Deep dive into Tamamo's fixation with souls (why "handsome soul")
I want to explore Tamamo's fascination with souls, which guides and explains much of her behavior. I will be talking about the "handsome soul" thing, do a deep dive into some often misunderstood Japanese slang, explain why the fifth line she ever says is arguably her most important one, look into what exactly the Soul even is in the Nasuverse, and just dump a long set of observations about how Tamamo cares, judges, and gets literally horny for souls.
I think her soul fixation is a very important aspect of her character, and the English translations do their best but don't always manage to convey this properly. I just wanted a place to collect these thoughts.
(Warning: Slight spoilers for CCC and FoxTail, without going into too much detail.)
Tamamo often refers to her Master as having a "handsome soul". Have you ever wondered… why? "Handsome" is an odd choice of an adjective to describe a soul. It's not totally unheard of, but it sounds strange at the very least. Normally you would describe a good soul as being "beautiful" or "pure". Maybe "radiant" or "warm", if you want to get a little more poetic. But "handsome"…? Doesn't that imply physical attractiveness? And isn't that adjective usually associated with men? And yet Tamamo will use "handsome soul" to refer to a Master of either gender.
But "handsome soul" is an English translation. What does she say in the original Japanese? What is it that they're choosing to translate as "handsome soul"?
Well, as early as her introduction in Extra, before she even appears on the screen, she uses the term イケメン魂 (ikemen tamashii). Here, tamashii just means soul. Nothing out of the ordinary. And ikemen means… well, if you look it up in most dictionaries, you will find that it is used for "good-looking guy". Okay. Let's accept that for now. So an ikemen tamashii is indeed a "handsome (man) soul".
Tamamo uses イケメン魂 (ikemen tamashii) a lot. She also commonly uses a shortened form in イケ魂 (ike-tama) when she wants to sound cute. Some examples:
Extra, Tamamo meeting Hakuno:
だってこのイケメン魂、きっと素敵な人ですから！ちょっと私に下さいな♪"
"I mean, I'm sure this absolutely charming soul is a wonderful person! Please, can I have it?"
CCC, random line after defeating an enemy:
"イケ魂以外は、お帰りください♥"
"Unless your soul's handsome, kindly buzz off♥"
Extella, Tamamo route, story dialogue (event 53):
"だ、駄目です、駄目……。ただでさえ今のあなたはイケメンの極み、というかイケメン魂、イケ魂そのもの……。"
"Oh… Oh no, no… Look at you, you're the very epitome of heat… Like your soul itself is on fire…"
(Note how she uses both in the Japanese script, and yet the English translation completely disregards that.)
"私のご主人様はイケ魂なのでございます!!!"
"My Master is a handsome soul!!!"
In English, both ikemen tamashii and ike-tama are usually translated as "handsome soul". Usually. Because for instance in Extella they're incredibly inconsistent, and they translate it as anything from handsome to magnanimous to beautiful to gorgeous soul. But I want to point out that in Japanese she uses these terms very consistently. She refers to ikemen souls a lot, and I worry that this gets lost in translation.
Okay, but… why? Why an "ikemen soul"?
What exactly is an ikemen?
First, I must point out that "ikemen" is a form of slang primarily used by young women and teens, although it has since permeated into mainstream culture. The fact that Caster uses this term in Extra before she even appears on screen is meant to give us a hint about her character archetype. If she just talked about a "beautiful soul", you might think she's a mysterious and solemn kind of character. But her saying "ikemen soul" immediately tells you that she's not particularly trying to sound serious, in spite of talking about souls.
So for starters, translating this as handsome soul fails to convey the charm and playfulness of it all. It makes it sound straitlaced, if a bit odd. It would be closer to translate this as hottie soul, stud soul, heartthrob soul, or something.
But that's not even the core issue. Because if we look a little deeper, we find that "ikemen" is far more complex than just "hot guy".
The term seems to come from joining イケてる (iketeru), which is slang for cool or sexy, with either 面 (men), which means face, or the English loan word メンズ (menzu), literally "men's", which has also come to just mean "men".
The first usage of ikemen as a word was in 1999 in the gyaru magazine for women "egg". It was then popularized in the mainstream by, apparently of all things, freaking Kamen Raider (think Power Rangers with an insect motif), for having pretty-boy actors, and then live-action dramas and J-Pop. So it's always had a bit of a weeby vibe to it.
It's also worth mentioning that the term イケてる (iketeru), the first half of ikemen, originated as slang in the Kansai region. I point this out because Tamamo speaks with a bit of a Kansai accent, using some dialect terms like けったい (kettai, meaning "weird"). To note, the Kansai region was the location of Heian-kyo (modern day Kyoto), which for a long time was the capital of Japan, including during the Heian period which was when Tamamo-no-Mae was active.
In any case, here's what matters to us: ikemen is used for men that have not just a pretty face, but also a good personality. It's like a term for an overall "handsome aura", for someone that's a good catch both on the outside and the inside. So ikemen is used for the overall vibe that someone gives off.
On the physical side, it eschews the "strong man" archetype that might be more popular in the West. Rather, ikemen is used for men that are stylish, that dress well and care for their appearance, and are well-groomed. They might be toned, but usually not quite "muscular" in the traditional sense. A pretty face in particular seems to be the most common marker.
And on the emotional side, an ikemen is someone with a kind of gentle energy. Kind, caring, attentive. Soft-spoken. Confident, but not in a flashy way, more like calm and collected, like effortlessly cool. Perhaps even a little mysterious! Basically, the western equivalent of calling someone "boyfriend material".
Some examples. There's Takahiro Nishijima (left), main vocalist of the J-pop group AAA. Or Takeru Satoh (center), an actor that starred for example in Kamen Rider Den-O and the live-action Rurouni Kenshin adaptation. But special shout-out to my boy Kazuya Kamenashi (right), singer, actor, sportscaster, and model, who also happens to be the direct inspiration for the design of the male Hakuno Kishinami, according to Wada Arco herself.
Also, while ikemen is predominantly used to refer to men, I've rarely found it used to describe women too, with a "handsome woman" kind of vibe. It can even be used for cute animals!
In any case, overall, it's the combination of a handsome and well-groomed outer appearance on the outside, and a gentle and caring personality in the inside. So you've got the outer ikemen and the inner ikemen. Or, if you will, the ikemen body and the ikemen soul.
Ikemen soul. Um. Are we onto something here?
What follows is speculation, but it's speculation born from what the games shove on your face and ask you to notice. So Tamamo expresses a deep attraction to ikemen souls. Not to ikemen. But to ikemen souls. As in, she's attracted to people that have the soul of an ikemen, physical appearance notwithstanding. The "boyfriend material" personality I spoke above (husband material?). Someone that is gentle, and caring, and understanding. Someone that can see the good in her, and not the monster. Someone that will not hate her once they found out she's kind of a mass murderer.
Which also explains why she calls both genders "ikemen soul". Because it's not the physical body she cares for, but the "soul", the aura you give off. She's attracted (even sexually, as we'll see) to the souls of people that would be willing to give her a chance. Since an ikemen soul can be hosted in a male or a female vessel, I wonder if she even conceptualizes gender as something to be attracted to (soul-sexual?). Maybe that's why she treats even Hakunon as a "husband"?
For the record, to my knowledge the only people she has ever identified as having ikemen souls are Hakuno Kishinami (either gender), Ritsuka Fujimaru (either gender), and, funnily enough, Servant Nikola Tesla.
Anyway. Armed with this knowledge, let's check her first appearance in Extra with a bit more depth. Remember that the following dialogue happens before she even appears on screen.
The first line she says, Tamamo's literal first words in any media, are:
"その魂、ちょお～～～っと待った！暫く、暫くぅ！"
"Hey, you soul-type person over there, wait juuuuuuust a second! Really, just one second!"
The translation is mostly fine, except that she refers to その魂 (sono tamashii) which is literally "that soul" or "that soul over there". Not "soul-type person", I don't know where that's coming from. I guess that just like in English, you can use "soul" to poetically refer to a person (as in: "there was not a soul in that place"), but I think she's being literal here. So in her very first appearance in any media, the very first thing she does is talk about a soul.
She then has a few more lines about how it's too soon for this person to join the realm of the dead, and mentions gods and whatnot. Assuming you're playing blind and know nothing about this character, by this point you're probably very confused about what's even her deal. She's using complex terms and referring to mythology and mysticism, but she's also throwing in slangy terms here and there.
And the she drops the line. I think this is one of her most important lines, and it's literally the fifth line she ever says, and I insist that she's not appeared on screen yet:
"だってこのイケメン魂、きっと素敵な人ですから！ちょっと私に下さいな♪"
"I mean, I'm sure this absolutely charming soul is a wonderful person! Please, can I have it?"
First, I'm inconsolably sad that they removed the "♪" in the English version. Alexa, play An Extra Life With Anyone She Wants.
This is the first time she speaks of an イケメン魂 (ikemen tamashii), ikemen soul, which they translate as "charming soul". This official translation is otherwise perfectly fine, but I want to point out something that I think is a little too subtle in the English version.
We have two clauses, the "This is an ikemen soul" and the "They're a lovely/wonderful person". They're connected by a きっと (kitto, "surely"). That part of the sentence isn't quite causal, but it implies inference by way of that kitto. As in, "ikemen soul → therefore good person". Or more naturally:
"I mean, this is such an ikemen soul, that they must be a wonderful person! So please, can I have that soul?"
I think the expected reading here is that Tamamo can somehow see or perceive the soul itself, and based on what she sees, she infers that the person that has this soul must be lovely/wonderful. The official translation also suggests the same idea, just maybe not as explicitly.
This sort of ties with all the things I wrote above about the inner ikemen, but perhaps more magical in nature. As in, due to Tamamo sort of being a Divine Spirit or whatever, she apparently can "see" souls in some fashion, and she has learned that the kind of soul that she sees in Hakuno is the kind of soul that belongs to people that are kind and gentle and understanding. But since this is Tamamo, of course she would ruin the mysticism vibe by giving this kind of soul a silly name like ikemen soul.
But I think that's roughly the whole idea. For Tamamo, a "handsome soul" / "ikemen soul" is both a soul that is attractive to her in some tangible sense, but also the kind of soul that commonly resides in warm and understanding people.
Then the line concludes with a coquettish "Please, can I have it?" or "Could I pretty please borrow it for a second?" And it's a bit confusing, but I think she's referring here to the soul, not the person. And Tamamo caring only about the Soul isn't nearly as scandalous as you might think, because…
What's even a Soul in Fate?
Most of the following is taken and summed up from official materials. If this section feels a bit dense and confusing, that's okay, it can mostly be skipped. This is just lore to contextualize.
Within Nasuverse canon, a human is made out of three components: Mind, Soul, and Body.
First we have 精神 (seishin), the Mind, which… is a bit of a misleading translation, perhaps? It is not the "Mind" as in brain or intellect, but as in the psychological mind, your mentality. Other common translations of seishin are willpower or psyche or ethos. I wonder if translating this as Willpower would have been clearer. It is your mental fortitude, the inner strength that drives you to move forward. In the Nasuverse, it is said to control passion and emotion.
Third is the 肉体 (nikutai) which is just the physical Body, as in the flesh, the physique. Straightforward.
But let's of course focus on the second, the 魂 (tamashii), the Soul.
There are actually multiple in-universe theories for what the Soul is, but the theory that the magus community defends (which is backed up by events in the Extraverse and elsewhere), is that the Soul is a "will" that lies in a higher dimension, and basically pilots the physical body, but can function independent of it.
When I say the Soul is a "will", the term used there is 意思 (ishi), which is different from the 精神 (seishin) used for the Mind. Both of those terms can be translated as "will", but the ishi used for the Soul is the will as in conscious intention, as in volition. Whereas the seishin used for the Mind is the will as in willpower, as in your mental fortitude. Basically, the Soul is what makes you decide to climb a mountain, and the Mind is what gives you the mental endurance to keep going even when exhausted.
And when I say the Soul resides in a "higher dimension", that's a translation for 高次元 (koujigen), which is the term used in mathematics and physics to refer to dimensions beyond the three usual spatial dimensions. As in, the Soul is not metaphorical, it is a thing. It simply resides in a dimension we ordinarily cannot perceive.
Just like matter is composed of atoms, the Soul is composed of basic substances known as "spiritrons". Spiritrons are the true essence of the Soul. Spiritrons are to Souls what atoms are to matter, sort of.
So. The Soul is a "something" made out of spiritrons that lies in another dimension. If it connects to a Body, then it can pilot it and interact with the physical world in that way. But the consciousness resides in the Soul itself.
In the world of Extra, magi think "Hey, if we could figure out the position of the Soul in this other dimension, then wouldn't that mean that we could redirect its consciousness wherever we wanted to?". So they do exactly just that. They learn how to measure the position of the Soul, and then redirect its output to the cyber world, a dimension specially tailored to deal in spiritrons. So that instead of having the Soul control a Body to interact with the physical world, they have the Soul control an Avatar to interact with the cyber world. (They do this because the Moon Cell is an alien super computer that has recorded all events on Earth, so they can gather higher lever information by going into the Moon Cell, but that's a whole 'nother topic).
Crappy 9000-hours-in-Paint diagram for reference:
Specifically, a Wizard is someone capable of converting their Body, Mind, and Soul all into spiritrons and then send them into a cyber world like SE.RA.PH. The "Avatar" they control in the cyber world, which is actually their Body/Mind/Soul spiritronized, is called a Cyber Frame, which uses the Soul as its basis. This is why Extra works in a "if you die in the virtual world you die in real life" fashion. It's because that's your actual Soul that has been spiritronized and sent into SE.RA.PH., so if your Soul burns down inside SE.RA.PH., it is gone forever. It doesn't matter if you have a physical Body back in Earth, because if you have no Soul to pilot it, it's little more than a lifeless carcass.
This also explains Hakuno's entire deal (spoilers for Extra). The Moon Cell needs to create NPCs to manage its systems, but it doesn't fundamentally understand humans, so it's easier for it to copy the data of past humans to create its NPCs. Hakuno Kishinami is a "past" human, so the Moon Cell creates a NPC based on them. The problem is, Hakuno technically is neither alive nor dead, but rather is in cryogenic sleep on Earth. This means that Hakuno's Soul still exists, in that higher dimension, but it cannot "interact" with anything because its Body on Earth is inoperative. But the moment the Moon Cell creates a NPC based on them, now they technically have a "body" that their Soul can pilot, if in a virtual space. This is why the Hakuno "NPC" manages to gain an ego and autonomy.
In Extella, the Soul is said to deal with honnou and honshitsu, "instinct" and "true nature". In particular, 本能 (honnou) means instinct as in innate behavioral patterns, disregarding experience and learning. As in, the truest natural instincts of the self. And 本質 (honshitsu) is a tricky term that can mean true nature, essence, reality. It is the fundamental nature of something, the unchanging qualities that are inherent to a thing or being. According to the Weblio dictionary, honshitsu is that which defines what something fundamentally is.
Contrast with the Mind, which deals with passion and emotion. If you were to interpret the Mind as being the intelligence or the brain, that would sound strange. Aren't logic and emotion usually pitted against each other in stories? But if you interpret the Mind as mentality or willpower, as zeal, then it suddenly makes perfect sense that in Extella it is the free-spirited and fiery Nero that partners up with the Mind Hakuno. If anything, it's the Soul that hits closer to the classic archetype of logic, as per the mats: "He or she (referring to Soul!Hakuno) possesses the philosophical nature and acumen of a transcendent being who is unmoved by emotion." Further: "In contrast with the Mind's wild passion, the Soul exudes a sort of cool sensuality that enraptures even Tamamo by presence alone." Ah, cool sensuality. That's how they translate 色気 (iroke), which is sensuality as in magnetic charm. Do you recall all I said about the personality of an ikemen…?
Now let's put all this together. That was a lot of pseudo-magical mumbo-jumbo, but I swear it's not nearly as complicated as it seems at first glance. The Soul is, in the most fundamental sense, the "true self" of a being. It resides on a separate, higher dimension, but it can interact with lower dimensions through intermediary bodies, such as the Body for the physical world, or a Cyber Frame for cyber worlds. In fact, entering SE.RA.PH. requires spiritronizing your Soul (converting it into spiritrons) and sending it there.
When you look at it like this, it sort of makes sense that Tamamo would prioritize the Soul over the Mind or the Body or anything else. I won't say the Mind and the Body are "fake", but they are not the true self. And this is even truer within SE.RA.PH., since it is the Soul that forms the main Frame there. Since Tamamo is technically a Divine Spirit, she would of course know all of the above. I suppose she can somehow "see" into this higher dimension and directly perceive the Soul. And since the Soul is the true nature of a being, that would explain why that's what she mainly cares about.
Tamamo's obsession with souls
While the "ikemen soul" thing is one of the most obvious and recurrent ones, there are many instances of Tamamo caring about souls one way or another.
First, I don't even have to tell you about Extella. It's no coincidence that she specifically partners up with Soul!Hakuno.
She has a tendency to look at the souls of others to judge them. For example, on the topic of ikemen, she will sometimes complain when a guy is handsome on the outside but not in the inside. She often calls Robin Hood a ハンパなイケメン (hanpana-ikemen), where hanpa is a casual way to say something like half-baked or mediocre. Robin's got the ikemen face for sure, but Tamamo thinks he's missing the ikemen soul. Hence "half-baked ikemen", or as the Iwakura CCC patch puts it, "half-ass hunk". She also for instance refers to Charlemagne when first meeting him in Extella Link as an イケメンもどき (ikemen-modoki), something like "pseudo-ikemen" or "ikemen wannabe".
Then in CCC you have the infamous "ikemon" scene. She first calls Robin a 二枚目 (nimaime), a term used for handsome men, specially in the context of plays and movies. And then she drops these lines (all translations are from the CCC patch unless otherwise stated):
"たとえマスクはイケメンでも、心がイケてないのならケモノと同義。"
"アナタはイケてるモンスター……そう、イケモンです！ちゃっちゃと倒してゲットだぜ！"
"Even if one wears a handsome mask, if one's heart isn't handsome, then they might as well be called a beast."
"You're a hunky monster… Yes—a hunk-mon! Let's beat him quick and capture him in a monster ball!"
I said before that ikemen comes from iketeru (slang for cool/stylish) + men (face, or literally "men"). Here, Tamamo is joining iketeru with mon (from monster) to form… ikemon. Yes, this is a Pokémon reference. It's even more obvious in Japanese, since only one syllable changes:
Then there's the battle dialogue:
R: "ところでイケモンってどんだけ種類あんの？伝説のイケモンとかいるわけ？"
T: "もちろんいますとも。暗黒イケモン・セイメイとか、脳筋イケモン・ゴールデンとか。いえ、間違ってもゲットしたくはないですけど。"
R: "ははは。今更つっこむのもヤボなんだがテメエの世界観、ほんと自重しねぇのな！"
R: "By the way, are there other kinds of hunk-mon out there? Like are there legendary hunk-mon?"
T: "Of course! There's the darkness type Seimei or the musclehead type Golden. Well, even if they aren't jerks, I still don't want to capture them."
R: "Hahaha. It might be a bit late to retort now, but *wow* you just live in your own world."
The term Robin Hood uses here for "legendary" is the same used in Pokémon (densetsu). Although unfortunately the types mentioned (darkness and musclehead) are not references. I've double checked, but the dark and fighting types in Pokémon are written differently in Japanese. Oh well.
Also, Tamamo's line is translated a little weird here. That last part is closer to "Well, I wouldn't want to catch them no matter what". She's not saying anything about them not being jerks. (Since this is audio, maybe that's the issue? Tamamo speaks fast and is difficult to listen to. The Japanese text above is taken straight from Bloom Echo, an official compilation of CCC's script that includes transcriptions for the audio, so it should be accurate.)
In any case, with this we see that Tamamo pokes fun at those that are attractive on the outside but lack ikemen souls.
She also seems to use souls as a baseline to judge others. For instance, in FoxTail she gives Kazuhito (Suzuka's Master) the nickname 汚魂 (otama), meaning something like rotten soul or filthy soul. But once she learns about his past she seems a bit apologetic for having been calling him that without having all the facts, and I think from that point on she doesn't use that nickname anymore. So to some extent she cares not only about the quality of a soul, but also about why a soul is the way it is.
Another random one in CCC: when fighting the first secret boss, Tamamo recognizes that the boss isn't the person they are acquainted with, because of her soul: "Huh, Rin? But how do I put it…… Their soul is different?"
Then there's her Secret Garden, also in CCC. All characters have a "Fetishism" section in their SG profiles, ranging from classics like hot voices, hands, eyes, or just plain physique, to some oddities like money, sweat, or… screams? (You do you, Melt)
魂フェチ……たまふぇち？
Soul fetish…… a soul fetish?
This is a fun line that's difficult to translate. First, we know that 魂 (tamashii) is soul, but we also know that when she's feeling cute she shortens it to たま (tama), such as when shortening ikemen tamashii to ike-tama. Then, you've got フェチ (fechi), which is just literally "fetish" borrowed from English. She pronounces this line as:
Tamashii fechi…… Tama-fechi?
So she first says "soul fetish" the long way, as 魂フェチ (tamashii fechi). Here she uses the formal term for soul using kanji, and writes "fetish" using katakana. In Japanese, loan words (such as fechi for "fetish") are normally written in katakana. So this first instance of "soul fetish" is kind of formal, said using the "proper" terms.
But she then immediately follows with the shorter, cuter たまふぇち (tama-fechi). She uses the cuter tama for soul, dropping the scary kanji in the way. And now she writes "fetish" using native Japanese hiragana, instead of the katakana that is usually used for foreign words. That makes it sound more familiar, more playful.
The intention behind this line is absolutely impossible to translate, but it's quite fun. Asked for her fetish, Tamamo begins by simply giving a straight answer, but she then catches herself mid-confession (the ellipsis) and realizes that what she's saying sounds really freaking weird. Or maybe she's embarrassed? So there's a fraction of a second of second-guessing before she continues anyway, but now trying to sound a bit more casual.
This section also has a voiceline:
イケメン魂には本能でキュンときっちゃうのです。
The spirit of a hot guy just makes my heart leap!
Ah! That's イケメン魂 (ikemen tamashii) again! She says that the effect an ikemen soul has on her is something like "my heart instinctively goes kyun!", a very Japanese expression for the heart fluttering.
It's worth mentioning that 本能 (honnou) "instinct" in the line, which short of gets ignored in the patch translation, and it's important. This term already came up before when talking about the Soul in the Nasuverse. If we look up honnou in a monolingual dictionary like Weblio:
【本能】動物個体が、学習・条件反射や経験によらず、生得的にもつ行動様式。帰巣本能・生殖本能・防御本能など。
【honnou】Behavioral patterns that an individual animal possesses innately, without depending on learning, conditioned reflexes, or experience. For example: homing instinct, reproductive instinct, defensive instinct, etc.
So honnou is "instinct" as in inborn biological drive. She's saying that an ikemen soul instinctively makes her heart flutter.
That same term honnou also gets used during a certain spoilery section halfway through CCC, where you meet a memoryless version of your Servant. This version is referred to as the 本能 (honnou), the "instinct". And even though this instinct-Tamamo has no knowledge or memories of Hakuno, she still catches herself almost calling Hakuno's soul "イケ…" (ike…). The Iwakura patch translates this as a cut "sexy" in English.
Related to the topic of animal instincts, there's also the… marking thing. When first entering My Room in CCC, Hakuno is down in the dumps because of having lost their memories and combat experience, but Tamamo reassures them that it's all fine, that her goshujinsama is her goshujinsama, memories or not. Then she drops this majestic line:
"だってぇ、このタマモがご主人様の魂の匂いを間違えるとかあり得ませんしぃ。そう簡単に付けたマーキングは外れねぇ。"
"I meaaan, Tamamo could never mistake the scent of Darling's soul. My marking doesn't come off so easily."
魂 (tamashii) is soul, and 匂い (nioi) is a smell or scent, so she indeed speaks of "the scent of (Darling's) soul". Then the important term she uses here is マーキング (literally "marking" as an English loan word). If we look it up in a dictionary:
Scent marking. Tamamo why.
Cue jokes about her peeing on your soul. But scent marking also refers to more prosaic stuff like claw marks or rubbing. Mammals will mark their partners with their scent by grooming them or rubbing their fur together. Yes, including foxes. I don't know why I looked it up but I looked it up. Oh, so that's kind of cute then! Although mammals also… urinate on their mates to mark them. We were so close. And, yes, that also includes foxes, I was stupid enough to look it up again. I am the artificer of my own demise.
That said, much later when entering Melt's last floor in the Labyrinth, Melt gets very possessive of Hakuno, to which Tamamo responds with:
"そもそもご主人様は私のものです！もう魂にまでツバつけて予約済みなんですからねーっだ！"
"Darling belongs to me, anyhow! Even his/her soul is on reserve, it's got my spit all over it! So FORGET it!"
ツバ (tsuba) is literally spit or saliva. So perhaps her "scent marking" just consists of… blabbering all over your soul? I mean, that's… better? Slightly?
What about Tamamo's own soul?
So Tamamo cares a lot about the souls of others, and will even judge them based on them. Which begs an obvious question. What does Tamamo think of her own?
In general, Tamamo has a very negative view of herself. For example, in her image song 花嵐ノ記 (hana-arashi no ki), the very first lyric is:
常闇魂 揺蕩い
My ever-darkened soul adrift
She describes her soul as 常闇魂 (tokoyami tamashii), where tokoyami is a poetic term for something like "eternal darkness".
(If curious about this song, I analyzed it in far too much detail here: https://www.tumblr.com/sunlitwateryheavens/803491497527885825/tamamos-obscure-image-song-a-deep-lyrical)
Let's go back to that section halfway through CCC, the one where you meet her memoryless instinct. That's a very important section, because that's a Tamamo that's not actively trying to woo you, so she's brutally honest and not putting on a mask. Although Hakuno tells her that they are Master and Servant, Tamamo doesn't believe she would have answered their call, because she considers herself unworthy of standing by their side:
"岸波様。私は、貴方の仰った言葉を信じてはおりません。"
"私は人に呪われ、呪い返す反英霊。貴方様のような、心の清い方のお側には相応しくない。"
"私は自分の在り方を知っております。それ故、私は九分九厘、貴方様の召喚に応じる事はないでしょう。"
"Mr./Ms. Kishinami. I don't believe what you've told me."
"I'm an anti-Heroic Spirit whom people curse; and I curse back. I'm not worthy of being by the side of one with a pure mind."
"I know what kind of person I am. Thus, it's almost certain that I wouldn't answer your summons."
(To be clear, that "pure mind" in the second line is written different from the Mind or the Soul or anything, she just means "pure-hearted" in a generic sense.)
Then in that same dialogue, Tamamo seems genuinely affected that someone would cherish her so much to risk their life in order to retrieve her memories:
"本当に、あれほど想われるなんて―――私、今でも涙が止まりません。"
"I truly can't believe someone would care for me so much―――Even now, my tears won't stop."
Then there's like… all of FoxTail, really. That's arguably her core emotional conflict in the entire manga, her belief that she's unworthy of being by Hakuno's side. Minor spoilers: there's a section midway through where she and Hakuno end up separated, and this happens right after Hakuno learns that she killed many people in her past. So Tamamo becomes downtrodden, despairing at the possibility of Hakuno hating her after learning that. The fear of a potential rejection makes her second-guess herself, questioning whether she even has a right to serve someone with such a pure soul. "That person is far too good for me," she says.
Then Violet (best Sakura Five, fight me) manages to convince her to return. And how does she achieve this feat? Not by telling Tamamo that she's actually a good person. Not by telling her that she can change. Not even by telling her that Hakuno will surely accept her. No, Vio convinces Tamamo by telling her that it's out of character for her to act like this. Echoing words that Tamamo previously said to her, Vio tells the fox that she's supposed to be selfish and arrogant and just take whatever she wants for herself! So what is she doing moping around? Even if she's not worthy of being with such a noble soul, well, so what? Wasn't she the one that decided to serve her Master by her own will?
Which kind of circles us back to the beginning. Let me reproduce again her fifth line ever, the one where she first mentions an ikemen soul:
"だってこのイケメン魂、きっと素敵な人ですから！ちょっと私に下さいな♪"
"I mean, I'm sure this absolutely charming soul is a wonderful person! Please, can I have it?"
That "Please, can I have it?" always sounded whimsical and playful on the surface, a classic Tamamo-ism. But one wonders if it runs deeper than that. Is she actually asking for permission? This isn't a "Woah, that person has a hot soul, they're mine now, I'm taking them!". Rather it sounds closer to "I know I'm unworthy of serving someone with such a pure soul, but even then, could I be allowed to?"
Until this point, she had never chosen who to serve. Emperor Toba was the one to approach her, and her previous Master was chosen for her by the Moon Cell. This encounter with Hakuno represents the first instance of Tamamo herself choosing her liege. And perhaps she does it in a bit of a flight of fancy, in a moment of instinct. As explained above, her attraction to ikemen souls is innate and instinctive. So if she sees a dude/dudette with such a delectable soul in distress, what's she gonna do, just sit back and let such a perfect husbando/waifu go to waste?
She saves Hakuno and becomes their Servant on a capricious, almost self-serving whim, but in the end she considers herself unworthy of being by their side. As per FoxTail, she kind of regrets forcing herself into their life like this, and wonders if perhaps it would have been best for Hakuno if they hadn't met. "In the first place, it was wrong for an Anti-Hero like me to answer your call," she says. Then Hakuno of course calls her out on that. Regardless of how pure or impure her motives were, she did save her future Master.
And… I think that's about everything I had to say on the topic of souls and Tamamo. To recap a little, an "ikemen soul" is the term she uses to refer to the souls of, broadly speaking, gentle and understanding people. And it's both a curse and a blessing that she would also happen to be (physically) attracted to these kind of souls. On the one hand, her attraction to ikemen souls is what makes her sense of guilt flare up the most, thinking one such as her doesn't deserve them, that she will only taint them. But on the other hand, it is precisely an ikemen soul who is more likely to see past her sins and accept her as she is.
She's attracted to people she feels unworthy of, but which ironically are the ones most likely to actually give her a chance. Which feels like the most Tamamo thing in the world.
tl;dr: "Handsome soul" / "Ikemen soul" is Casko-speak for a good-natured, considerate person who she also just so happens to have the hots for.
https://fb.omiai-jp.com/koipass/2711
https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B1%E3%83%A1%E3%83%B3
https://joyn.tokyo/life-guide/language/ikemen-meaning
https://www.tmdict.com/search?q=soul
