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In Jujutsu Kaisen's episode 16 "Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event—Group Battle 2—" (Transcription: Kyōto Shimai-kō Kōryū-kai—Dantai-sen ②—; Japanese: 京都姉 妹校交流会—団体戦②—), during a flashback scene explaining Panda's origin, we have the following conversation between Yaga Masamichi, principal of the Tokyo school and Panda's creator, and Panda as a toddler or "preschooler":

Yaga: Panda. Actually, you have an older brother and sister.
Panda: I don't.
Yaga: No, you do. They are in your body. <mutters to self> What's with the honorific?

What exactly is the honorific that Panda uses here? I am somewhat aware that there is a hierarchy of formal speech in the Japanese language, but I'm not able to precisely identify what honorific is being used in the Japanese dub. Is it perhaps the —⁠masen ending used by Panda? Furthermore, what is unusual about Panda using that kind of speech with Yaga, prompting him to comment upon it?

Namaskaram
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He says "いませんけど", so you are correct that it's the -masen ending since there isn't really anything else in that response anyway.

The reason this is odd is because of what Yaga says that Panda is responding to:

お前にはお兄ちゃんとお姉ちゃんがいるんだ。

(You have an older brother and an older sister.)

If Yaga were speaking in the formal register he would've said:

あなたにはお兄ちゃんとお姉ちゃんがいます。

Or something similar to that. Basically, お前 is pretty informal and いる（んだ） is the short / casual form of "to exist", so for Panda to respond in formally is strange.

The translated subtitle when I went to look for this scene had Yaga's response as "And why the polite tone?".

So I believe this is just a translation error. There was no honorific but Panda responded in the polite register which prompted Yaga's confusion.

hyper-neutrino
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