| SPOILERS FOLLOW! Miku's camera was probably constructed by a surviving member of the Himuro family (so...someone who wasn't at the last Ritual?) and left in the house. It amplifies the psychic abilities of its user, and prolonged use will allow a person to see ghosts easily even without using the camera. This has the unfortunate effect of driving people mad, and both Munakata Yae and Hinasaki Miyuki committed suicide as a result of the camera. Miku seems to be made of stronger stuff, though, even though she's one of the Neurotic Hinasaki Women. The word used for the camera in the game (besides 'camera') is shaeiki (projection machine), which, split into its three parts, is That's a pretty straightforward description of its abilities - a machine that can shoot photographs of shadows well. In the initial game design, there were many ideas for what weapon Miku should use to defeat the ghosts. There were suggestions of using an amulet that gave off light, or a ceremonial evil-banishing arrow. But then the creators decided to go with a camera, based on the old superstitions of how photographs steal the souls of their subjects and the sheer fright factor of being forced to wait until your enemy came almost face-to-face with you to be able to do the most damage. They decided to make it a fold-up camera since Miku had to run around with it; when folded up, the camera is sort of like a small box. When opened, it expands into its normal shape. They based it on old-fashioned camera like the Linhof 5 x 7 camera (you can read more about its specs here - that camera isn't a 5 x 7, but you can see one in this photograph). So it's a foreign camera essentially, but they based the rest of its design on old-fashioned Edo-period (that's the time period Kirie was killed in) machines. The big secret of the camera is that the last piece of the True Holy Mirror is hidden inside it, and that's what give it the ability to sense and capture pictures of ghosts. The creators joke that they know that a big mirror piece can't fit inside a camera, but just ignore that, all right? * back* |