Paranoiac

**Paranoiac** (stylized as *PARANOIAC*) is a 2011 Japanese supernatural horror game developed by Uri, using the Wolf RPG Editor program.

## Synopsis

Three years after her aunt's death, Miki Takamura moves into her late aunt's unattended house. Everything seems normal at first, but after her first night in the house, things make a sudden turn. A strange creature starts chasing her at night, strands of hair appear in strange places, and odd sounds echo throughout the house. Are all these events caused by supernatural forces or is Miki slowly losing her mind?

## Characters

### Miki Takamura

A gloomy 25-year-old woman who's the niece of the late Saeki. She is a romance novelist who suffers from depression due to her failure as an author, pressure from her mother and her guilt about her aunt's suicide.

Her relationship with her mother is strained because of her mother's hysteria. She believed that moving to her aunt's house would help her, but once the strange events start, her sanity slowly starts waning.

### Shinji Miura

Miki's current and Saeki's former neighbor. He works as an architectural designer and is known to be a meddlesome and busybody person.

He becomes interested in Miki and how mysterious she is, so he befriends her after she moves to her aunt's house. He acts very friendly and understanding towards Miki, even after finding out about her mental illness.

### Yuriko Saeki

Miki Takamura's late aunt and the younger sister of Miki's mother. Prior to the game, she was diagnosed a few months pregnant with a child. However, after a while, her child died, which sent her into postpartum depression. Her sister mocked her for this, and her husband divorced her, resulting in her mental state shattering.

She became paranoid of everyone around her and even believed that Miki hated her and wanted her to die. She eventually committed suicide by hanging herself in her room.

In the original version her name was just Saeki.

### Minako Takamura

Miki's mother. She calls Miki at the house to see how things are going but becomes increasingly frustrated and impatient when Miki keeps insisting that there's a monster in the house that's chasing her.

She's also horribly verbally abusive towards Miki and her sister. Because of her nasty personality she provoked the events of the game by forcing Miki to move to her aunt's house and mocking Yuriko when she got her miscarriage. Part of her attitude could be attributed to suffering from mental health issues that run in the family.

She didn't have a name in the original version.

## Endings

### Bad Ending

If Miki chooses to believe that the monster is a hallucination, she will confront the monster in the room where her aunt hanged herself and claim that it isn't real. The monster will walk towards her and kill her. Her body will be found in the basement by Miura.

The 2019 remake changes the ending. Miura is shown reading a newspaper about Miki's death. It's revealed her body was full of self-inflicted wounds, implying that she committed suicide and was hallucinating the monster out of guilt. Miura mourns her and blames himself for not noticing Miki's deteriorating mental state. As he becomes ridden with guilt and despair, the monster that haunted Miki looms next to him, implying that the story will repeat once again.

### Good Ending

If Miki chooses to believe that the monster is real, she will demand that Miura leave her alone and ask her mother to take her away from the house because of the monster. Her mother will laugh at her daughter's crying, will call her crazy and tell her to hang herself like her sister. That night, Miki will hear noises coming from the room where her aunt hanged herself and enter. The monster will be dangling from a noose and immediately chase her.

Miki will run into the basement where the monster's identity is revealed to be Saeki. Miki and Saeki reconcile, and Saeki will embrace her, which knocks her out. The next morning, Miura finds her and calls an ambulance for her. Afterwards, all the strange events will stop, and Miki will finally be at peace with herself. Miki will be diagnosed with schizophrenia and she and her mother will be sent to an institution for treatment. Miura bids Miki farewell and Miki will leave her aunt's house for the time being.

## Trivia

* According to Uri, she named the protagonist Miki for the actress Miki Nakatani in the Japanese horror film Loft.
* The original monster appearance seems to be based off a teke-teke, which is a ghost that is missing their lower half and crawls with their hands.
* This currently is, along with Pedestal, the only game from Uri that features character CGs next to the dialogue boxes.
* The 2019 remake reveals that after the events of the Good Ending, Miki gets treatment for her schizophrenia and returns to her aunt's house two years later.
* It also reveals Miura is one year younger than Miki and is happily waiting for her to come back after she gets treatment for her schizophrenia. The reason why he’s at his house during most of the game it’s because of an inflamed tendon.
* It also reveals that Miki's mother agreed to go to therapy for her anger issues and she's getting along with Miki better.
* This game later got a remake released on June 10th, 2019.
* According to VGPerson, the game's title *Paranoiac* is a term for those suffering from paranoia. This most obviously indicates Miki's aunt, but depending on your interpretation, Miki could also be the so-called paranoiac.