and culture, recording all her speculation in notebooks. At times, her storytelling can be very mysterious and chilling, she seems to enjoy putting people on edge. In the first six arcs, she consistently disappears on the night of festival, and an incinerated body thought to be hers is found in the mountains (and the autopsy report states that she actually died the day before the festival). In Minagoroshi-hen, Miyo reveals to be the main villain of the series who killed Rika by disemboweling her, leaving her body and scattered organs out for the crows to eat like in Tatarigoroshi-hen. It is shown in her backstory in Matsuribayashi-hen that after her parents died, Takano was sent to an orphanage as a child, where she and other children were regularly abused but they attempt to escape. Takano is rescued by her foster grandfather Doctor Hifumi. In the manga, they further detail what happens to her and her friends when they try to run away. She calls Hifumi, but is caught and she is forced to watch her friends undergo strange types of torture. They try to torture her, but Hifumi saves her. Her original name is , but she changed it when she was adopted by Hifumi. He teaches the path of medicine to her about the syndrome. Her gratitude to her adoptive grandfather is what motivates her to kill Rika, as the scientific community mocked Hifumi's work on parasites, and the release of the infestation would vindicate his research. Played by: Koutaro Tanaka (film), Tomohiro Kaku (TV series) The head doctor of the clinic. Despite his young age and the fact that he has a severe maid fetish, he is highly respected in the community. He cheerfully makes house calls and seems to truly care about everyone's health. He has (half-jokingly) admitted that he wishes to marry Satoko when she is older, but is not above chasing after Rika when she wears one of the uniforms from Angel Mort Cafe. In addition, he is the manager of the village's baseball little league team, the Hinamizawa Fighters. In the past, he has performed lobotomies without consent, which led to him being banished from the medical academic society in Tokyo. He is recruited by Takano to direct research the syndrome, which he feels will redeem himself. It is later revealed that he works for Miyo, where he tries to find a cure against