aunts as "Auntie X" (even Rin), Fumiko is called "Aunt Fumiko", probably to reflect her no-nonsense nature.
• Pitbull Dates Puppy: She's the (implied to be) oldest child of the prominent family with a no nonsense personality and powerful presence... who's in a relationship with Haru, a servant kappa.
• Poisonous Person: The barbs on her hair immediately render the tsukumogami umbrella unconscious.
• Prehensile Hair: Her hooked hair (being a harionago) seems to wave around like tentacles. Uses it for extra limbs, like reaching for things and capturing Yori's umbrella by wrapping around it. As a child, she used her hair like spider legs to walk through streams, her body 'hovering' above the water.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Is the Blue to most of the rest of her siblings, especially compared to Ena and Kentaro. She has a cool, stern and level-headed demeanor.
• The Reliable One: Fumiko appears to be the one everyone listens to behind Osamu and certainly reflects her serious and professional nature. She also is the one keeping tabs on their parents. Many take this as evidence Fumiko may be the oldest sibling.
• Thinking Up Portals: She is able to use her Prehensile Hair to hold up some paper, rapidly draw a picture with at least four dip pens simultaneously and holding three more on standby, with a bottle of presumably magic ink. This picture is revealed to be the spot where the car was parked and she uses it to summon a portal to the real location.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Fumiko is no giant, but she's about a couple feet taller than Haru.
• Uptown Girl: It's revealed in part 5 of "The Search" that she is romantically involved with family servant Haru, him calling her "honey" before leaving with Sam's group.
• Youkai: Most likely a harionago, judging from the barbed tips of her hair.

Rin Yureimoto

Rin Yureimoto

One of Emiko's sisters and Erma's aunt. She's got a snake body and human head.

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• Ambiguously Gay: Upon seeing a spider youkai wave to her in "The Night Parade Part 4", Rin looks slightly flustered hinting that they have some history.
• Big Sister Instinct: When Mitsu and Momo conspire to prank Mayumi and Erma while they're out shopping, Rin catches them and threatens them should they do anything to them, having not fallen for their Innocent Flower Girl act one bit.
• Broken Pedestal: Implied to be the case. She was injured by humans as a child and it was Emiko who comforted and patched her up but Emiko eventually fell in love and ran away with a human.
  • Turns out that her feelings toward Emiko is because how she envied Emiko for having the guts to leave their abusive home life.
• Call a Human a "Meatbag": Calls Sam "meat".
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Initially hostile towards Sam and Erma, but opens up after The Search Part 25 where she explains her situation to Erma.
• Facial Markings: Appears to have two noticeable straight scars running down her right cheek. A flashback reveals she got scarred by humans looking for her as a kid.
  • Later revealed that's where she's got her bottom scar. The top one is from a seperate and unknown affair, but given how hesitant she is on it and how Sam describes it, it's possible she might've gotten it from her father.
• Fantastic Racism: Really not a fan of humans. She attempts to crush Sam to death merely because he's a human, only stopping when threatened point blank by a rather unhappy Emiko. Although that particular personality trait isn't exactly uncommon amoung youkai, she's the only one in the inner Yureimoto family (other than their father) that displays such blatant hatred. And she sneers at Erma, her own niece, for being a half-breed. She gets better.
• Freudian Excuse: She is shown being attacked by two human snake poachers in her flashback, which could be part of the reason why she despises humans so much.
  • Deconstructed since it turns out this was more due to indoctrination by her father, as he wished his children to be powerful monsters. She even notes she spent so much time hating humanity she doesn't even know why anymore.
• Green and Mean: Green snake body? Check. Grouchy and unpleasant individual? Check. Massive jerkass toward her niece, brother-in-law and humanity in general? Check.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Hates humans, and apparently half-humans rank a little higher with her but not by much. Calls her own niece a "hybrid".
• Jerkass: She makes Mitsu and Momo seem nice in comparison. And the way Jorogumo says that she "threw more of a fit than usual" seems to indicate that she has always been quite unpleasant. Having not returned to the family mansion that night, her siblings mention not only that they don't look forward to her finding out that Emiko's family is staying over, but Kentaro notes they should worry for "whoever has to deal with her right now."
  • Deconstructed when we see that her bitterness has led to her being isolated and she basically holds onto her hate for so long that she does not know why.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's not without her heart nor hope though. She's slowly coming around.
• Only Sane Woman: Is the only one besides their mother who isn't even slightly fooled by the twin's cute act.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Has the head of a human and the body of a snake and is pretty racist toward Sam and Erma.
• The Resenter: Part of her feelings toward Emiko comes from the fact that she envies her for being able to leave when no one else could.
• Snake People: Though different from your typical Nagas and Lamiae, having a woman's head on a snake's body. She's probably a nure-onna. Later confirmed.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Downplayed. She doesn't seem to be outright evil and has a heart deep down, but she's still far from pleasant.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Sam and Erma's kindness are having a positive effect on her.
• Token Evil Teammate: All of Erma's aunts and uncle are welcoming towards her, but Rin is most certainly not. Later subverted, as she was just lashing out, admitting that while she has hated humans her whole life, she recognizes that Sam loves Emiko.
• Youkai: Most likely a nure-onna. Confirmed in The Recounted Days arc when Sam mentions her species in an interview.

Yori Yureimoto

The most prominently seen of Emiko's older sisters and Erma's aunt. Mother of Mitsu and Momo.

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• Boyish Short Hair: Notable as every other female member has longer hair. She used to have long hair up until she was a young woman, as shown in a flashback.
• Bag of Holding: Her purse is a tsukumogami, which can regurgitate a tsukumogami umbrella (and not a folding one, mind you, but a full-sized umbrella).
• Cool Aunt: She's excited to meet her niece and doing her best to make a good impression.
• Cool Big Sis: While not specifically confirmed if she is the oldest of the five sisters, she does act like it with Emiko.
  • A picture implies that they were closest to each other. They may even be twins, which may explain why Yori is the closest to Emiko.
• Deadpan Snarker: She is quite the snarker, including in her writing, according to Sam. It's such a standout characteristic that Sam uses it as evidence as to how the letter sent to them can only be her after Emiko suspects the letter may have been written by her father. As we see in plenty of her dialogue, it is definitely the case.
• The Dreaded: She is this to her daughters Mitsu and Momo, given that the two troublemakers have to pretend to be nice and obedient in front of her.
• It Runs in the Family: Given her comment on the nature of children as part of parenthood along with discussing an incident back when she and Emiko were youngsters, it's implied troublemaking runs within the family. Makes sense given they are yokai.
• Long Neck: Being a Rokurokubi, this is pretty much a given. She can retract into her body to give her an otherwise human appearance (minus the black eyes.)
• Only Sane Woman: When it comes to her daughters' antic, Yori is the only one who will never buy any of their lies.
• Species Surname: 'Yurei' most likely refers to the Japanese equivalent of a Western ghost, and 'moto' is a common component of Japanese surnames.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Besides the hair and neck, she and Emiko look a lot alike.
• Struggling Single Mother: Downplayed example, but it is becoming more gradually evident that Yori being a single mother to her two kids has been a chore. Mitsu and Momo are massive troublemakers who bully other kids for money while causing havoc in town and Yori can only do so much, even knowing they cause trouble and referring to them as her "little gremlins." Financially however, she is secure given her family are definitely very well-off.
• Thinking Up Portals: A memory shows she used this in what appears to be aiding Emiko's escape.
• White Sheep: Implied so far by Emiko. She was the one that freed her sister after their father, Osamu, kidnapped Emiko. She is the only one in her family Emiko seems to really trust.
  • Seems to be confirmed when they meet her. She adores her niece Erma, is utterly happy to see her sister again and developing a friendly amicable relationship with her brother-in-law Sam.
  • In fact, what really sets her apart from her family is that she's the only one to be nice to Sam from the get-go. The rest of the family are either surprised or shocked by his presence or just downright hostile toward him like Rin. Though Ena and Kentaro quickly get along with him and Fumiko seems pretty okay with him.
• Youkai: She's a rokurokubi, a long neck woman.

Mitsu & Momo Yureimoto

Yori's twins and Erma's cousins. A pair of Zashiki-Warashi. Mitsu is the one with the light hoodie and dark stripe, while Momo has the opposite.

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• Alliterative Family: Both of their first names start with the letter 'M'.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: While it's unclear if they are younger than Erma or not, they certainly fit the trope as they're annoying little jerks and Erma is often upset with them. Contrast this with her paternal cousin, the Genki Girl Emily. While Erma finds her to be exasperating as well, it's mainly because she is so energetic rather than out of any maliciousness on her part.
• Berserk Button: It seems that they hate people mentioning their dad and his current absence. When a group of antagonistic yokai did this, they turned right around and launched an explosive in their faces.
• Blatant Lies: Once Yori stops their fight with Erma, they claim they were trying to return her doll and Erma was the one who started the fight. The people around the area end up buying it. Yori however does not and even refers to them as her "little gremlins."
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: They are very, very good at pretending to be cute and innocent, which got Emiko and Ena completely fooled. However, when nobody notices, they reveal their true nature as totally nasty kids who will always try to gang up on Erma. It's a good thing Yori never buys any of their lies. Part four of Reunion's End reveals that their hostility is also a facade they put due to being bullied by the yokai kids.
• The Bully: If this is any indication, they most certainly appear to be. Reunion's End reveals that they were actually the victims of being bullied and only resorted to becoming bullies themselves in self defense.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: A variation, but they call their aunt Rin just as "Rin" when not within earshots of the adults.
• Creepy Twins: Their introduction pegs them as such.
• Disappeared Dad: Yori has not mentioned a husband nor have they mentioned their father. It may account for their irresponsible natures (either through inheritance of a mean streak or his absence having a negative impact on their emotional development).
  • This strip confirms both that he is not in their lives and that his absence is a serious sore spot for them. As such, it's also likely that this contributed to their dysfunctionality.
  • Tales of Outcasts reveals he's been imprisoned by their grandfather.
• The Dividual: They are exactly alike not just in appearance but also in personalities. There has yet to be any attempt from the author to give them characteristics that differentiate them. Eventually subverted by Momo, who ends up being braver and more willing to open up to Erma than Mitsu.
• The Dog Bites Back: Turns out to be the reason for their bullying of the yokai kids. The yokai kids bullied them first even after the two tried to befriend them, so they decided to retaliate when they couldn't get anybody to help them.
• Green Thumb: Can change into spirit forms that appear to be made of, and emanate, leaves and allow them to fly.
  • The flowers in their hair appear to be a part of them.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: They state that only they get to tear Erma's drawing of Rin up in front of Mei.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: They both wear hoodies with a stripe across the center but Mitsu's is a lighter grey and a dark stripe while Momo's is the inverted color (darker shirt with a light stripe).
• Irony: They're a type of youkai known for benevolence and bringing luck, and one humans normally want around. They're dysfunctional brats who enjoy terrorizing others.
• Jerkass: They are bratty kids all right. They use their powers to steal Erma's doll, try to get her to pay up money for its return and start up a fight when she tries to take it back. And this was before finding out she was their cousin. Their mother's skepticism to their claims that Erma misunderstood and started it implies that they are very much troublemakers and Yori has her hands full with them.
  • Yori refers to them as her "little gremlins." They are definitely a handful and Yori even warns Emiko not to trust them.
  • We see them beating up some kids for money. Erma is not happy about this. We also see them cause havoc for the townsfolk.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: That being said, they're not completely irredeemable. Erma's insistence to not fight because she cares about them gets through them and they decide to leave with her when encountering with the thugs. Even when the thugs hit a massive sore spot that upsets them, they do end up leaving still (after a retaliatory strike.) However, given said comment was about their father leaving, it's now framed as them as troubled children/delinquents rather than genuinely malicious. And when Erma gets kidnapped, they are LIVID. When they confess to Erma on how they too were bullied by the yokai kids before, they detail that as why they act the way they do.
• Master of Illusion: They know some sort of magic that can casts illusions, best seen when one mixes a flower petal with some herbs to make some sort of gas that puts a servant in a hallucination of sorts. They learned it from their grandmother and it appears others like Erma can learn it.
• Mind over Matter: Can use telekinesis, but only when they're in solid form.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Once Erma goes berserk, Momo realizes that she and Mitsu unintentionally set up the Disaster Dominoes that resulted in Erma's rampage, and wants to help Emiko and Sam.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: They effectively form this with Erma who serves as the nice one among them thanks to her regularly cheerful and caring nature. Mitsu is the mean one as she had a hard time accepting what happened to Erma as her fault when the Yokai Kids had been bullying them too, with Momo being the in-between as while she took part in bullying Erma alongside Mitsu, she went on to make amends and showed genuine remorse for what Erma had to endure.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: They were pretty cocky and laidback when against the thugs and even retained it when they decided to leave rather than fight. Then when the thugs mock their absent father, they get instantly dead quiet and serious. They wordlessly retaliate by shooting fireworks before they storm off alongside Erma in a subdued manner. It's pretty clear that the situation with their dad is something that genuinely bothers them.
• Pet the Dog: In this strip, even though they are more than ready to beat up the three punks, they decide to give up the fight after Erma shows concern for them and tries to stop them.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: As part four of Reunion's End shows, Mitsu is the red being the most stern one who has a hard time accepting others while Momo is the blue as she shows Erma the most sympathy along with the fact that she was the one who helped in rescuing Erma.
• Shadow Archetype: To their cousin Erma. While they have similar powers, appearances and trickster mentalities, they're alot more arrogant than Erma is and lacking her sweetness and kindness. While they're good at pretending to be cute and innocent, they are more certainly not.
  • In fact, one can make the argument that the twins represent who Erma could've grown up as without her father Sam. Her dad is a Nice Guy who helps to ground Erma and serves as a reasonable authority figure and loving father, evident how she is a Daddy's Girl. Meanwhile, his side of the family embraced her and Emiko with open arms. Mitsu and Momo meanwhile are not that close to their extended family and while their mom knows how to get them to listen, it's clear that the lack of a father figure can be a reason for their behavior. In fact, when some yokai thugs taunted them about how their father supposedly ran off from them (or was scared off by Osamu), they lose all good mood and pretty much storm off after a retaliatory strike, showing it's a sore spot for them.
• Species Surname: 'Yurei' most likely refers to the Japanese equivalent of a Western ghost, and 'moto' is a common component of Japanese surnames.
• Stunned Silence: While their family, servants and townsfolk make increasingly more shocked expressions as Their grandfather dotes on their cousin Mitsu and Momo just stare on silently with blank expressions.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • In The Night Parade (Part 8), they decide to pull a cord for Erma to trip over on their way back to the temple...but doing so means Erma goes tripping and slides to a stop at Osamu, eliciting a Mass "Oh, Crap!" from practically every single Youkai there. Oh, Crap! does not even begin to describe what they've caused. Even they realize what they caused.
  • Their constant bullying of the neighborhood yokai kids leads to immense trouble for Erma. Said kids decide to take Revenge by Proxy and kidnap Erma for a trio of yokai thugs who also have a grudge against the Yureimotos. While the trio holding two of their friends hostage is the main reason they go through with it, it's also partially to get back at Mitsu and Momo.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Part Four of Reunion's End has the two of them reveal they were originally as nice as Erma as they had actually tried to be friends with the Yokai Kids too. When the Yokai Kids kept bullying them after when they tried to be friendly, the two of them decided to stop being nice.
• Youkai: Unlike Erma, they're full-blooded and are later revealed as Zashiki-warashi.

Osamu Yureimoto

The patriarch of the Yureimoto family, he's a daitengu who is the father of Emiko and her siblings and Erma's maternal grandfather. Emiko cut him and the rest of her family from her life, but he still manages to find her and find out about Erma, forcing the Williams to go to Japan to resolve the matter.

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• Abusive Parents: One very unpleasant father to say the least. His driving motivation was to shape his children into his view of what fearsome yokai should be. It's left them pretty isolated from their fellow yokai for the most part and has led to varying levels of misery. Little wonder why Emiko left.
  • He was the one who gave Rin one of her scars (turns out her encounter with the humans left her with her bottom scar). Her top scar was from him.
  • He also proves to be a harsh grandfather. Not only does he only care for Erma because of her destructive powers, but he also made sure that Mitsu and Momo were unable to get any help when they were being bullied.
• Admiring the Abomination: He fawns over Erma when meeting her. However, his word choice reveals he adores her for being a very powerful individual and being capable of great horror, and the finale of the Reunion arc reveals he intends to groom her into taking his throne.
• Adults Are Useless: Enforced by Osamu. When Mitsu and Momo were being bullied by the Yokai Kids, he made sure they couldn't get anybody in the family to help them.
• Archnemesis Dad: Emiko is on very strained relations with him for what he did and she fears he will target her family.
• Art Shift: After meeting Erma, his design changes to a warmer and softer tone.
• Bad Boss: He seems to rule over his subjects and his children entirely through fear, often eviscerating stray youkai who are in his way. When he wants to celebrate the Night Festival, he proposes it in such a way that would endanger the lives of his subjects, completely blowing off both concerns for their well-being and the logistical problems Fumiko brings up.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. While Sam and Emiko manage to bring Erma back to her senses, the damage caused by the night parade was too great and Osamu was more than satisfied. The only victory the heroes got to claim was Emiko whispering something into his ear that shakes him to his core.
• Dating What Daddy Hates:
  • The thought of his daughter marrying a human did not suit him well at all. Heck, he kidnapped Emiko the day after her marriage and she only escaped thanks to Yori. He seems to have since warmed up to Emiko marrying Sam, or at least respects him for staying with Emiko, commending his ability to handle the responsibility of raising an Onryo like Erma despite being a mortal.
  • In Tales of Outcasts, it's revealed that he has locked Yori Yureimoto's husband, a weaker yokai, in his underground basement, denying him the chance to meet his children.
• Dissonant Serenity: He maintains the much warmer and friendlier attitude he has shown with Erma even while casually destroying a beautiful garden display made by his daughter as he summons his throne room.
• Doting Grandparent: To the absolute complete shock of everyone, he is a sweetheart to Erma.
• The Dreaded: By most of the family, especially Emiko and many of the family's servants. As The Patriarch, he has the highest authority over them and considering how he's a tengu, whom Buddhist beliefs say are demons of great disruption along with harbingers of war, he is likely to have a fair bit of power. In "The Night Parade", it is shown that just the sight of him can whip any yokai into a panic. When he actually does show up, he's somehow casting a huge shadow over the region despite being in a small form. And when told that he was coming, the inhabitants quickly sounded a bell that caused everyone in the village to pause in terror.
• Fantastic Racism: He appears to not like humanity very much. Rin's words reinforce this with hints that he pretty much forced his kids to be warriors and attack humanity.
  • During his first "official" meeting with Sam, he is courteous with him though. However, Sam is aware of what he tried to do (and that this isn't the first time they actually met.)
• Faux Affably Evil: He has moment where he presents himself as polite, but more often than not, this is just a front for his sadistic nature.
• Game Face: He appears to be a hunched over old man. But when Emiko tears into him over his shitty parenting, he gives her a taste of his real form.
• Good Old Ways: He mentions he misses the time when "yokai where just yokai".
• Heel–Face Turn: It is implied that Osamu had a Heel Realization after Emiko fled back to her husband for good, or at least had softened in his old age and has become less interested in throwing his weight around like he used to. Psych. He hasn't changed a bit, he was just trying to get the others to let their guard down.
• Horrifying the Horror: Due to being one of the most powerful yokai despite his age, Osamu remains unshaken for most of his appearance. However, just before Emiko leaves with her family though, she tells him something that causes him to panic, dropping his cane and falling into his throne from the shock. It's unknown what she said, but she claims it to be something he wouldn't forget.
• In Love with Your Carnage: After seeing the destruction left over from Erma's rampage, his first reaction is to start applauding and wishing for an encore.
• Grandparental Favouritism: The twins note that their grandfather never doted on them like with Erma and he views her as having plenty of potential for havoc. Taken a step further at the end of the Reunion Arc, when he reveals to Amaya that he intends to make Erma his heir instead of Emiko or any of his other children.
• Jerkass: His reputation presents himself as such and when we finally meet him, it appears to be justified. While genial and courteous, he has a strong aloofness and almost coldness with his children. Spirit's Bloom showed he pretty much locked Emiko away not long after she married Sam, then lied to him that she died. Is it any wonder why Emiko isn't in any rush to see him again? In fact, Rin reveals that he was the one who ultimately ended their happy childhood and shaped them into fierce warriors that attacked humanity. It's implied that this left them with a lot of bitterness.
  • This extends past his family though. Virtually every yokai fears the Yureimotos because of Osamu.
• Meaningful Background Event: When the Yureimotos siblings find an old tree and recall memories, Osamu appears to always be looming in the background. Usually in menacing shadows no less!
• The Patriarch: It is clear that Osamu has authority over the entire Yureimoto family, inspiring fear in just about every one of them. He is so scary that Emiko does everything in her power to not let him find out about Erma for fear of what he might do to her.
• Pet the Dog: Possibly. Despite whatever feelings and motivations he might have had, he did send Erma a birthday present (though she never got it as Emiko burned it when she realized who it was from.) Granted, it's not known what his motivation was or how he found out where Erma lived. When he finally appears, one of the first things he asks Emiko is where Erma is and states he has been looking forward to meeting her. And when he does meet her, he absolutely adores her and acts like a Doting Grandparent, to the shock of everyone present.
  • Later on, he and Sam have a friendly conversation, with Sam sharing stories about taking care of Erma and Osamu conveying his respect to Sam for being able to handle the responsibility despite being mortal. Osamu also states he is glad Sam survived their first meeting.
• Retired Monster: He's completely unrepentant about his glory days as a mass-murdering raider, and how he forcefully roped the rest of his family into it. But he also wants to be a proper grandfather.
• Sadist: He applauds after Erma wreaks havock on the town, enjoying the endless carnage and suffering that Erma inflicted on the town and wishing that it could have lasted longer.
• Shadow of Impending Doom: His arrival in the third act of the "Family Reunion" arc has him casting a gigantic shadow over the region that completely eclipses the land despite being miles away. When it casts over the village, the lookout rings a bell as a warning alarm and all activity is brought to a screeching halt. What's more he isn't even in a huge form to cast it, showcasing how imposing he truly is.
• Species Surname: 'Yurei' most likely refers to the Japanese equivalent of a Western ghost, and 'moto' is a common component of Japanese surnames.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In flashbacks. Whenever his kids are doing something fun, he's standing in the background, glaring disapprovingly.
• Sword and Sorcerer: Implied. While we see Osamu strike down the opposition with his physical might, he notes that Amaya is his superior with magical capabilities.
• Tengu: More specifically, he's a daitengu, a type of exceptionally powerful tengu. It's very notable in his full powered form.
• Villainous Breakdown: Whatever Emiko told him before leaving back to America had this effect on him, making him lose his cold smug attitude and drop against his throne, shaking in fear.
• When He Smiles: When he first meets Erma, he gives such a warm smile that it causes everyone to be completely shocked.
• World's Strongest Man: A large reason he's considered The Dreaded. When he first appears in the comic, its of him in shadow in his true form delivering a Curbstomp Battle to several yokai at once. His strength is enough that a taste of it caused Emiko, a legend amongst Youkai for being the World's Strongest Woman, to be driven into a Heroic BSoD that lasted an entire day.
• Youkai: Head of a youkai family.

Amaya Yureimoto

The matriarch of the Yureimoto family, she's the mother of Emiko and her siblings and Erma's maternal grandmother. She's certainly different from Osamu, but no less threatening.

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• Abusive Parents: She is just as unpleasant an individual as her husband, though were he showed indifference toward his children upon his return, Amaya outright began to berate and demean them not even moments upon her arrival.
• Admiring the Abomination: Downplayed. She is impressed with Erma's capabilities, but seems to think that the twins have more potential within them.
• Bad Boss: When Fumiko brings up the logistical and safety concerns with involving the servants in the Night Festival, Amaya responds by saying that such things are her problem and remarks that their "peasant" servants can easily be replaced.
  • A Tales of Outcast Side story reveals she taught the twins magic by using her own servants as "test subjects".
• The Dreaded: Like Osamu, though it's unsure to which extent given we hear or see less of her thus far though it's implied this is the case.
• Fantastic Racism: Amaya holds more contempt for humans and Sam in particular than any other youkai shown on screen, even Osamu. While Osamu tries his best to be polite, Amaya dismissively refers to Sam as "it" and treats him more like a curious animal rather than a person.
• Grandparental Favouritism: While she confesses to sensing a lot of potential with Erma, she seems to prefer the twins. However, her context is implied more for being able to cause trouble than anything else.
• Foreshadowing: She was foreshadowed by the twins when they note they learned some magic from her and we later discover that she's quite skilled with it.
• Jerkass: Doesn't even try to be polite around Sam, unlike Osamu.
• Shadow of Impending Doom: She blends into the shadows of a servant and steps out when she goes into the throne room.
• Species Surname: 'Yurei' most likely refers to the Japanese equivalent of a Western ghost, and 'moto' is a common component of Japanese surnames.
• Sword and Sorcerer: Implied. While we see Osamu strike down the opposition with his physical might, he notes that Amaya is his superior with magical capabilities.
• Youkai: Appears to be some kind of Yurei judging by the cloth on her head.

Haru

Haru is a servant personally assigned to Fumiko, which is convenient as he's been in a year-long relationship with her.

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• All Asians Wear Conical Straw Hats: Haru wears one of these and is a creature from Japanese mythology.
• Nice Guy: All appearances thus far show Haru to be this. Emiko certainly thinks so.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Haru is a couple of feet shorter than Fumiko.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Unsurprisingly as a kappa, Haru loves cucumber and includes it in every dishes of the breakfast he makes. Kentaro and Fumiko aren't too thrilled with that, but Ena cheers him up by saying that it was nice of him. While searching for Rin, Kentaro gently insists that his favorite bar owner, Daiki, is an excellent cook and that Haru could learn some non-cucumber dishes from him. He claims he gets his love of the vegetable from his mother, while his father prefers the other thing Kappas are known to eat.

Kenji

Kenji is a personal servant as Ena's assigned butler.

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• Butt-Monkey: Poor Kenji seems to be having everything go wrong for him.
• Ship Tease: He's shown to have a crush on Ena and there does appear to be some reciprocation.
• Those Two Guys: When first seen, seemed to always be standing next to each other.

Yuyu

A family servant.

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• Supreme Chef: If Sam, Emiko, and Fumiko's reactions are any indication, she makes really good tea.

Friends

Felicia

Erma's current babysitter and sister of Erma's friend Sylvia.

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• Badass Normal: A normal human woman who is willing and able to handle the weirdness that surrounds Erma. Not even having her body stolen by an evil dummy shakes her for that long.
• Cool Big Sis: Is a surrogate one to Erma. She can handle Erma's pranks just fine, and is the one to comfort her after her Warrior Unicorn Princess secret is exposed, even watching an episode with her to make her feel better. We can assume she's a Cool Big Sis to Sylvia as well, since she doesn't blame Sylvia or her friends for making her miss a Halloween Party to be their trick-or-treat chaperone.
• Grand Theft Me: Is a victim of this when Wittle Wallace pulls this on her near the begining of the Secrets arc. She inverts this near the end of the Secrets Arc.
• Seen It All: Turns out she's a fan of horror movies, so Erma trying to scare her doesn't really freak her out since she's pretty much been desensitized to it. Though she can be caught off guard every now and then. In one "13 Days of Erma-ween" strip, she is completely unamused with Erma and Spooky trying to scare her.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gives one to Erma for mind-controlling her boyfriend to get a new toy she saw on TV.

Amy

Erma's classmate and close friend. A spunky young girl who often plays the straight man to Terry's impulsive nature.

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• Only Sane Man: She's often the one who keeps the other kids in line (namely Terry) and frequently reminds Erma to keep her powers in check.
  • Not So Above It All: She's not above her own sort of tomfoolery as seen when she and other girls use a voodoo doll of Connor to mess with the kid.
  • You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!: In "Drip", when she ends up the unintended victim of Terry's bucket of water prank (which ironically was intended for Erma who avoided it by ghosting through the wall), and Terry learns it wise not to tick off Amy, who is so angry that her eyes literally burn with rage.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Asks Erma why she doesn't just levitate the rat she was trying to capture.
• What the Hell, Hero?: A playful example, but she calls out Erma for using her powers during what was meant to be a non-competitive snowball fight against each other.
• Women Are Wiser: At least compared to Terry, who is probably the brashest of the main group of friends.

Terry

Another of Erma's classmates and friend of hers. Frequently tries to pull pranks on Erma, only for them to backfire on him. He tends to react impulsively when situations get sticky.

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• Bullying a Dragon: 'Kay, it's not so much bullying as it is harmless pranking, but the only reason his pranks backfire is because the person he's trying to prank is Erma, who has telekinesis and can teleport.
• Characterization Marches On: In the early comics, he was written more like a bully who enjoyed picking on Erma. However, later comics have him grown out of that attitude, become more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and join Erma's circle of friends.
• Dumb Muscle: In the "Rats in the School Wall" arc, Terry lampshades this about himself when he asks if anyone found it weird that Mr. Phibes didn't hear them back in the hallway only to be ignored by them.
• Hot-Blooded: Gets worked up easily and jumps into fights the first chance he can.
• Leeroy Jenkins: The first to leap into danger without any plan whatsoever.
• Non-Standard Character Design: A mild example. His hair and skin are the exact same color and there's no obvious indication of when one becomes the other, which isn't the case for other characters.
• Oh, Crap!: when his bucket of water hits Amy instead of Erma.
• Running Gag:
  • Is constantly scheming to hit Erma with water balloons, or something similar (snowballs, buckets of water, etc). He rarely even gets to the point where Erma herself has to deal with him.
  • A winter strip in 2017 had Erma give him the gift of allowing him to actually hit her in the face with a snowball and hands him one. He goes to do so...only to slip on the ice he was standing on while winding up, fall flat on his back and having the snowball fall on his face.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The Manly to Connor's Sensitive.
• Tempting Fate: Subverted. When Terry catches Erma peacefully sleeping under a tree, he's about to use a water balloon when he notices The Grim Reaper watching them while holding a list, implying that Erma's startled reaction would result in unintentionally lethal consequences for Terry. He wisely puts the balloon down and the Reaper heads off to his next appointment, but that doesn't mean Terry is all that happy about it.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He bickers with Amy a lot, and they regularly disagree on things, but are still friends.

Connor

Another of Erma's classmates and friend. He has an enormous crush on Erma, which appears to be reciprocated by her.

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• Connected All Along: His older sister was Erma's former babysitter.
• Hidden Depths: Despite his skittish nature, he's surprisingly very observant, pointing and questioning certain things that seem rather suspect. For example, after the adventure down in Rat City, he wonders why Phibes swears them to secrecy about him being down there despite allowing the rat youth to go to school there.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Has no idea that his sister used to babysit Erma, and is the reason for his sister being... quite different.
• Nice Guy: He's a kind, gentle and understanding young man. Even when the constant supernatural shenanigans his crush with Erma brings makes his life more... uncomfortable he ultimately takes it in stride.
• One Degree of Separation: His sister was Erma's former baby sitter.
• Only Sane Man: During the trip to the rat city, he realizes that the four have seen enough and should start heading back before they're discovered. He's also the calmest of the group though also a bit timid.
• Puppy Love: Very much with Erma. It's quite adorable.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Terry's manly man.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Boyfriend is stretching it, since he and Erma are still elementary school kids, but he finds Erma's powers cool and accepts that her powers are a part of her. He also is never bothered by them at all.
• Voodoo Doll: Erma ''made'' one of him for unknown reasons. Unfortunately for Connor, their friends use it, unintentionally messing with him.

Sidney

^{Click here for SPOILER}

The hall monitor of the school who eventually becomes Erma's best friend.

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• Cute Monster Girl: Her Rat Girl form.
• Fangirl: Another Warrior Unicorn Princess fan, much to Erma's delight. Unlike Erma though, she is a little more open on it. A flashback showing when she was talking with Terry and Amy on favorite shows, she mentioned it and became a little embarassed on their reactions (granted, their reactions weren't negative, merely being confused or puzzled, either not getting why she likes it or if they even heard of the show.) Later that day she came across Erma clearly playacting out some WUP moves and took a chance in revealing that she was a fan too. She is so understanding of Erma's general dilemma that she claims she can't make it to Erma's next birthday party, so Erma can meet her outside for her gift: the WUP Season 1 collection, in exchange for a piece of cake and a hug. Erma gets her present, and gets to keep her secret.
• Gender-Blender Name: Interestingly, the comic goes with "Sidney", which is normally used for boys, rather than "Sydney", which is more gender-neutral.
• Half-Human Hybrid: She's half human, half rat person. In fact the head of the clan is her father, a leader of an underground civilization of rat people, and this is why she's able to control smaller, non-sapient rats while her mother was human
• Jerkass: Not at all very pleasant and really takes her job as hall monitor seriously. To the point she seemed to ignore that something weird was going on in the walls of the school when the kids tried to tell her about it. That last part is deliberate. She knows it's rats, but is trying to keep attention away from them so they don't find her home. She lightens up a good deal over time though.
• Missing Mom: Her mother died shortly after she was born, so she only has her father's stories to know her by.
• Oh, Crap!: She tries to dogpile Erma with rats when the rats find out Erma and her friends are in the village. Erma goes full spectral, tosses them off with ease and is prepared to unleash fury to protect her friends. Luckily Phibes calms her down.
• Pest Controller: Has full power over smaller, non-sapient rats to make them do her bidding.
• Rat Men: Is a hybrid born from the union of the leader of the Rat Men living under the school and a human woman, and thus can shift between human and rat girl form.
• Secret-Keeper: She is one of the few people outside of Erma's family that knows she is a WUPer, as Sidney is one too.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After Erma and friends discover the Rat Men civilization under the school and she doesn't have to conceal her true self, she becomes much friendlier and kinder with them, likely since she no longer has to act hostile from keeping he true self hidden or keeping distant from people.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Can shift between her natural humanoid rat form and a human form, but as maintaining human form requires effort for her and she revealed her secret, she hasn't bothered with it since.
• Walking Spoiler: Has a secret, as you can see.

Sylvia

Erma's friend and sister of her current babysitter.

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• Fangirl: She's even a bigger wuper than Erma, having her entire room decorated with merchandise of the series.

Teachers and Other Schoolmates

Principal Phibes

The blind principal of Erma's school.

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• Blind and the Beast: Used in his introductory comic. Ms. Bierly and another teacher are discussing how creeped out they are by Erma and wondering how the heck she was even let into the school. Cut to the blatantly blind Phibes happily letting Emiko send her daughter to the school, implying he simply doesn't know Erma is a ghost. Subverted later on; not only does Phibes know about Erma's true nature, he knowingly let her in to acclimate mortal humans to the supernatural to the point that the Rat Men living under the school could also integrate into the surface world.
• Blind Black Guy: African-American and completely blind.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Phibes' appearance seems to be based on Morgan Freeman.
• Disability Superpower: Hard to say or not but considering he managed to know Erma and her friends were following Sidney and him into the rat city, it's a fair bet to assume he has some pretty sharp hearing.
• Mysterious Past: The story hints that he's keeping secrets around the school and may be hiding more than he lets on. The Rat City was one such example. However when Erma and her friends find out about it, he swears them to secrecy about his being in the city himself, showing this isn't the only thing he's keeping under wraps.
  • "Tales of Outcast" reveals he's close associates with the Night Detective, and both of them are implied to be part of some organization that combats malevolent supernatural forces.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Looks very much like Morgan Freeman.
• Putting the "Pal" in Principal: While the Creepy Cute Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl/Half-Human Hybrid title character unnerves most of the teachers, Principle Phibes is blind, and thus 'Everyone is the same in his eyes'. He means it. - He's a Secret-Keeper for a society of Rat Men living underneath the school, and Erma is not the only Half-Human Hybrid to attend his school.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: A trait shown all the way at the start of the comic. Some of the teachers, freaked out by Erma's appearance and quirks, wonder why he would let her into the school. He makes it clear to Erma's mother that kids of all races are accepted. At first it seemed like a heartwarming gag due to his blindness, but no, he was serious. He didn't care if they're human or supernatural. He'll accept them regardless as shown with another supernatural child in the school, Sidney.
• Secret-Keeper: He's a friend of rat people beneath the school and as such accepted one of their own as a student.
• Shout-Out: Named for the title character of The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

Ms. Bierly

Erma's teacher, who is completely petrified of her.

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• A Day in the Spotlight: She's the subject of the animated short set before Erma is moved to her class.
• Apathetic Teacher: A variant where Erma is concerned. Ms. Bierly routinely ignores Erma's work and gives her top grades regardless, because she thinks Erma will eviscerate her if she doesn't.
• Chew Toy: Always comes off the worse when something supernatural goes on around her, and anything that happens to her is always Played for Laughs.
• Freudian Excuse: If the animated short is anything to go by, her first encounter with Erma was not a pleasant experience for her, as she was chased around the school in a sequence that wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie. While Erma meant no harm, the trauma from the experience plays into why she treats Erma like a time bomb waiting to go off.
• Jerkass: Besides the Apathetic Teacher entry above, she also occasionally says some pretty nasty things about Erma behind her back. In one case she was even shown telling another teacher that she suspects Erma will try to kill her and wondering why she's allowed to attend school. Given Erma's terrifying artwork involving Ms. Bierly and the occasional near miss with her supernatural abilities she's got every right to be nervous but her badmouthing is still very uncalled for.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In a sense. Erma's powers are dangerous, and she has a habit of going overboard when stressed. Of course Erma doesn't have a truly malicious bone in her body - as opposed to being the homicidal monster Bierly thinks she is - so it's more Right for the Wrong Reasons. Then again Erma didn't exactly make a good first impression on her judging by the animation. That and she did nearly impale Ms. Bierly with various utensils in the cafeteria once, it was an accident but at the still likely nerve-wracking.
• Only Sane Woman: Played With. Is one of the only people in town who is actually concerned about the ghost girl with demonic powers living among them, but it's more of a "sane person in an insane world" effect. This is a world where a Humanoid Abomination like Erma can be a legitimately kindhearted and well-mannered child (albeit with a penchant for scary pranks), but Bierly treats Erma like a live grenade, hence...
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Big time. Even moreso than it seems, given that the school segments even lack most of the horror parody elements that the rest of the strip does.

Coach Williams

One of the few teachers to get any characterisation.

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• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Appears to be drawn to resemble Bruce Campbell, specifically from Ash vs. Evil Dead. This is supported by the Tapas pages for comics featuring him having the tags #evil and #dead.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": No kid calls him by his actual name. In one strip, however, he is shown wearing a nametag reading "Williams".
• False Teeth Tomfoolery: A more recent strip seems to show some false teeth getting knocked out of his mouth (see below).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Or rather, by his own rigged dodgeball game, as he became the last victim.
  • And in a more recent strip (#509), he tells Erma to make a shot with a basketball without use of her powers. A noticeably nervous Erma gives it a go. Guess whose face met the business end of a basketball with enough power behind it to knock out dentures?
• One-Steve Limit: Averted surname variant. His last name is "Williams", no doubt in reference to Ash, but he doesn't appear to be related to Erma or Sam.
• Sadist Teacher: He deliberately sets Erma against other kids in a dodgeball game.
  Terry: But Coach, Erma doesn't exactly play by regular rules...
  Coach: I know. That's why you're doing dodgeball. It amuses me.

Antagonists

Wittle Wallace

Erma's creepy ventriloquist puppet, one that seems to have a malevolent spirit within it. He's the Big Bad of the Secrets Arc. Be warned that this character contains heavy spoilers for the Secrets Arc! This Arc begins with Dirty Little Secret.

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• Big Bad: Of the Secrets Arc, who pulls a Grand Theft Me on Felicia and plans to do the same to Erma
• Bullying the Dragon: he realizes too late that bullying Erma is an incredibly stupid idea, ending up almost destroyed in Felicia's body and dragged down to hell after Felicia regained her body.
• Demonic Dummy: He is one, at least before he steals Felicia's body.
• Didn't Think This Through: Becomes victim to this after he pushes Erma too far.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Or rather, chained to a large boulder and dropped into Hell by Erma's telekinetically-controlled Warrior Unicorn Princess dolls.
• Expy: Of Slappy the Dummy, with a bit of Chucky as well.
• Grand Theft Me:
  • What happens when he successfully catches you, as shown through poor Felicia.
  • Attempted it on Erma's cousin Emily in the previous arc, but was foiled by Erma's secret box of Warrior Unicorn Princess toys falling on him.
• Karmic Death: being dropped into hell by Erma's WUP dolls, of all things.
• Knight of Cerebus: The comic is fairly lighthearted with a few moments of disturbing imagery here and there. Then his story arc comes along and brought about a much more sinister mood.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Becomes victim to this 'three times in the Secrets Arc, first by having Erma attack him (while in Felicia's body) after he pushes her too far, then by Felicia pulling the same trick he used on her to steal her body in the first place, and finally by Erma using the very dolls Wallace bullied her about to attack him, chaining him to a boulder, and dropping him into hell.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Is unharmed after Erma sets him on fire, and states that he can't be harmed in his dummy body, and that people have tried a lot of ways to do so. So Erma and Felicia Take a Third Option by having Erma's Warrior Unicorn Princess dolls chain him to a large boulder, drop him into a hole dug by Siris that leads to Hell, and then they fill in the hole after him.

Erma's Former Baby Sitter (Unmarked Spoilers)

Just as it says, she was Erma's former babysitter. Erma scared her so badly, however, that she was driven crazy and put into a mental institution. She eventually was released—but now seems to have an obsession with Erma. Also, she's Connor's older sister as revealed in "The Rats in the School Walls".

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• Aloof Big Sister: To Connor as seen when he comes to borrow some walkie talkies◊.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Her stint when taking care of Erma ended very poorly and the poor girl had to be admitted into a mental institution because of it.
• The Bus Came Back: Initially presented as a rather dark gag during Felica's introduction about how "mischievous" Erma is. Many were surprised to see that she returned, and even more so that she'll be a future antagonist.
• Cerebus Retcon: Her first appearance being in a mental hospital was supposed to be a dose of Black Comedy... until it's revealed much later that her experience with Erma really did mess her up that badly and has been obsessed with her ever since.
• Death Glare: Erma unexpectedly comes upon her house while selling chocolates for a fundraiser. The woman doesn't utter a word to Erma, just silently glares at her before closing the door in her face.
• Face Framed in Shadow: After she's released from the institution, her face always seems to be drawn as such.
• Irony:
  • Despite her insane obsession with Erma, it appears Erma doesn't recognize her.
  • She's shown to be quite aloof and not really paying close attention to what her brother, Connor, is going through... which also means she doesn't know he crushes on Erma.
• Locked Out of the Loop: [She has no idea that her little brother, Connor, crushes on Erma.
• Nightmare Face: She is always depicted with unsettling, non-standard facial expressions - twisted and sometimes grotesque grins, oddly sharp features in a series where everything is round, and bulging slits for eyes with white irises that seem to glow in the dark - no matter who she's talking to and what her mood is. It instantly makes it clear that there's something... off about her.
• No Name Given: At the current time, her name hasn't been revealed yet.
• The Reveal: The Rats in the School Walls arc revealed that she's the older sister of Connor, the boy who has a crush on Erma.
• Room Full of Crazy: When Connor comes to borrow her walkie talkies and she's forced to give them to him, we see her room is full of photos on the wall and String Theory, confirmed as being about Erma when he comes to return them.
• Walking Spoiler: The fact that she's Erma's former babysitter isn't the twist. Rather. it's the fact that she's the older sister of Connor, the one with the crush on Erma.

Yokai Thug Trio

A trio of Yokai who attacked Erma, Mitsu, and Momo. Very racist against Yokai who are half-human, and well aware Erma is the daughter of Emiko Yureimoto. They are from left to right, Kiko, Toru, and Mei.

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• Asshole Victim: They are destroyed by Erma in "The Night Parade Part 56", immediately after they failed to kill her by feeding the poor girl to the Jubokko.
• An Ice Person: Kiko appears to be a Yuki-onna and uses ice to attack Erma and her cousins.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Mei briefly pretends to be friendly and offers to help Erma find Rin… only to show her true colors by shredding her picture, insulting the artwork, and calling Erma a Half-Breed.
• Bullying a Dragon: Let's just say that it wasn't wise for them to kidnap Erma and feeding her to the Jubokko.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Once they got Erma mad enough to fight back, it couldn't even be called a fight. When she breaks out of the Jubokko and turns into a borderline Eldritch Abomination, they don't even get to fight back and are crushed in seconds.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Kiko was visibly horrified when being thrown into Toru accidentally froze him solid and when a destructive Erma crushes Toru into nothingness with her spiky hair before the pissed girl finishes Kiko's life.
• Evil Counterpart: Toru is an oni, like Kentaro, but where Kentaro is an open-minded and easygoing Nice Guy, Toru is a racist, child harming Jerkass.
• Fantastic Racism: All three are extremely disdainful toward Erma for being half-human, and have no qualms resorting to violence over it. Mei even drives the point home by calling Erma a “Half-Breed”.
• Harmless Freezing: Kiko manages to unfreeze Toru successfully as he appears to be alive on Part 50.
• Hate Sink: Between their casual murder of an innocent bystander, their willingness to kill young children, their Fantastic Racism, and their sadistic attitudes, it's clear that you're not meant to like them at all. Tales of Outcast gives them even more moments that show that they absolutely deserved their fates, such as Mei killing people because of the trees they planted, then giving carvings of the people she killed to her victims' children.
• I Have Your Wife: They kidnap two of the yokai children (the Kappa and the Amefurikozo) and force the remaining group to kidnap Erma and bring her to them if they wanted to see them again.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Their plan of kidnapping Erma and feeding her to the Jubokko backfires on them hard. Not only she does manage to escape, but also unfolds her full destructive potential and immediately uses her newfound powers to destroy the trio.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Kiko cheerfully refer to Erma as "it" to make it clear how far beneath them they consider her. Ironic for the trope, her being part human is what they don't like.
• Jerkass: Out of all three, not one of them has been an even remotely pleasant person.
• Kick the Dog: As unsympathetic as Mitsu and Momo are, mocking them over their missing dad was completely uncalled for, as was Mei cutting up Erma's picture which just comes off as bullying.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When Erma breaks out of the Jubokko, Toru immediately sees the writing on the walls and tries to run away, knowing that they are in way over their heads. It doesn't save him.
• Oni: Toru appears to be one.
• Rubber Man: Mei is shown to be able to stretch her limbs and torso.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Toru tries to run away when Erma uproots the Jubokko and turns the Moon and sky blood red, but Erma strikes him with her spiky hair before he gets very far.
• Serial Killer: Tales of Outcast reveals that Mei is one.
• Too Dumb to Live: It never occurred to the Trio that attempting to murder the grandchild of the most powerful man of your world, not to mention, one of the most powerful yokai clans, is a death sentence. We never get to see them face that consequence, only because Erma beat them to it. If anything, Erma giving them a quick death was most likely a blessing, given we know how ruthless her grandfather is.
• Uncertain Doom: All three are caught by Erma when she goes berserk, but it's never explicitly confirmed that they're killed- the last that's seen of them after Erma calms down are a trio of statues carved in their likeness, which are then collected by a four armed creature and spirited away with no one the wiser
• Underestimating Badassery: Initially they thought Erma would be weak due to being half-human, made her mad, and promptly paid the price. They seem to have wised up a little, as they hire the group of children that Erma wanted to befriend to kidnap her and seal her with powerful talismans and chains to render her harmless enough to be fed to the Jubokko, but Erma manages to uproot the Jubokko and break her chains, resulting in Erma singlehandely killing the evil trio.
• Unholy Matrimony: Not confirmed, but Mei and Toru call each other "honey" and "babe" respectively, hinting at this.
• Wolverine Claws: Mei can extend her fingernails into sharp claws.
• Would Hurt a Child: Even full Yokai kids are fair game if they get in the way.
• Yuki-onna: Kiko may be one.

The Yokai Kids

A group of yokai children live in Japan and are terrorized by Mitsu and Momo.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: They are constantly terrorized by Mitsu and Momo. Due to this, they do the same treatment to Erma by ignoring her at first, and later kidnap Erma and abandon them at the mercy of the Yokai trio and the Jubokko, which backfires horribly. It is revealed on Reunion's End Part 4 that they bullied Mitsu and Momo before due to being from the Yuremitomo clan.
• The Bully: Their claim that Mitsu and Momo had been needlessly bullying turns out to be false as the two reveal that these kids bullied them first.
• Bullying a Dragon: They decide to mess with Erma, the only Yureimoto who was nice to them, by kidnapping her and leaving her for dead due to their hatred towards the family. It doesn't end well for most of them when she breaks free.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Erma subjects them to this, especially the cyclops kid.
• Familial Foe: They have such hate towards the Yuremitomo clan that they cross the point of demonizing and bullying children simply from being a part of that family.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: More like two eyes, zero soul due to him being a cyclops due to antagonizing Erma, Mitsu and Momo by bullying them..
• Involuntary Group Split: The goblin kid gets trapped by Mitsu and Momo when they try to save Erma from being kidnapped, separating him from his friends. Due to this, he's the only member of the group who doesn't face Erma's wrath.
• Kids Are Cruel: They can be as cruel as Mitsu and Momo when they kidnap Erma. Then it turns out they were the reason why Mitsu and Momo acted the way they did as they bullied them which prompted Mitsu and Momo to act cruelly as a way of self-defense.
• Hate Sink: While their kidnapping of Erma was already bad, the fact that they had bullied Mitsu and Momo into becoming bullies themselves will ultimately make you feel a lot less bad for what had just happened to them and more sympathetic for the twins.
  • Out of all the kids, the cyclops kid gets the most backlash out of the group due to being the leader of his gang and the one who antagonizes Erma the most by trashtalking her before leaving the poor girl to be eaten by the Jubokko.
• Laser-Guided Karma: They kidnapped Erma and allowed her to be absorbed into the Jubokko, being assaulted by the souls trapped inside. Right after Erma escapes, she turns the tables around and subjects them to much the same with each other, scarring them for life by the time she's calmed down.
• The Leader: The Cyclops kid is implied to be the leader of the group.
• Revenge by Proxy: Having a grudge against Mitsu, Momo and the Yureimotos in general, the group decides to kidnap Erma, the only Yureimoto who defended them from Mitsu and Momo and wanted to be friends. However, this backfires big time, as Erma breaks free and kills the criminals before seemingly moving on to kill them.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: They end up facing the wrath of the extremely powerful half-human half-ghost girl who just destroyed a powerful cursed artifact and killed the three people who helped them force her in.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The cyclop kids tells Erma that he will never be friends with her belore allowing her to be eaten by the jubokko. Guess who suffers the most when Erma breaks free.
• Trapped in Villainy: Played With as they were forced by the yokai trio into kidnapping Erma in order to save their kidnapped friends and don't want to have anything with them once they fed Erma into the Jubokko, but hate Erma due to blaming her for Mitsu and Momo's increasing bullying.
• Trauma Conga Line: With the sole exception of the goblin kid who was captured by Mitsu and Momo, the whole group suffers Erma's rampage as she tortures them by dragging them below the darkness of her hair and covering their bodies with it, with the cyclops kid getting punished the most. By the time Erma rampage finishes, they are too mentally scarred to even move, shaking on the floor and with newfound white streaks in their hair.
• Ungrateful Bastard: They repay Erma's kindness with kidnapping her and leaving her at the mercy of the Yokai thug trio.

Others

Warrior Unicorn Princess

A Show Within a Show about a bipedal Warrior Unicorn Princess who battles the forces of evil with friendship and love (and a sword) to protect her kingdom and friends.

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• Blade Below the Shoulder: One of the characters uses two of these, one on each arm.
• Expy: The titular Warrior Unicorn Princess seems to be a mix of Twilight Sparkle and Star Butterfly.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Occasionally shown with a shield. A toy set with accessories usually comes with a sword and shield for the figure.
• Misaimed Merchandising: When we get to see (some) of an episode, it's a lot more dark and violent than one would expect from a show about unicorn princesses.
  Felicia: Wow, talk about false advertising...
• The Merch: Plushies of the characters is an easy sell for the franchise, but other than the episodes on compact media, it also includes comics, Japan publishes what are most likely manga, different styles of figures made of the appropriate materials, at least one video game, and a matching castle for figures ($79.99 + tax). In Japan, there is at least one entire store that only sells WUP merchandise.
• The Power of Friendship: Claims to be powered by love and friendship when battling a villain.
• Pretty Princess Powerhouse: From what we've seen of the show, this Unicorn Princess powered by love is more Mulan than Cinderella.
• Show Within a Show: Erma's favorite cartoon.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: invoked When she finally watches an episode, Felicia is very surprised that a show like it was made for young girls.

The Night Detective

A private detective who specializes in paranormal activity.

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• Hero of Another Story: The Night Detective knows of Erma and her family, but his investigations and battles with the supernatural more or less run parallel to Erma's antics and he only appears outside the "Tales of Outcast" in a brief scene following Erma's Blood Moon causing rampage.
• Expy: The Night Detective is essentially an older, less crass version of John Constantine.
• Occult Detective: He specializes in paranormal activity.

Akari

Jorogumo Lady

Appears in strip 313, A Jorogumo youkai who appears to have some connections with the Yureimoto Clan.

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• Ambiguously Evil: As of now, she hasn't done anything too bad, but Kentaro's awkward reaction to her greetings and Fumiko's hostility to her seems to let us know that this girl is no good news.
• Boyish Short Hair: Similar to Yori, but her bangs are styled differently and with longer sideburns.
• Ms. Fanservice: "Fanservice" is a stretch, but she has a much more fashionable and less reserved design compared to Emiko's sisters.
• The Nose Knows: She sniffs on Fumiko and the others with a smirk on her face, indicating that she smells the human smell of Sam and Erma.
• Spider People: She is a Jorogumo, a spider yokai that takes the form of a beautiful woman.
• The Spymaster: She has an army of spiders that keep her informed of anything interesting that goes on.
• Terms of Endangerment: Jorogumo calls Rin "Rinny", and considering her attitude, this might not be in a nice way.
  • Now Played With as when Rin is out with Erma and the twins, she waves at Rin, causing her to blush.
• Villainous Rescue: While it is unconfirmed if she is a villain or not, she is certainly a suspicious character with her own agenda. Despite this, she does go out to help Sam out of a tight spot and even greets him warmly, though without ever revealing who she is.

Invisible Top Hat Man (spoilers)

A strange invisible man in Spirit's Bloom, that visit the newborn Erma at the hospital. And implying to her that she will help bring the end of the world

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