Ren Hojo
| ||
| "I was right to bring them back. But what will happen when the mountain loses its Pillars?" | ||
| Japanese | 放生蓮 ほうじょう れん | |
| Age | 23 | |
| Height | 173cm | |
| Family | Branch of the Asou Family | |
| Marital status | Single | |
| Residence | Hojo Residence | |
| Occupation | Writer | |
| Status | Alive | |
| Games | Fatal Frame V | |
| Notes | Unfinished Manuscript Note from Ren Dr. Asou's Research | |
| Japanese Voice Actor | Tatsuhisa Suzuki | |
| English Voice Actor | Joe May[1] | |
Ren Hojo is a character in Fatal Frame V. He is a struggling author and an old friend of Hisoka and Yuri. He has a live-in assistant named Rui Kagamiya, who helps him with research and housework. Rui respects him a great deal, but sometimes scolds him for his laziness.
He is doing research for his new book concerning a folklorist and the custom of burial photography, and goes to the mountain with Rui after Hisoka shows him an album of burial photographs. He intends to use the Camera Obscura to help him in his work, though Rui is sceptical.
Past
Ren is a descendant of Dr. Kunihiko Asou through a branch family, and during his childhood spent a summer staying with the Asou Family on Mount Kagiroi. At some point, he inadvertently touched a lock of white hair he found stashed in a storeroom, and began to dream about a strange ritual in which he advanced on a white-haired girl with a knife, and she fell into a box of black water. This dream troubled Ren a great deal and left him wondering whether he had really killed that girl when he was young. The memory of the girl's penetrating gaze made him nervous around women, afraid to meet their eyes.
Unable to make a good living as an author, Ren ended up living in his family's second home near Mount Hikami. He met Rui Kagamiya at a magazine company. He took her on as his assistant because she was so good at gathering and organising data, and at some point, she ended up living with him and doing most of his housework as well, since he was so bad at it.
As part of his research for a new book, Ren asked his old friend Kazuya Sakaki to go to the mountain and find him an album of burial photos he had heard about. However, Sakaki went missing without ever finding the album, so Ren asked his friend Hisoka to search for both.
Fatal Frame V
When Hisoka and Yuri bring back the album of post-mortem photographs from Mount Hikami, Ren is unnerved to see one that appears to show the same scene he has been seeing in his dream. Among all the photos, there is one more that catches his attention. It shows a beautiful woman dressed in bridal clothes, and for a moment Ren has the impression the woman in the photo moves and smiles at him. He and Rui go to Mikomori Hot Springs to try to learn more about the history of the photos. They learn the name of the folklorist who put together the album, but Rui has an encounter with a spirit and almost dies, forcing them to leave in a hurry.
Shortly afterwards, Ren gets a strange phone call from Sakaki, who claims he is about to be married. After this call, Ren and Rui make their way to the mountain to search for the lost Watarai Residence. To reach it they must pass through the Shrine of Dolls, where they encounter Shiragiku. Ren instantly recognises her as the girl from his dream, and to his consternation, she recognises him as well, asking why he failed to come back to her as he promised.
Through the Womb Cavern, Ren and Rui find their way to the Watarai Residence. They have no luck tracing Sakaki, but they learn that both he and Keiji Watarai were enchanted by a photograph of a beautiful woman – the same photograph that fascinated Ren.
Meanwhile, Yuri has been pursuing her own investigation on the mountain, and has managed to rescue Miu Hinasaki. Both of them are exhausted and fall into a deep sleep, so Ren and Rui come to Kurosawa's Antiques to watch over them. While Ren is watching CCTV footage, the mountain begins to rumble, and there is a corresponding burst of spiritual activity in the shop. Rui becomes ill, and while Ren is fighting off the ghosts that are congregating there, both Rui and Yuri are spirited away. Miu declares that she will go and look for Yuri, and when Ren attempts to stop her, she reads his mind, calling forth the imagery of his dream, and asks coolly, "Did you kill her?" She sets out alone, leaving Ren to search for Rui.
Again he comes to the Watarai Residence, and finds Rui in a reliquary. When he wakes her, Ren has an extended hallucination, in which Rui drags him into the box, and he wakes up in a strange building where weddings take place. Along the way, he learns that Sakaki was also spirited away to this place, and made to take part in a Ghost Marriage. Deep in the house, an old woman, addressing Ren as "Dr. Asou" informs him that his betrothed awaits, and leads him to a room at the rear of the house, where Rui waits, kneeling on a cushion dressed as a bride.
The vision ends, and Ren finds himself back in the Watarai Residence. He helps Rui out of the box. As the two of them try to escape, they are attacked by the twisted spirit of Kazuya Sakaki, whose body was crushed and forced into a reliquary as a failed groom.
In the cable car, Rui deliberately comes to sit beside Ren and leans against his shoulder. Ren appears uncomfortable at first, but smiles in spite of himself.
Supernatural activity at Kurosawa's Antiques continues to increase. After Hisoka and Miu's mother are rescued, the midnight sky fills with sinister red light, and there are multiple spirit manifestations which Ren must fend off. When he checks the CCTV footage for the final time, he sees a woman dressed as a bride entering one of the spare rooms, and his own double walking in after her. In another hallucination, he finds himself back in the House of Joining, but this time when he opens the door he finds not only Rui, but Hisoka, Miu, Yuri, Shiragiku and the woman from the photograph waiting, all in bridal clothes.
The next day he wakes to find the shop filled with mist, just like the Watarai Residence before it vanished. Rui sleepily tells him to look at the back of his study, and when he does, he finds a lock of white hair and an old diary of Dr. Asou's, describing a dream just like the one Ren has. With this token and the photograph of Ose Kurosawa, he sets off for Mount Hikami, to visit the House of Joining again. Before he enters the bridal room, the player is given the choice between the photograph of the woman and the lock of white hair. This choice affects the endings that can be obtained.
Endings
If the player chooses the lock of hair, Shiragiku's spirit is inside the room. Ren learns that she knew his ancestor, Kunihiko Asou, and after she became a sacrifice she hoped that Kunihiko would come to find her and be her partner in the Ghost Marriage ceremony performed on Mount Hikami. Kunihiko suppressed his memories of the incident and broke his promise to come back for her. There are two different endings in this path, depending on whether Ren defeats Shiragiku in the fight or not, but ultimately she forgives him and allows him to live.
If the player chooses the photograph, Ose Kurosawa is waiting in the room, and Ren learns that she and Kunihiko met briefly when he came to the mountain to take her photograph. In that short time, the two fell in love, and after Kunihiko left the mountain, he treasured the piece of her soul contained in her photograph. Again, there are two endings to be obtained in this path, depending on whether Ren reaches out to Ose or takes a photograph of her using the Camera Obscura. Like Shiragiku, Ose permits him to live, making Ren the first male character in the series whose survival is assured in every ending.
After Yuri's good ending, an after-credits scene plays in which Ren returns to Rui's side, and assures her he's not going anywhere.
Voice Lens Quote
- "Don't... look at me... st.. .st-stop looking... With those damn... eyes... please, stop it... I didn't... I... I... I didn't... Stop looking! Ngh... ahh... ngh... st... stop... nghh... Ngh..."
- ―Ren Hojo src
Misc. Info
- Rogetsu Isle Reminiscences includes a section signed by Ren, in which he researches the life and inventions of Dr. Kunihiko Asou, including material from Fatal Frame I-V.
