Michi Kazato

Media Mix Character Michi Kazato Kanji/Kana 風戸ミチ Alias N/A Actor Aoi Morikawa Status Alive Occupation Student Appears in Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls Fatal Frame: The Movie

Michi Kazato is a character in Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls, and one of the two main characters in Fatal Frame: The Movie.

A Curse Affecting Only Girls

Michi is a student in her final year at Saint Loudun's Academy for Girls. Her father is deceased, and she has a strained relationship with her mother. Ever since she was a child, Michi has been able to see ghostly shadows around her which she calls "them". When she tried to talk about "them" it made people nervous, especially her mother, so Michi was sent away to boarding school. Now she tries to avoid talking to anybody. She is afraid of falling in love, which to her means the onset of adulthood, and is annoyed with girls who play at love without being ready to become adults.

Michi developed an interest in photography when she discovered that she could not see "them" when she was looking through a camera lens. In time, she realised that only one eye at a time was perceiving "them", and started wearing an eyepatch. Because she switches the eyepatch to the other eye from time to time, everyone assumes she has weak vision.

The only person Michi speaks to is Kasumi, who is so quiet that Michi never notices she is there and can't avoid her. Once in art class, Michi took a photograph of Kasumi dressed as Ophelia. It was the first time she had taken a picture to express something, rather than as a way to avoid seeing "them", and because of that she considers her a friend. Knowing Michi's interest in photography, Kasumi keeps asking Michi to take her a picture of Aya, but Michi refuses to take covert photos.

One day in study hall, Michi notices Kasumi looking at something out of the window, and realises it is one of "them": a spirit that looks like Aya. She's not surprised that it takes the form of a living person, since "they" can sometimes leave their bodies, during sleep or when the person very is attached to something. She is more surprised that Kasumi can see her. Kasumi wishes to go out looking for "Aya", and Michi follows reluctantly. Without warning, Kasumi vanishes, leaving behind only her shoes. A few days later, Itsuki disappears as well, and Kasumi's dismembered body is found.

Michi does not believe Aya is responsible for the curse, but thinks she must know something about it. Following the ghost "Aya" leads to a dead end, but when Kuro Karatsu discovers the real Aya locked in a hidden room, Michi approaches her and the two start investigating together. Mary tells them about an old shrine where the curse originated, and they visit it with Risa Suzumori.

In the shrine's hidden basement, they find an old photo album, full of pictures of girls dating back many years. As they are looking through the album, Itsuki's spirit appears; Risa tries to follow her, and somehow vanishes in the shallow water. Michi and Aya return to school alone.

Aya and Michi study the album more closely at the dorm. On the very first page are two photos, one of a pretty girl with a ribbon in her hair, the other of a more serious, brooding girl. The photo of the girl with the ribbon appears again and again in the book, beside a different picture every time. Finally, it appears alongside a picture of a little girl, and after that, the only picture to recur is that of the girl that looks like Aya.

Meanwhile, a mob gathers outside. They start to throw rocks through the window, and attack Aya when she emerges, believing that she is cursed and her kiss killed Kasumi and Itsuki. To prove that Aya is not the one responsible, Michi kisses Aya herself, and defuses the situation.

The next day they visit Mary again, and she tells them she has heard a rumour that the serious-looking girl on the first page of the album, beside the girl with the ribbon, is the Headmistress.

As they are heading back to school, they see the form of Risa floating above the water in the roadside ditch. Once again Risa falls beneath the surface, but this time Aya dives in after her and manages to catch hold of her body. Kuro Karatsu and Keiko Makino happen to be passing, and Karatsu pulls Aya from the water and manages to restore Risa's soul to her body. Next, he proposes they communicate with the ghost who looks like Aya, and the memories of Aya's past that she sealed away. Aya remembers that she had a twin sister, Maya, who was forced to drown herself by the Headmistress.

This, combined with what Mary told them, leads the group to go and investigate the Headmistress's office. They find that the painting of Ophelia conceals a hidden door in the wall. They enter the hidden room beyond, and the true history of the curse is revealed by Karatsu. The girl with the ribbon from the Ophelia Album, Mio Takaishi, was the Headmistress's lover long ago, but the Headmistress betrayed her. As revenge, Mio cursed her to live forever, and sacrifice a girl every three years. Karatsu says that the curse affecting the Headmistress is tangled together with the one affecting Aya and Maya, and in order to stop the current series of disappearances, the two curses will have to be separated.

On his advice, Aya and Michi return to the shrine the next day, and Aya curses herself. She is spirited away at once, and reappears floating in the river, where Takashi Saginomiya finds her. He takes her to the water tank where Maya is waiting, and Michi follows. She is almost at her destination when she is intercepted by Taruho, who accuses her of trying to "steal Takashi's beloved". Taruho is about to kill Michi, but Mary interrupts and takes a picture of her. Taruho flees with her brother. Mary frees Michi and the two of them hurry back to the water tank to save Aya.

When Michi arrives, she finds Aya and Maya floating together in the water tank, but Mio, possessing Maya, tries to thwart her and prevent her from breaking the curse. Michi realises that the hair ornament is the key to breaking the curse. She tells Aya to cast it off. Aya is hesitant to do so and leave Maya behind, but Michi tells her not to look back, and pulls her out of the water. Maya's curse is broken.

Afterwards, Michi stops wearing her eyepatch, as she can no longer see ghosts. At the end of the novel, Aya, Michi and Risa say goodbye, and Michi goes on to study photography at a university in Osaka.

Fatal Frame: The Movie

Michi is best friends with Kasumi Nohara, and the first to notice something is wrong with her. She has been trying to get a picture of Aya at Kasumi's request, but Aya has remained hidden away in her room. Kasumi still feels unwell, so one morning Michi suggests they skip their gardening lesson and go for a walk in the woods. Michi wonders aloud about the future and what she wants to do after she graduates, but when she turns to ask about Kasumi's plans, Kasumi has disappeared.

That night, Michi sneaks into Kasumi's room, hoping to find some clue to the cause of her disappearance. She finds a photograph pinned to the wall, a picture of a beautiful girl who looks like Aya. Michi takes the photo to her own room and stares at it as she is falling asleep.

The next day in class, Michi is visited by the girl from the photo, who asks Michi to break her curse. When Michi collapses in the corridor, Risa and Itsuki help her back to her room, and Risa notices the picture, which she assumes is of Aya. Risa and Itsuki put the photo in an attic room, to keep it safe until Kasumi's return, but soon they too are haunted by visions of the girl. They come to believe that Aya is using her photo to curse other girls, appearing to them in visions and tricking them into kissing her photo.

Itsuki is the next to disappear. The ghostly girl appears in the chapel when the school is gathered for a special assembly, and one by one, all the students start collapsing. Michi collapses last of all, as the girl comes to rest in front of her and again asks her to break the curse. In an attempt to protect themselves, Michi and Risa sleep in the same room, holding hands, but in the morning Risa is gone as well. Michi goes to Aya's room to confront her, but Aya still refuses to come out.

The bodies of Itsuki, Kasumi and several other girls who vanished are found together, floating in the river. At the funeral, Michi apologises to Kasumi for being unable to help her. Afterwards, she is again aware of the girl following her, and finds herself kneeling before the photo in the attic room. Before she can kiss the photo, however, the real Aya snatches it away. She tells Michi the girl in the picture isn't her, even though they look identical, and the curse is not her doing. She asks for Michi's help to find out the truth.

The next day, Aya and Michi sneak out of school to visit the factory where Mary works and ask her about the curse. She takes them to her house, a former photo studio. Mary tells them about a former tradition in the area, in which girls who had fallen in love would enter a suicide pact rather than allow their families to separate them. They would come to the studio to have their photographs taken and enshrined there, and then drown themselves in a local lake.

Mary's son Susumu comes home and recognises Aya's photo as one he took with his old camera. He tells them it is a picture of a ghost he saw by the river, at the end of a bridge.

On their way home, Michi and Aya visit the bridge, which is also the site of the lake where the girls would commit suicide. It has now been mostly drained, but as they cross the water, a memory from Aya's past resurfaces. Back at the school, she tells Michi that when she was adopted by the school there was another girl with her, and that girl drowned before Aya's eyes. Since then, Aya has preferred to be alone, and doesn't understand the feeling of falling in love with another girl. Michi confesses she doesn't know the feeling of falling in love with a boy, either.

A group of students gather outside Aya's window and throw rocks to break it. They attack Aya, believing her to be responsible for the curse, but Michi intervenes. To prove Aya's innocence, she kisses Aya herself.

That night, Kuro Karatsu, a visiting medium, finds Risa wandering by the road. He takes her back to the school, and channels her spirit to allow her to speak through him. Risa's story hardens Michi and Aya's resolve to get to the bottom of the mystery, and so that night, Michi kisses the cursed photo. She and Aya tie a red cord around their wrists, and when Michi is called away in a trance, Aya is woken and follows. They get as far as the forest, but then there is an earthquake, and the cord snaps.

Michi continues alone, unaware that Aya is gone, until she reaches a water reserve deep in the woods. Before she can enter, a nun from the school knocks her out and drags her to the river. It emerges that the girl in the photo drowned in the water reserve, and for various reasons the nun mistakenly believes her brother killed her. In order to prevent anyone finding out about her brother's crime, the nun kills any girl who gets close to the water reserve. When she learns the truth and realises her murders were all for nothing, the nun allows her brother to drown, and kills herself as well.

Meanwhile, Aya made it to the water reserve, met the ghost and regained her memories, breaking the curse at last. Michi wakes up beside the river. She hurries back to the water reserve and pulls Aya from the water.

After their graduation, Michi and Aya meet on the hilltop overlooking the town, where all the flowers they planted are blooming. Michi plans to go to Tokyo to study photography, while Aya will remain in the town. Michi borrows Susumu's camera to take a picture of Aya as a keepsake, but when she looks through the viewfinder, she sees the ghosts of all the girls who died gathered around as well. Rather than take the photo now, she promises to study hard in Tokyo, and asks Aya to wait until she comes back.

Aya touches Michi's cheek to wipe away the tears that are falling. Michi leans in as if to kiss her, but pulls back at the last moment. In a voiceover, they say that they have become adults, but will always remember the time when they fell under the curse that only affects girls.