| Information |
| “ | Heheh... but that's not the real reason I'm trying so hard to find you. No, nothing so noble. Every time I saw your face, and heard you greet me with that 'Shig, bro!' you'd always say... you were saving my life. | ” |
—Sakutaro Morishige, Corpse Party (PC) (CHAPTER 5) | ||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sakutaro Morishige (森繁 朔太郎 Morishige Sakutarō) is a major character introduced in Corpse Party (PC), a student of Kisaragi Academy Senior High School's classroom 2-9 and a victim of Heavenly Host.
He is the son of Seishirou Morishige.
Design[]
Sakutaro is a teenage boy of average build, and above average height. He has blueish purple hair, green eyes and wears glasses.
He wears the standard Kisaragi Academy Senior High male uniform consisting of a gray gakuran uniform fully buttoned, gray pants, dark red socks and white uwabaki slippers with blue stripes near the soles. His student ID is pinned on the left side of his shirt.
In Corpse Party: Missing Footage he is seen wearing a tan shirt.
Personality[]
Sakutaro is a character with layers: he likes to leave a good impression on other people while hiding his inner personality. He acts stoic and collected, taking situations like his best friend's transfer and being encased in Heavenly Host Elementary School in his stride. Sakutaro takes great pride in his family heritage and reacts violently when other people make fun of his name.
Unlike the rest of the characters, he is neither disgusted nor horrified by the excessive gore and decaying corpses in Heavenly Host. Instead, he finds them intriguing and feels comfort in viewing them, which may be a sign of schadenfreude. However, he tries to keep this trait a secret from others. Despite this, he did openly show amusement in chasing Yuka Mochida around, later recalling how much he enjoyed it, though he never intended to actually hurt her, out of his friendship with Satoshi.
In Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, it is shown just how potentially twisted Sakutaro can become, displaying levels of sadism that rivals that of Yuuya Kizami. Rather than feeling mere comfort, Sakutaro now experiences disturbing amounts of pleasure at the sight of corpses, often donning an eerie grin whilst doing so, something, as noted by Nari Amatoya, he seems to do unconsciously. In addition, instead of finding corpses merely interesting, Sakutaro praises and critiques them as if they were works of fine art. This is most apparent with his treatment of Mayu's corpse, showing a sick kind of revrence for it, and finding himself constantly drawn to it. It appears he also develops a kind of possessiveness towards the bodies he takes pictures of, often calling them "his". Multiple times throughout the chapter, Sakutaro seems to catch himself, and acknowledge his behaviour as wrong, yet he always lulls back into his sinister antics soon. This dark side of him can reach its absolute peak as seen in one of the wrong endings, where he willingly and eagerly takes part in torturing and killing Emi Urabe with Sachiko Shinozaki, who seems to have taken to Sakutaro quite a bit.
However, in Corpse Party: Blood Drive, after nearly dying by falling out the window, Sakutaro seems to have snapped out of his corpse obsession, admitting that he was violating the bodies of those who had died, and seemingly regretting his actions. However, in its place is now an odd type of madness, shown when, upon finding Mayu's corpse again, puts in it a plastic bag and walks around with it, treating it as if she were still alive, something he quickly begins to believe, even performing a romantic soliloquy for her, something that even the likes of Yuuya find odd.
Plot[]
Corpse Party[]
CHAPTER 1[]
In the beginning he, along with Satoshi Mochida, Naomi Nakashima, Yoshiki Kishinuma, Seiko Shinohara, and his friend Mayu Suzumoto joined Ayumi Shinozaki's ghost stories, and shortly after Ayumi's gag, he comments on Satoshi's timidness. When Yui Shishido brought up Mayu's transference, he is immediately reminded and is placed in a disappointed state. To make a good memory for Mayu, Sakutaro takes a picture of his classmates, Ms. Yui, and Satoshi's little sister Yuka Mochida. He joins everyone else in the Sachiko Ever After charm, and is plunged into Heavenly Host.
CHAPTER 3[]
Satoshi and Yuka come across him taking pictures of bloody remains of a student with his cell phone, caught up in a hypnotic trance with the sight apparently amusing him. But that trance ends as soon as he notices the Mochida siblings. He is searching for Mayu in particular, stating that to split up would be optimal to locate the others. He is encountered again after Yuka separates from Satoshi, taking pictures of Mitsuki Yamamoto's corpse. At this point onwards he will attempt to follow Yuka, wishing to join her in searching for Satoshi. However, his odd behavior pushes Yuka away.
CHAPTER 4[]
Sakutaro encounters Ayumi and Yoshiki. Yoshiki is relieved that Sakutaro is still alive, and Sakutaro is happy to see Yoshiki and Ayumi are safe. Seeing Ayumi crying, he asks her what happened. Yoshiki brushes it by saying it's a long story and asks where he has been. Sakutaro states that he lost consciousness and found himself in the Left Wing. Sakutaro also mentions that he encountered Satoshi and Yuka, with the latter being separated from her brother. Yoshiki is relieved to hear they are still alive.
Ayumi points out the item Sakutaro's holding in his hand, a bag containing Yuki's Tongue. Both Ayumi and Yoshiki are disturbed and aware of the fact that Sakutaro found the bag under Mayu's splattered corpse. He thinks the bag as a charm and hands it over to the duo as he does not need it, and leaves the two, continuing his search for Mayu.
CHAPTER 5[]
Sakutaro continues his search for Mayu. He then starts to reminisce when he didn't go to the theater club and decided to go home. Mayu found him and mentioned that there was an audition for a leading role for an upcoming play at the school, but was disappointed to hear that he didn't participate. Sakutaro believed that attending an audition, which is judged based on popularity and not on one's talent, would be in vain. Mayu praised Sakutaro's acting skills, but she understood the sentiment and respected his decision. She asked Sakutaro to stop at the crepes stand later on their way home.
Sakutaro reflects on how deeply he truly cares for Mayu. He tells himself that Mayu is completely vulnerable and helpless without him by her side, while in truth, she saved his life instead and he needs her to keep his sanity together. Frustrated by the absence of Mayu, he decides to go through his cell phone's photo album in order to keep his sanity in check, starting with complimenting on the picture Satoshi and Yuka saw him taking, which he grew attached to the most - an enormous pile of human insides all smashed against the wall. He monologues about how beautiful the death was, laughing and poetically talking about the presumed life before death. He then receives a call from Mayu's spirit, asking him to stop looking at her insides. The sheer realization that the corpse he's fascinated about and defiled when rummaging the corpse to find the bag containing Yuki's tongue causes him to lose his mind.
Naomi and Satoshi find Sakutaro's cell phone at the bottom floor of the staircase. Naomi picks it up, seeing a video recording saved. It showed his brief events of his insanity over the loss of Mayu, repeating to smash his head in the window, screaming and laughing maniacally, calling for Mayu, before ending his own life at the sound of glass shattering.
Toward the end of the chapter, the picture of his fellow classmates and homeroom teacher that he has taken in CHAPTER 1 can be seen.
EXCHAP 2[]
Sakutaro made a brief playable role where he bumps into Yuuya Kizami while he is chasing Yuka (as well as taking pictures of corpses). Upon meeting Yuuya, the two introduced themselves to each other, each seemingly relieved to find another living person, until Yuuya picks up Sakutaro's phone for him, and sees the multiple pictures of corpses. Sakutaro quickly snatches the phone away and begins to walk off, convinced that Yuuya would want nothing to do with him. However, Yuuya, intrigued, stops him, and asks if he was the one to make the corpses, claiming that the two are "cut from the same cloth." Confused, Sakutaro leaves, leaving Yuuya behind, who hopes the two meet up again.
EXCHAP 9[]
Sakutaro is looking out of the classroom window sighing as he is unable to muster up a voice to project in the theater club and decides to skip the club and go straight home. Meanwhile, Yoshiki is running down the hallway looking for his cell phone and heads to the classroom, only to enter the room and bump into Sakutaro, sending him to the floor.
Yoshiki apologizes to Sakutaro who reminds him to slow down every now and again, before noticing his glasses are missing. Yoshiki offers to help him to find the glasses, however just as Sakutaro tells Yoshiki to be careful not to step on them, Yoshiki steps on his glasses, which irritates Sakutaro. Feeling responsible, Yoshiki offers to reimburse him after he gets his paycheck, but Sakutaro comments that he has another pair at home. Sakutaro demands that Yoshiki assists him to get to his home because he can't see anything without his glasses. Yoshiki explains that he can't because he has a part time job and he has no idea where Sakutaro lives, but Sakutaro says he'll direct him and tells Yoshiki to call his employer and mention he'll be late. Yoshiki complains that he is feeling uncomfortable for being too close with Sakutaro, but Sakutaro tells him to put it out of his mind and focus on his task.
In the corridor, Mayu sees Sakutaro and Yoshiki and calls to Sakutaro, however as soon as she notices them walking arm in arm she gets the wrong idea and pretends she didn't see anything before running off. Sakutaro bumps into something on the way, and Yoshiki tells him to watch his step, which annoys Sakutaro. Yoshiki yells at him that Sakutaro complains too much.
Corpse Party: Book of Shadows[]
Episode #2;『Demise』[]
Sakutaro appears in Mayu's flashback. Mayu informed Sakutaro that the theatre club members were denied of access to the cultural assembly stage, even after she had asked for permission. Sakutaro asked Mayu if she was okay with it, not to mention the script for the play has been finished, and he intended to be the one to negotiate. Mayu cheered for Sakutaro and giggled, and mentioned that Sakutaro was cute when he was mad, of which he replied to not say stupid things. Mayu said it was a joke and she was happy that Sakutaro was upset for her, because she was not good at handling conflicts with others. Sakutaro commended Mayu for being a strong girl because she was honest to her feelings, always smiled when things went down, and was considerate to her family and friends - attributes that were the opposite of his. He viewed Mayu as someone who possessed strength to face and endure hardship that even he could see it in her.
Episode #5; 『Shangri-La』[]
While searching for Mayu, Sakutaro finds some people from Byakudan Senior High School, and although he prefers to go alone, he ends up sticking with them for a while. He calls the school a "veritable corpse party," while drawn to and photographing the corpses he finds.
He hears faint whispers and someone singing Shangri-La, which he recognizes as Mayu's voice. Following the voice, he runs into Sachiko Shinozaki, disguised as Mitsuki. Sachiko mocks him, using Mayu's nickname for him, and heavily implying Mayu is already dead. Sachiko tells him that she's been watching him and his fascination with the bodies of her victims, expressing approval for his freakish and selfish ways of valuing his own life over the lives of others. She then lets him go, looking forward to his reaction when he realizes Mayu is dead.
Sakutaro is enchanted by the sight of Mitsuki Yamamoto's body (after she was murdered by Yuuya) and takes numerous pictures. He returns to where he's found Mayu's body nailed to the wall (though he remains unaware that it's, in fact, her), calling the ghastly remains the one place where he feels truly at peace. He realizes that before he returns to the real world, he'll have to delete the pictures he's taken. He sees the folder as an obstacle to be overcome before he can return to the world of the living with Mayu, and leave it all behind him.
Laughing to himself, he decides that it should be all right if he deletes them after he returns.
Corpse Party: Sweet Sachiko's Hysteric Birthday Bash[]
1; Shame Upon the Battlefield[]
Sakutaro and Yoshiki are both forced to wear costumes (Yoshiki wearing a maid's outfit and Sakutaro wearing a wedding dress) in a race to win the prize of escaping Heavenly Host. Without wearing the outfits, it would be impossible for them to escape the room Sachiko trapped them in. They decide to exchange costumes and co-operate. After they've finished changing into the costumes, Sakutaro decides to go ahead first and checks if there are traps ahead. However, he meets his demise as his body is severed into two by sharp piano wire. Yoshiki grieves over Sakutaro's death, but soon follows Sakutaro's fate, severed off by the sharp piano wire. However, they are both revived by Sachiko after Satoshi, and the rest of the girls agree to the condition Sachiko sets - to let her see them on a romantic comedy act.
Corpse Party: Blood Drive[]
CHAPTER 10 『 Reparations 』[]
Sakutaro, along with Seiko Shinohara, Yui Shishido, and Mayu Suzumoto are the four spirits protecting Ayumi as she battles Queen.
At the end of the game, Sakutaro's existence is restored, along with all the others who died in Heavenly Host.
EX CHAPTER 01 『Last Waltz』[]
Sakutaro awakens after his attempt to end his own life ended in failure. After jumping from the window, his fall was broken by a tree, resulting in a broken arm and ribs. Sakutaro remembers his discovery that Mayu had been the corpse splattered against the wall and begins to cry in anguish. After he manages to stand, Sakutaro heads inside the building to find Mayu's body. He apologizes to her, hallucinates about her talking to him and reminisces about their relationship. He collects her remains in a plastic bag and is distressed upon realizing that her hair ornament is missing.
Sometime later, Sakutaro makes his way into the auditorium and takes a spot on the stage. He begins to perform a long, poetic, romantic monologue for Mayu and is unaware when Yuuya enters the room and begins to watch him. When he is finished, Yuuya applauds and startles him. Yuuya begins a conversation with Sakutaro, pleased that they've met again. Sakutaro maintains that he and Yuuya are nothing alike and is dismissive until Yuuya reveals that he is in possession of Mayu's hair ornament. Sakutaro attempts to retrieve it; first by demanding it be handed over and then by attempting to punch Yuuya.
Yuuya grabs Sakutaro's arm and begins to twist it. He questions Sakutaro's relationship with Mayu and is greatly amused when Sakutaro begins to vehemently deny that Mayu is dead at all. Eventually, Sakutaro breaks away from Yuuya and picks up the ornament before placing it into the plastic bag. He is unaware of Mayu's ghost watching him. Yuuya begins to guilt trip Morishige; insisting that Mayu hates him and wants him to die. Mayu's desperate cries to the contrary go unheard as Sakutaro slowly starts to agree. In vain, Mayu attempts to assure Sakutaro that she bears no ill will towards him and in fact loves him. Despite her efforts, Sakutaro retrieves Yuuya's fallen knife, confesses his own love for her and turns the blade on himself.
Significant plot details end here.
Relationships[]
Sakutaro regards a majority of his classmates with indifference and finds socializing with most people to be more trouble than what it's worth.
Mayu Suzumoto[]
Sakutaro first met Mayu in the theater club in middle school, assuming her to be a stereotypical popular girl. Later on, he was proven wrong and grew to deeply care for her. Mayu is the only person who he lets give him a nickname, "Shig," indicating their close relationship. Sakutaro claims that he regards Mayu as a younger sister, and assumed Mayu regarded him as a brother. In truth, it is hinted that Mayu harbors romantic feelings for Sakutaro, though he does not realize it. In Blood Drive, however, it is hinted that he also felt romantic feelings for Mayu as indicated by his twisted yet affectionate treatment of her corpse, even performing a romantic soliloquy for her.
Sachiko Shinozaki[]
Sachiko seems to have taken a liking to Sakutaro due to his own twisted nature. Instead of killing him, she indulges him in his insanity, allowing him to join her in the murder of Emi Urabe during Wrong End 5 ★5 in Corpse Party: Book of Shadows. She also had him help her behind the scenes in Corpse Party -THE ANTHOLOGY- Sachiko no Ren'ai Yūgi ♥ Hysteric Birthday 2U when they were in the haunted house filming.
Etymology[]
- The name Sakutaro means "conjunction (astronomy), first day of month" (朔) (saku), "thick, big, great" (太) (ta) and "son" (郎) (ro).
- Sakutaro's surname Morishige means "forest" (森) (mori) and "luxuriant, thick, overgrown, frequency, complexity, trouble, Traditional Chinese" (繁) (shige).
Trivia[]
- Sakutaro is the only male character from Kisaragi who is deceased.
- Although twisted much like Yuuya, Sakutaro merely uses the corpses to keep his sanity in check.
- The first corpse Sakutaro finds is Mayu's, the girl he is trying to find. Ironically, he doesn't know that it is her corpse.
- Sakutaro's birthday is on Valentine's Day.
- Sakutaro dislikes people making fun of his first name. This is because his first name was given to him by his grandfather, the family member and person he was the closest with before meeting Mayu.
- In the Corpse Party: Book of Shadows Character Contest, Sakutaro ranked 9th place.
- Sakutaro is the only one of the nine characters from Kisaragi Academy who never appears in Corpse Party: Another Child in any way.
- In Corpse Party: Tortured Souls, Sakutaro did intend to kill Yuka Mochida and take a photo of her corpse so Mayu Suzumoto, who was killed, won't be sad anymore.
- Sakutaro's death in Corpse Party (PSP, iOS) is a bit similar to the Takamine Yanagihori's death.
- Sakutaro is one of the only two characters (the other being Yuuya Kizami) who have a track dedicated to them (his is Morishige's Theme of Love).
Sample Voices[]
Corpse Party (PC)[]
Appearances[]
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
