the curse brought peace between the villagers of Onigafuchi (Lit. Demon's abyss), the former name of the village, and the demons spouting from the Onigafuchi Marsh. Her actual existence is something of debate, some can see her as the simple "perception" of a god. However, those who experience extreme paranoia refer to her as the "footsteps you hear when you stop walking" and felt like you were always "being watched". She turns out to be Hanyū, since some of the characters can hear her until Matsuribayashi-hen. Played by: Tetta Sugimoto (film), Shinobu Tsuruta (TV series) A veteran police investigator learning to solve the case about the murders and avenge the first victim who he was friends with. Due to his uncouth tactics and the lengths that he goes to in order to solve the mystery, he is looked upon as a nuisance by the villagers, especially the Sonozaki family. He approaches one of the main characters to become his informant in several arcs, and is sometimes unwittingly responsible for triggering their paranoia. However, he plays an integral role in aiding the protagonists during the last two answer arcs, Matsuribayashi-hen and Minagoroshi-hen. Played by: Masashi Taniguchi (film), Yuma Ishigaki (TV series) A freelance photographer who occasionally visits the village three times every year. He gets along with Miyo Takano, because of their similar interests in photography. Despite being an occasional visitor, he seems to know a fair amount about the past (specifically the Hinamizawa murders). Ooishi and the police are suspicious of his true identity. In the first six arcs, he commits suicide by clawing his throat out after the festival, triggering many different events. However in Minagoroshi-hen, Takano was actually the one responsible for his horrific death by giving the H173 drug injection for him, produced in the process of developing a cure for the Hinamizawa Syndrome, but has the exact opposite effect. Jirō is revealed in Minagoroshi-hen to be an SDF officer working as an auditor on the syndrome, together with Takano and Irie, but merely posing as a photographer. Takano had him killed in previous arcs because upon realizing Takano's real scheme to research the syndrome, he will have to terminate the research project out of moral obligations for the villager's and even Takano's wellbeing. Played by: Ayako Kawahara (film), Rie Kitahara (TV series) A nurse at the village clinic who takes a keen interest in Hinamizawa's past