Takeru’s room is a teenage boy's living space in the 90s rural Hokkaido and a place for his happy past and his grief, anger, and determination in the present.
Takeru’s sister disappeared, and he knows Kaito, his best friend, is responsible. But with no way to prove it, no one believes him. So he takes matters into his own hands, studying psychology and law, determined to understand and expose Kaito for what he is.
The room is very neat, almost unnaturally for a 16-year-old boy. This is the earliest sign of the obsessive tendencies that will define Takeru in adulthood. Control over his space is the only control he has left.
Takeru is a fan of X-Japan, with posters on the walls, especially their song Endless Rain. It was something he and Kaito used to listen to together. The game’s sequel, Endless Rain, is a story of a 40-year-old Takeru, now a criminal profiler, who returns to Japan to finally bring Kaito to justice.
There are photos of his sister. On his desk there’s a drawing of what she might look like now. Then there are the old photos of him and Kaito, once happy, now with his face angrily crossed.
Takeru once loved drawing the sea, a passion tied to his family's fishing background and his connection with the ocean. He was also a fan of movies, music, and video games, but now, his shelves are filled with books on crime, psychology, and law.
retrospective
When I started working on Takeru’s room, it was my first making environment art and working in Maya. I had a bit of experience modeling 3D characters in Blender several years ago and, to my surprise, I loved environment and Maya more than characters and Blender.
I wanted the room to feel like a snapshot of Takeru’s life, caught between the warmth of his past and the loneliness of his present. It was both challenging and satisfying to work on it and I'd like to do something like that in the future.