#kihal

after much internal screaming and banging my head against the wall as I swore vengeance upon the animators and the artists for making popo's species so ambiguous, the lovely @sabraeal (THANK YOU SO MUCH BTW HUHUHU) brought up the idea of popo being inspired by Philippine legends, which had never occurred to me before. which is really funny considering I'm literally pinoy HAHAHWGAHDGF

so I dove back into more researching and lost a bit more sleep bc I wanted ANSWERS. the legends she referenced in particular were the tigmamanukan (a mythical blue bird of omen that appears to people) and the limokon (a kind of dove that people also viewed as an omen bird. it's also known as alimokon in some parts of the Philippines)

according to the wiki, the tigmamanukan is theorised to be either the asian fairy bluebird, the palawan fairy bluebird, or the philippine fairy bluebird. sadly, none of them match popo's appearance, though there remains the possibility that the tigmamanukan is actually another kind of bird 🫣

while I couldn't find any myths about the tigmamanukan in my book (I forgot the title of the volume sorry), I was able to find this myth that referenced the lemugen/limokon/alimokon.

here's another one!

but the appearance of the alimokon STILL didn't match popo, so I was back to square one :(

so I shelved the whole thing (with great reluctance) for a few months and forgot about it till TODAY, when I was researching on local birds for work. AND SUDDENLY I SAW THIS LIL GUY. WHOSE APPEARANCE IS THE CLOSEST MATCH TO POPO THAT IVE EVER SEEN

the image was sourced from here, tho I'm not so sure if that's the original owner.

this is the celestial monarch, a bird that's endemic to the Philippines!!!! though their sizes are different, this is the closest match I've ever gotten to finding for popo. ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDD it also fuels my Pinoy Kihal headcanon so a WIN IS A WIN (I haven't even yapped abt the connection between the walnut stone whistles in AnS and the Philippine epics that incorporate the power of betel nut stones)

however, the celestial monarch is considered to be a critically endangered species by the Philippine Red List. if you've read this far and are interested in helping preserve the celestial monarch or other endangered species, you might want to check your local wildlife conservations to see what you can do to help!