Movie
Description
Kinu Himuro, more commonly called Okinu, is a ghost who appears in Ghost Sweeper Mikami. She was an orphaned teenage girl of the Edo period, living roughly three hundred years before the present day of the series. Born on November 21, 1665, she was fifteen years old when she died. She was chosen as a human sacrifice meant to appease an angry volcanic mountain and prevent an eruption. In the traditions of the series, a person who dies in this way usually becomes a guardian spirit of the mountain, but Okinu was not qualified to become such a celestial guardian. Because her body was lost in the mountains and the circumstances of her death were never properly resolved, she became a jibakurei, a ghost bound to a specific place and unable to move on to the afterlife.
Physically, Okinu appears as a teenage girl with blue eyes and long blue hair reaching down to her waist. Her youth and ghostly bearing reflect the tragic circumstances of her death, and she carries herself with the mannerisms of an earlier era.
When she is first encountered, Okinu is one of two ghosts causing disturbances at a mountain hot spring. She is desperate and hostile, because her goal is to find a living person to take her place as the mountain's sacrifice. At one point she takes possession of the body of Tadao Yokoshima, one of the exorcists' assistants, in an attempt to use him to achieve her goal. Her motivation at this stage comes entirely from fear and desperation: she wants to escape the fate that has bound her for three centuries by forcing someone else into it.
She is not an evil spirit, however. When the exorcist Reiko Mikami resolves the crisis by absorbing the mountain's spirit and freeing Okinu from her obligation, Okinu does not pass on to heaven. Instead, she remains in the living world, and Mikami takes her in. From that point on, Okinu becomes a regular member of Mikami's household and a permanent part of the group. She serves as Mikami's secretary and errand girl, handling everyday tasks as well as situations where her nature as a ghost makes her useful.
Her relationships define much of her development. With Reiko Mikami she shares a bond of loyalty and gratitude, since Mikami both saved her and gave her a place to belong. With Tadao Yokoshima she develops romantic feelings, which adds a gentle and sometimes comedic side to her personality. She also shares a natural kinship with Meiko, the other ghost living with the group, since both are spirits in an unusual household of humans and the supernatural.
Over the course of the series, Okinu grows from a frightened, vengeful girl fighting against her own sacrificial fate into a devoted and dependable companion. Her story is one of finding a new home and a new purpose after centuries of being treated as an unwilling offering. As a spirit, her notable abilities include the power to possess the living, as she demonstrated by taking over Yokoshima's body, and the endurance of a ghost who has persisted for hundreds of years. Because she can move between the human and spiritual realms, she often serves as a bridge between the two, and her loyalty and warmth ultimately define her far more than the tragedy that created her.
Physically, Okinu appears as a teenage girl with blue eyes and long blue hair reaching down to her waist. Her youth and ghostly bearing reflect the tragic circumstances of her death, and she carries herself with the mannerisms of an earlier era.
When she is first encountered, Okinu is one of two ghosts causing disturbances at a mountain hot spring. She is desperate and hostile, because her goal is to find a living person to take her place as the mountain's sacrifice. At one point she takes possession of the body of Tadao Yokoshima, one of the exorcists' assistants, in an attempt to use him to achieve her goal. Her motivation at this stage comes entirely from fear and desperation: she wants to escape the fate that has bound her for three centuries by forcing someone else into it.
She is not an evil spirit, however. When the exorcist Reiko Mikami resolves the crisis by absorbing the mountain's spirit and freeing Okinu from her obligation, Okinu does not pass on to heaven. Instead, she remains in the living world, and Mikami takes her in. From that point on, Okinu becomes a regular member of Mikami's household and a permanent part of the group. She serves as Mikami's secretary and errand girl, handling everyday tasks as well as situations where her nature as a ghost makes her useful.
Her relationships define much of her development. With Reiko Mikami she shares a bond of loyalty and gratitude, since Mikami both saved her and gave her a place to belong. With Tadao Yokoshima she develops romantic feelings, which adds a gentle and sometimes comedic side to her personality. She also shares a natural kinship with Meiko, the other ghost living with the group, since both are spirits in an unusual household of humans and the supernatural.
Over the course of the series, Okinu grows from a frightened, vengeful girl fighting against her own sacrificial fate into a devoted and dependable companion. Her story is one of finding a new home and a new purpose after centuries of being treated as an unwilling offering. As a spirit, her notable abilities include the power to possess the living, as she demonstrated by taking over Yokoshima's body, and the endurance of a ghost who has persisted for hundreds of years. Because she can move between the human and spiritual realms, she often serves as a bridge between the two, and her loyalty and warmth ultimately define her far more than the tragedy that created her.