Underworld

In the Fatal Frame Series, the underworld is the afterlife or spirit world. It is sometimes translated as 'hell', but it is neither heaven nor hell in the Christian sense, only the land of the dead. The very air and water of the underworld are inimical to the living. Across Japan, there are places where the underworld is unusually close, and in these locations, various rituals have developed to contain, purify, or otherwise pacify the forces of the underworld, to prevent the chaos they cause when they interact with the world of the living.

Borders and Gateways

So far, all major settings in the Fatal Frame series have been locations that border on the underworld. The border takes different forms in different locations.

• Himuro Mansion - Hell Gate
• Minakami Village - Hellish Abyss
• Kuze Shrine - the Rift, Abyss of the Horizon
• Rogetsu Isle - Tsukiyomi
• Mount Hikami - Shadowspring, Dark Sun

Proximity to the underworld can cause various harmful effects, such as the spread of miasma, earthquakes, sickness and spirit possession, troublesome dreams of the dead, and incidents of people being spirited away.

Names

• (黄泉( よみ) yomi; "Hades, hell, underworld") (also originally referred to an underground spring)
• (常世( とこよ) tokoyo; "world of the dead, other shore, eternity") or (常世の国( とこよのくに) tokoyonokuni; "land of the dead")
• (根の国( ねのくに) nenokuni; "underworld, lit. land of roots") (rarely used in the series)
• (異界( いかい) ikai; "other world, spirit world")
• (彼の世( あのよ) anoyo; "other world, next world"), in contrast to (此の世( このよ) konoyo; "this world, the world of the living")
• Hallowed Realm - (零域( れいいき) reiiki; "zero region, punning on 霊域 meaning 'sacred ground'")
• Netherworld (隠世( かくりよ) kakuriyo; "afterlife, realm of the dead")
• (他界( たかい) takai; "death, the next world")

The series often uses Japanese wordplay in its names for the underworld and related topics, using different characters to create homophones with layered associations - for example, black water is pronounced yomi but written with the characters for 'night spring', and both the ritual in Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir and the Sea of Endless Night in Fatal Frame III are pronounced tokoyomi, but written differently.