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Is Fatal Frame based on a true story?

What does "true" even mean?

It says it on the box. It says it on the title screen. Fatal Frame ā€œBased on a true story.ā€ Itā€™s practically the subtitle. And it doesnā€™t matter if youā€™re playing the 2001 PS2 original or the 2002 Xbox ā€œDirectorā€™s Cut,ā€ they both say those exact words: ā€œBased on a true story.ā€

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At least if youā€™re playing the Western version.

So, what exactly is this story that Fatal Frame is ā€œbased on,ā€ and how much of it is ā€œtrue?ā€ Oh, geez.

The story of Fatal Frame

The game itself tells the story of Miku Hinasaki as she follows her brother to an abandoned mansion in Japan. The Himuro mansion was built on an old Shinto ritual site. Sometime in the 1800s, the head of the Himuro family massacred everyone in the mansion, leaving it vacant for some time. It was briefly inhabited by another family during the 1900s, but the matriarch of the family hung herself while the patriarch simply disappeared. The daughter of the family was found later, but the mansion was left abandoned.

Mikuā€™s brother, Mafuyu, is attempting to find a novelist who went missing at the mansion but disappears in the process, leaving Miku to go looking for him. She finds the mansion to be infested with vengeful spirits that sheā€™s able to fight off with the help of a camera called the Camera Obscura. 

Now weā€™re briefly dipping into spoiler territory. As she explores, she learns of the Himuro familyā€™s deranged ritual and its purpose to keep the Hell Gate sealed and the world protected. In 1837, a ritual failed, which led to the massacre of the Himuro family. In Fatal Frame, Miku has to unravel the mystery behind the last maiden and try to keep the Hell Gate sealed.

Fatal Frame Ghost attack
Screenshot by Destructoid

How much of it is true?

None of it.

When publishing Fatal Frame in the West, Tecmo stretched the meaning of ā€œBased on a true storyā€ to the moon and back. Thereā€™s no missing novelist, no Himuro Mansion, and this may be a jump to conclusions, but thereā€™s no Hell Gate or magical ghost-repelling camera.

Some people believe that the mansion is based on an actual place, but this doesnā€™t seem to be the case. Some have even stated with differing levels of confidence that there was a mansion left abandoned after a series of murders, but thatā€™s never been proven. There is some possibility that itā€™s based on some abandoned Edo-era mansions around Tokyo and Kyoto, but the developers have never alluded to Himuro Mansion being inspired by any of these locations.

Likewise, the inspiration for the game came mainly from 1996ā€™s Tecmoā€™s Deception, Japanā€™s abundant urban legends and folklore, horror and war films, and Makoto Shibataā€™s own experiences with the supernatural. That last part is the closest we get to it being true, and how true it is really depends on how much you trust Shibata-san and believe in the supernatural. Even then, the events of the game arenā€™t based on any of his experiences.

Fans have long dug for one shred of factual evidence behind Fatal Frameā€™s tagline, and there simply isnā€™t any. Itā€™s more likely Tecmoā€™s marketing team playing on Japanā€™s mystique in the early days of the internet. The moral here is to never believe in marketing.


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Image of Zoey Handley
Zoey Handley
Staff Writer - Zoey is a gaming gadabout. She got her start blogging with the community in 2018 and hit the front page soon after. Normally found exploring indie experiments and retro libraries, she does her best to remain chronically uncool.