The Himuro Mansion (or Himikyru Mansion) is a japanese urban legend about the dark history of a haunted house and the horrible murders of an entire family who lived there. They say that the video game Fatal Frame was based on a true story. Eager to solve the mystery, many people have scoured maps, trying to find the real location of Himuro Mansion.
According to the legend, the Himuro Mansion is a large, traditional Japanese house that is located in a rocky area somewhere on the outskirts of Tokyo. The mansion became famous for being the site of the worst mass murder in the history of Japan.
Terrible rituals were performed deep in Himuro Mansion, such as the Strangling Ritual, the Demon Tag Ritual, and the Blinding Ritual. The Strangling Ritual and Blinding Ritual were performed in a hidden room, not shown on the house's original plans. This room is connected to the house by a long lattice corridor that starts at the Rubble Room.
These rituals were part of the Himuro family's duty to keep the Hell Gate sealed. The family was able to do this for many years until Kirie's ritual failed and caused The Calamity, killing most of the occupants of the mansion and unleashing the Malice, cursing the mansion and all who die within it. The Himuro Family Master then killed all those in the house who survived The Calamity before taking his own life.
The mansion was left abandoned for many years as strage things kept happening to those who came too close. Locals were fearful of it.
A folklorist named Ryozo Munakata moved in with his family to study the mansion, but he and his family disappeared, killed by the mansion's curse. Years later, Junsei Takamine and his research team went to investagte the masion for Takamine's newest work and disappeard, leading Mafuyu Hinasaki to the masion in search of them, where he too disappeared. His younger sister, Miku Hinasaki, then arrives at the mansion and breaks the mansion's curse to rescure her brother.
The Himuro family were said to have practiced ancient and forgotten Shinto rituals that had long ago been outlawed in Japan. One of these occult rituals was called “The Strangling Ritual” and involved the sacrificial murder of a young girl. The purpose of this gruesome ritual was to protect the Himuro family from bad karma which they believed would emerge from a portal in the mansion’s courtyard.
The Strangling Ritual had to be performed every fifty years to prevent the bad karma from destroying the family. They would select a baby girl from within the family and raise her in secret. They called her “The Rope Shrine Maiden”. The girl had to be kept away from the rest of the world, in complete isolation, or else the ritual would not work.
When the time came for the ritual to be performed, they dragged her out to a shrine in the courtyard and tied ropes around her neck, her arms and her legs. Next, a team of oxen would pull the ropes in different directions, tearing the young girl’s body apart. The blood-stained ropes were then placed over a portal in the mansion’s courtyard, sealing the gateway. If the ritual was a success, it would keep the bad karma away for another half century until the ritual had to be repeated.
For generations, this tradition was passed down through the Himuro family. However, during the preparations for the last recorded ritual, something went wrong. The Rope Shrine Maiden fell in love with a young boy she saw from the window of the mansion. This was a disaster because she was supposed to remain pure and free from worldly influences. Her blood and spirit were tainted and when she was sacrificed, the ritual failed miserably because she was no longer pure.
Upon learning of the maiden’s love, the head of the Himuro family became distraught. He was responsible for the ensuring that the ritual was a success. Fearing that disaster would now befall the family, he went on an insane rampage throughout the mansion. He brutally murdered the entire Himuro family, hacking them to death with his traditional Japanese sword, the katana.
The head of the family believed that, by killing them, he was saving them from certain doom. When every person in the mansion lay dead, he fell upon his own katana, committing suicide.
The local people in the neighboring village kept quiet about the story of Himuro Mansion for decades. Ever since then, people have reported a variety of weird happenings or inexplicable phenomenon taking place on the property.
Bloody handprints and large red stains have been found splattered all over the walls inside. Ghostly apparitions have been seen both at night and in broad daylight. As legend would have it, these are the ghosts of the murdered family members. It is said that they will attempt to repeat the failed ritual using whoever is daring or foolhardy enough to enter the abandoned building.
People who enter the house are occasionally found dead, with rope marks on their arms and legs indicating that they had been bound and pulled. Others have been found torn to pieces in the underground network of tunnels that lie beneath the mansion. Nobody knows who made these tunnels or what purpose they served but stories suggest that they were involved in the Strangling Ritual.
