Forbidden SIREN Akira Shimura – Akira’s Living Room on Promo Site

The Content of the Promotional Site

This continues from the previous article, ‘Forbidden SIREN Harumi Yomoda – Harumi’s Room on Promo Site‘.

I wrote the details about this in the article about Naoko Mihama, but this promotional site was interactive, and when you clicked on an item, some sort of event would occur. (Kind of like point-and-click computer games in the early 2000s.)

The site featured four characters, Kyoya, Akira, Harumi, and Naoko, and when you clicked on an item in each character’s room, an event would occur, and you could learn about their backgrounds and side stories.

I’m currently examining each of the four featured characters on this site one by one in this blog.

This is the first page. The four names are written on a small wooden board called “ema” (votive tablet) – from the right, Naoko Mihama, Harumi Yomoda, Akira Shimura, and Kyoya Suda. There is a bowl of incense sticks above each ema. When the incenses are lit, you can click on the character’s ema and go to their room.

Now that I’ve finished exploring Naoko Mihama’s bathroom, and Harumi Yomoda’s room, let’s look at Akira’s living room today.

Akira’s Living Room

It’s a very traditional Japanese house. It has a vibe reminiscent of the old houses from the Showa era (1926 – 1989), like Ojiichan and Obaachan’s (grandma and grandpa’s).

Now, among the four characters featured on this promotional site, Akira is the one most deeply connected to the history of the Hanuda village.

Before clicking on the items, let’s review the setting of the story of SIREN as background knowledge once again.

The History of Hanuda Village

“SIREN” is a game set in the fictional location of Hanuda Village in Japan. (While Hanuda Village itself is purely fictional and does not exist, it is said to be modeled after a hamlet that once existed in the Chichibu District of Saitama Prefecture.)

In Hanuda Village, they worship a deity called Datatsushi.

The story dates back to the year 684 AD when the village was struck by a severe famine. Hisako and the villagers, unable to bear hunger any longer, consumed the flesh of a mysterious creature (Datatsushi) that suddenly fell from the sky.

When Datatsushi let out a scream of agony, everyone else died, but Hisako survived. (It is believed she survived because she was pregnant at the time.) However, she was cursed with eternal life instead.

Later, Hisako gave birth to a daughter who inherited the curse of immortality, though her body would decay, her life would continue endlessly. Hisako believed that they could lift the curse by returning the flesh they had eaten to the god, so she decided to sacrifice her daughter.

This sacrificed daughter became an ancestor of the Kajiro Family, and since then, women of the Kajiro family have been offered as sacrifices for generations. (So, Miyako Kajiro is a direct descendant of Hisako Yao.)

If the sacrifice ritual is successful, the daughter (the bride of the god = “Datatsushi”) will disappear from this world and be offered to Datatsushi. However, if the ritual fails, the village will be dragged into the netherworld. In the real world, this results in a landslide disaster at the location.

Miyako, who was supposed to be the sacrifice, destroyed the sacred object, leading to the failure of the ritual. The village is then dragged into the netherworld.

A similar failure occurred 27 years ago, which deeply involved Akira’s son, Koichi.

Let’s keep the preamble to this extent and proceed by clicking on the items.

Newspaper Scrapbook

It looks like it is a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings reporting on the landslide disaster that occurred 27 years ago, which is when the ritual failed. Akira lost his wife and son in this landslide.

I found some translation was missing in the subtitles, so I rewrote it here:

When you move the cursor quickly over the scrapbook, something appears…

TV

The TV with these knobs looks like a really old model. I suppose it is from around the 1960s.

I wanted to provide the correct translation if the English translation is off again, but the audio quality is so poor that I can’t understand what the TV says at all.

One thing I found is that at 00:12, it says “46 missing persons,” which is missing in the subtitles.

In Naoko and Harumu’s room as well, there are some parts where the translation is incorrect or missing altogether…

Photo

Again, the translation is slightly wrong and missing some parts. Here is the complete translation:

This is Akira’s son when he was a child. For a moment, I thought the creatures surrounding him, like bugs, were supposed to represent celestial beings like ‘angels,’ which Tomoko saw when she was turning into a Shibito. But, I don’t know. Maybe they are just ordinary bugs.

Gun

English translation:

Calendar

English translation:

August 2nd was the day the ritual took place.

The failure of the ritual 27 years ago occurred because Koichi, the son of Shimura, and Miyako (not the Miyako who is with Kyoya, but another Miyako from the previous generation), who was supposed to be sacrificed, tried to escape together. So, Shimura’s son was essentially the main instigator of the landslide disaster in that sense…

Now, I’ve examined all the clickable items. Finally, when you click on the left fusuma (sliding doors), a video in the game featuring Akira will play, and that concludes Akira’s room.

Changes in The Room

There should be some changes happening every time you look at an item in the room, but I couldn’t figure out what changes occur in Akira’s room (and Kyoya’s room too.)

In Naoko’s bathroom, the bathwater gradually turns reddish-black, and in Harumi’s room, a large spider appears and moves around.

They were kinda easy to spot, and I believe there should also be some changes in Akira’s room too, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint them… It’s so frustrating!

I even increased the exposure of the room to detect any changes and compared before and after clicking on items. I couldn’t find anything in the end though. Since the room is now brighter and easier to see, I’ll go ahead and post the image here.

The Actor of Akira

The actor who played the role of Akira is Tadao Kato.

Final Thoughts

SIREN is a game where multiple characters progress through different times and locations separately, and as you play it repeatedly, you develop some affection for each character. So, it’s quite shocking when some of these characters turn into Shibito as the story progresses. Personally, it was particularly shocking when Akira turned into one.

Akira’s living room looks like a very old-fashioned Japanese house that you don’t often see nowadays, and I really love its atmosphere – it feels nostalgic.

With this, we’ve finished looking at the rooms of three out of the four characters. In the next article, I will explore the room of the protagonist, Kyoya Suda.

Thank you for reading the article. If you’d like, please also read about Naoko Mihama’s bathroom, and Harumi Yomoda’s room as well.

Let’s meet again in the next article.