'Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake' Explained: In-game Shintō, Buddhism and Folklore for Beginners (Part II)
Beyond the basics...
Note: Koei Tecmo kindly gave me early access to Crimson Butterfly Remake via Steam and PS5 Keys. This is, as always, very much appreciated. given I’m both a small site (though I have more coverage planned elsewhere) and a super-fan of the franchise. However, I also purchased the Japanese PS5 key in the Special Collection box from Play-Asia.
Crimson Butterfly Remake feels like walking nostalgia but with better graphics. But my favourite part is how much closer the script is to the original Japanese. Yes, we’ve got a lot of specific terms, especially when it comes to Shinto, folklore and Buddhism, as well as the unique Minakami Faith.
Which is what I do best, as a theologian with a fascination for Japan. You can read part one of this game-specific series here. You can also read my full primer series (which mostly covers Silent Hill f) here. My next plan is a Shintō and Buddhist series where I look at these religions and use in-game examples but this won’t be until April so please look forward to it!
Rocks and Iwakura (磐座)
This is an odd one because there are not, technically Wedded Rocks (夫婦岩; meoto iwa) in the Shintō sense. Shintō often sees ancient stones and massive thousand-year-old trees as expressions or the physical forms (goshintai; 御神体) of kami, divine spirits and gods of the land.
Wedded rocks are often seen in Japan, including at Ise in Mie Prefecture. They usually two stones connected by shimewara rope, designating them as sacred.
The stones above are found on Misono Hill (御園; which is a telling name: ‘honourable hill’, a hint at its importance), just on the edge of the village. The twins find this spot moments after stepping beyond the dōsojin boundary stone that we covered last time, the one carved with twins, who are revered in the religion of Minakami, and the location region, as divine spirits.
This stone circle (磐座; iwakura, which means ‘rock where a kami dwells’) is a sacred place to the Minakami Faith. This is the physical spot above the Hellish Abyss, which explains why we see that flock of crimson butterflies flurrying behind Mayu in the trailers. Also, there’s the giant plug-like centre stone…
Yep, as is the case in many games, we visit the end of the game right at the beginning. There we see the stones, a middle stone which serves as a raised altar or plug, each connected by sacred rope and paper, symbolising the centre is a divine space.
Why five stones?
Well four is very unlucky in Japan (because it sounds like shi; 死 or ‘death’) so another number seems advisable. There are four main families in the game:: the Kurosawa family, the Tachibana family, the Kiryu family, the Ōsaka family and the seldom-mentioned but still important Tsuchihara family.
We’ll get into these families another time, know only that they exist and we visit the various houses of each family during the game, beginning with the tutorial space/house belonging to the Ōsaka family.
Prayer Beads (念珠; ねんじゅ)
Prayer beads are a common thing in Buddhism, though Westerners will be more familiar with them as part of Catholicism. In Asia, especially in Japan, they can be found at temples in two forms: mala beads of 108 beads used to count mantras and sūtras as they’re chanted, and as bracelets with twenty one or more beads.
Games tend to use them in single numbers as a way to obtain benefits like more health or, in this case, to boost the power of the Camera Obscura. Each upgrade has a prayer bead cost, you can also find blank reversion stones which will let you undo the cost and redistribute your points for different fights.
Jizo
Jizo is something we’ve talked about before; Jizo is a beloved figure within Japanese Buddhism, a guardian of miscarried and stillborn children, as well as travellers. However, given the high rate of mortality, he also protects children who survive birth but might die before their seventh or eighth birthday as well. Thanks to infection, disease and general high infant mortality, Jizo had a lot of children to protect.
The statues represent a Japanese form of the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, a Buddhist figure roughly the same as a Christian saint, who serves as a protector of the Earth and humans. Like Kannon, the local form of the bodhisattva Guanyin, he has vowed to not attain Buddhahood until all souls in all the realms and hells, have been released from the cycle of samsara and suffering.
We’ve seen him in other games, like Silent Hill f, where they serve as a way for Hinako to claim the Sacred Sword, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, on Mount Kongō and the Senpō Temple complex and Ghost of Yōtei, where they appear wearing yellow rather than their stereotypical red bibs, guiding players to Altars of Reflection.
In Crimson Butterfly Remake, they can be found around the village as literal statues near Kureha Jinja and also in two keys Mio must find in order to access the Kurosawa House in Chapter Two. They’re also a strong Buddhist presence in a village which has devolved into its own mysterious ways thanks to earthquakes in the area, which are believed to be the rumblings of the Hellish Abyss/*.
We can only guess that, up until the festival where the village vanished, many children died as infants. Kureha herself was born a twin but her sister died at birth, making her a Remaining and explaining the presence of the statues.
Jinja
We see many places of worship in-game but Kureha Jinja is one of the earliest spots Mio can visit. It’s up on a hill in the western section of the village and is marked by several otorii gates, as well as being surrounded by Jizo statues. Kami, typically, like high spaces and you’ll often find jinja on top of hills or high on mountain sides so that the enshined kami can better watch over the land and the humans living on it. Similar, in a way, to how churches can be found above villages in England and Europe.
Camphor Trees (樟; くすのき)
Next to the shrine entrance is an ancient sacred camphor tree husk (樟; くすのき, a kusunoki or cinnamomum camphora) along with two sacred stones with shide and shimewara marking it as sacred, presumably because the tree is just so massive that rope can’t be strung around it properly.
These trees are often centuries old, even thousands of years. They serve as expressions of nature and are venerated in their own right. One of my favourite book series, for example, is Higashino Keigo’s Guardian/Keeper of the Camphor Tree series, which is being released in English for the first time later this year (Nope, that’s not an affiliate link…). A film adaptation is currently out in Japan and I’m looking forward to seeing it myself. These trees are also revered in China for their age and gorgeous leaves in Autumn…
But this tree, it hides a dark secret if you know where to look…
Sacred Mirror (神鏡)
At Kureha Jinja, one of the Shintō shrines we visit in-game, you can see a proper Shintō altar which contains a shinkyō (神鏡), a sacred mirror that seves as a goshintai, or a place for the kami to rest. On either side is shide, or paper streamers, and two small vases containing sakaki leaves (榊 or cleyera japonica). Sakaki are offerings presented to the kami. Of note is that there are no dishes of salt, sake, water and rice, although it looks like there may have been at some point, as there appear to be some broken ceramics. This suggests it’s been a long time since anyone actually left fresh offerings here.
Daruma (達磨)
I love daruma, they’re papier mache dolls found in Japanese homes and are used to symbolise good luck. These are found early on, in the Õsaka House.
In our world, you buy them in various sizes and colours and can even get them in sticker format. Although red with gold and black accents is the most familiar form. They come with two blank eyes; you fill in the first when you make a wish and the second when your wish comes true. They’re actually Buddhist and modelled after Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism and are often associated, as they roll and bounce, with the saying 七転八起 (shichiten hakki).
I really hope you enjoyed this entry in my on-going series! I love exploring and finding places, things and elements that you might not be familiar with. While I can only talk about things up to Chaptor Four in the game, I look forward to delving deeper into the Minakami Faith and the Shintõ, Buddhist and folkloric elements in the game!
I’m going to have more articles up as we go deeper into Demo Week. However, please note there are no spoiler tags on this platform so there will be lore, there will be deep dives and there WILL be spoilers.
Until next time, my lorists!
私の民俗学者(みんぞくがくしゃ)たち, じゃ、また!
Crimson Butterfly Remake will be released on 12th March 2026. The demo will be released on PS5/Steam and other platforms on 5th March, and progress will carry over into the full game. If you like this article, click here for more related content.