The Bathhouse | 地獄銭湯 Restored Ver. – Story And Plot Explained
The Bathhouse | 地獄銭湯 Restored Ver. is a Japanese horror game revolving around the bathhouse. The main protagonist, Maina-san who enthusiastically accepts to work in the bathhouse learns that the task is not as simple as she thought earlier. It might have been a mistake to come here.
Note: This post of The Bathhouse | 地獄銭湯 Restored Ver. contains spoiler.
Story And Plot Explained For The Bathhouse | 地獄銭湯 Restored Ver.
The story begins at a small Bathhouse where the main protagonist is a working employee of it. At the end of the day, the landlord asks her to clean the Sauna where the used towels are left behind by the customers.
Picking up the bucket from the locker, she goes into the Sauna. She opens the door and instead of closing the door behind, she notices that the task will hardly take a minute. She thinks of quickly picking up the towel and dashing outside to call it a day.
She resumed her work, and then suddenly the entrance door shuts with a loud bang. Ignoring the phenomena, she resumes her work when suddenly the ground starts to cover with long strands of hair. Horrified, she looks up to notice the ceiling is also getting covered by strands of hair. In the middle of the ceiling, a head peeks out glaring at the main protagonist when she loses consciousness.
After The Experience
After the terrifying experience, she finds herself submerged in the water. Gasping for air, Maina-san wakes up to see that she is inside the bathtub of her apartment.
Suddenly, the phone rings! The main protagonist picks up the call to find some known person is calling. After ending the call, the game begins…
How It Started?
The main protagonist received a message from the facility from an acquaintance. They’re asking her to come work at their bathhouse which is located in the countryside. Even they will provide an apartment to live in. Frustrated with the current lifestyle in the city, she decides to accept the offer. Little did she know that it would turn out to be her life-changing experience.
The Day Of Arrival
It’s late at night and the rain is pouring heavily. The assigned apartment 202 is not located far away. So, the main protagonist runs straight to her apartment. On the way, she sees a girl praying for his/her loved one.
Upon reaching apartment No. 202, she sees that her door is locked. As soon as she leaves to search for the landlord, a sudden noise startles her and the landlord can be seen standing in front of her apartment.
The landlord confirms her name and age before giving up the key to the apartment. After the introduction, Maina-san enters the room to find that the room is still a mess. After folding the sleeve, Maina-san starts cleaning the apartment where she finds a fresh scratch mark on the floor indicating that the wardrobe is recently been shifted from its original position.
After shifting back the wardrobe to the original location, Maina-san finds that there is a peephole that gives a clear vision of the next door. Ignoring the peephole, she cleans the room and throws the trash in the bin located in front of the Bathhouse.
The Day 1 Bathhouse Experience
The Landlord, explains her daily task behind the reception table and how to change the temperature in the boiler room. After teaching all the chores, the landlord mumbles that he feels sick standing inside the bathhouse. Ignoring the early red flags, Maina-san goes back to the reception where she receives a customer. Professionally dealing with the customers, Maina-san hears a sound in the women’s locker room where the hair dryer is switched ON.
After turning it Off, two old ladies visit the bathhouse and inform her about the previous receptionist who disappeared a year ago. Strangely the devices seem to turn ON randomly, maybe because it’s too old that it’s faulty. Once the closing music starts it’s time to clean the bathhouse and leave.
After picking up the tools, a small kid who came in with her Mom warns Maina-san that there is a spirit in the bathhouse. Inquiring about the kid, he claims that he doesn’t have a Mom. Then he dashes out leaving her puzzled. Resuming her task, she hears the voice of a female employee asking for the bucket.
She passes the bucket and starts cleaning herself. Next, she sees a reflection of a kid in the mirror. Once she finishes her bath, a cat can be spotted roaming around the female locker room.
Curiously, Maina-san enters the men’s section and sees a bunch of monkeys surrounding a woman’s corpse i.e. lying on the ground.
Day 2 Experience
The next day, Maina-san wakes up at her apartment and wonders what happened yesterday. Still oblivious, she returns to the bathhouse where she is greeted by the landlord.
Inquiring about monkeys in the area, he starts explaining more tedious tasks about cleaning the wall. The day started normally which was busy as usual. A beautiful girl named Ema Horai visits the bathhouse. Returning from inspecting the girl section, a pair of spooky and wet legs can be seen behind the curtain. Maina-san bravely closes the distance and removes the curtain to find that there is no one behind it.
The esteemed customer of the day, Keiichi came to the bathhouse at last. Being too bossy and breaking his own rule wanted to hire Maina-san into his company. However, Maina-san boldly turns down her invitation. This angered him.
After the blackout, Keiichi who seemed to be aggressive is bleeding from his nose and feels like his life has been sucked out of him. He leaves the bathhouse silently wobbling.
During the closing time, the landlord meets Maina-san and asks her to clean the bathhouse. Suddenly, the bell rings at the reception, which after inspection finds that the monitoring TV shows a lady on the screen. The lady with a hat who went missing is inside the boiler room.
Maina-san approaches her but she quickly runs away. The boiler was letting out black smoke and the cause was a beautiful bracelet. Suddenly, the landlord appears behind Maina-san telling her to go wash as he will fix the boiler.
During the bath, Maina-san hears voices calling her. Upon checking there is no one to be seen. However, in the end, a reflection of a girl standing beside her can be observed in the mirror which startles Maina-san.
Still oblivious to the truth, Maina-san enters the bathtub where a rubber ducky comes flying from the men’s section. The woman’s voice who claims to be an employee asks her calmly to pass the rubber ducky back. Then the sequence of throwing rubber ducky continues until something black pounces on you.
Slowly a head peeks out from the bathtub. Startled by this phenomenon, she loses her consciousness. The next thing she knows that she is outside next to a priest.
Day 3 Experience
Waking up on her bed, she contemplates that she shouldn’t have accepted the job. On her entrance door, the landlord visits her whom she confronts directly about all the occurence.
The landlord calmly explains that is the work of curses and spirit. The same excuse was given that in a rural place, it is common. However, he suggests that she should meet the priest about the curses and spirit.
Upon meeting the priest, he tells her that she needs spiritual help. He explained that she has been a target for the evil spirit which has been intensifying as time goes on.
The priest blesses Maina-san and gives her an amulet to protect her. Then she resumes her daily work in the bathhouse. Finding the rule breakers and maintaining the bathhouse diligently.
In the meantime, while working there were few sightings of the haunted spirit. Even the guy was attacked who claimed that he felt like dying. However, the suspicious guy (Wanted Poster) wearing the hat explained his reason for visiting the bathhouse. He claims that he is searching for her twin sister.
Later when the bathhouse is closed, you are tasked to clean the mirrors. Surprisingly Matsuno-san who was looking for milk has vanished in thin air. However, ignoring her she cleaned the mirrors and took a bath. Then, Maina-san decided to have a Sauna.
While inside the Sauna, a reflection can be seen from the door clearly that someone is walking in the women’s section. After taking a dip in the bathtub, she decides to enter Sauna again until someone grabs her head and dashes outside quickly.
Maina-san leaves the Sauna and bath area to see no one is around. In the women’s locker room, a new lady enters whose name is Umeki. She asks to visit her supermarket, in order to refill the milk.
Supermarket
The supermarket which seems to be closed all the time is open today. Umeki the shop owner asks Maina-san to organize the shelf.
The Curse
After completing the task, Umeki explains Maina-san about the mystery. It has been over 20 long years and Maina-san looks exactly like the employee of that time.
There is a curse in the bathhouse which doesn’t seem to affect the main protagonist. Umeki explains the reason why. Because she is being targeted by a much more powerful Entity than the curse.
Currently, the entity can’t hurt her but no one knows what the future holds. Umeki gives her a Kokeshi Doll to keep her safe.
The Plot Thickens
Upon returning with milk, Maina-san fills the freezer where Matsuno-san notices her daughter’s bracelet on her. She cried her daughter’s name i.e. Yoko. The light flickers and Matsuno teleports near the jukebox. Again, she teleports near the locker and keeps on looking for something inside it. The next time the light flickered, she teleported and searched for something under the table.
Finally, the light flickered again which hurled all the objects in the air. The objects were floating and the old lady Matsuno was pinned on the table covered up with long strands of hair.
It started to cover her until she came close to her face and screamed loudly. Maina-san before losing her consciousness, she saw the landlord standing behind Matsuno-san.
After regaining consciousness, she saw the landlord waiting beside her where she was rested. All the things that she is experiencing are due to fatigue, explained the landlord. He requested her to work for a little longer.
Day 4
When she woke up in her apartment, she was ready to quit her job today. Additionally, today is Maina-san’s birthday. Suddenly, the doorbell rings! Hearing that the Priest is on the other side, she opens the door.
The priest reveals and directs Maina-san to the basement. He warns that DO NOT be seen by the landlord. He is hiding something obviously. Why is happening on the day when you want to quit?
On the way out, Maina met Toru who was still searching for her sister. After talking to him, Maina advanced towards the bathhouse where the sweet potato seller had some peculiar set of questions. After exhausting his question, he will ask you to check the sweet potatoes behind where he has hidden a key to the women’s shoe locker. The women’s shoe locker contains a tile that will be used later to get the 3rd ending.
Maina-san enters the bathhouse where eerie music is playing on the Jukebox. In the men’s locker, Maina-san finds a half-bitten apple and next to it a Shoebox key to the men’s shoe locker. Quickly she grabbed the key and opened the designated shoe locker to get the key to Apartment number 201.
At Landlord’s Apartment
She ran to the Apartment number 201 and entered the room uninvited. After a thorough investigation, she finds the landlord’s Diary where it is written:
I chose to hire a girl
She’s young and beautiful
That will bring in a lot of customers
Just seeing her lifts my mood
The girl works hard
She even sends flirtatious looks at me
Ahh, what to do
It seems like she fell in love with me
Maybe I’ll call her by her first name from now
The young hire’s name is written as “Sakurako“
But it’s read as “Yoko“
It’s a name that is easy to call out
Yoko is into me
But still, weird guys get in between us
Even though she’s mine
Yoko too
Why is she letting those guys have their way with her?
I have an idea
I should bring Yoko to the basement
If she’s down there, no other eyes but mine will ever see her
I will let her know her place while she’s in her early 20s
It’s been a while since I took her to the basement
I should check up on her soon
I’m sure she understands what she is to me by now
With this, she is truly in my possession
Yoko was dead
Lying on the floor, all in a bloody mess
It seems that she was pregnant
Who could possibly be the father?
Since when…
I won’t forgive this
What is that stain on the bathhouse wall?
Who is screaming at the bathhouse?
I can’t stop hearing a woman scream endlessly
I think I’m going crazy
Even after closing time, I sometimes see a person’s shadow
But no one is there…
Who is it?
The black shadow chased me
I had the monk perform a cleansing ritual on me, but…
There was no point in doing that
The ghost keeps coming after me
Please forgive me
I didn’t do anything wrong
According to the monk, an Ubume is haunting me
It seems that there is a way to get rid of this curse, but it is not
possible to do that right away
Is it not time yet?
Is it really fine if I let the monk handle this?
I can’t stand this everyday
The priest doesn’t understand my suffering
I have to do something
Is there nothing that can help me a moment sooner?
Hurry, hurry
I must end this curse
I’ll call for her
For that purpose…
No more waiting on the monk
I’ll do it myself
After getting the evidence, Maina-san runs back to the bathhouse where the landlord is taking a bath. To distract him, she runs to the reception table and rings the bell. Quickly she runs to the corner of the men’s locker room to hide. As the landlord goes to tend to the customer, Maina-san makes her way into the boiler room.
The Basement
She locates the basement door by pulling the steel asbestos. Once she entered the door and walked through a flight of steps, she found the dungeon where the landlord kept the earlier employee captive.
Maina-san notices a crack in the wall. She pulls out the debris to find a scissor. She quickly grabbed the scissor and tore the pillow. Inside the pillow, there was a note that said:
It moved
In my belly
It is alive even in this situation
I will not let you die no matter what
I promise to protect you My beloved baby
I will do my best, so do your best too
I’m sorry
I will not let them do as they please
During the time of retreat, the priest came to the basement where he told her about the past incident. How the landlord was obsessed with the woman which ended with him locking her here in the basement. She was pregnant and gave birth to the twins. However, the blood loss was too much and she died from it. The age of the lady at that time was 24 which is the same as Maina-san.
Seeing everything, the landlord called the priest in fear whom he named “Toru“, and “Erena“. The priest left them both in the orphanage. The child of Yoko came back to the village, and the one who came back was Erena. Then Maina-san i.e. Erena learned about her true identity.
Ghost Identity
The Ubume’s true identity was Yoko who was Erena’s mother. To dispel the haunting, Ubume’s child needs to be burned to death when she gets to the same age as when Ubume died.
For assistance, the priest called Toru and explained everything. He knows and before the landlord gets his hand on her, she needs to escape. She ran out of the basement and boiler room to find herself trapped in the bathhouse.
She hears a sound in the bathtub. When she approaches the source of the sound, the landlord attacks her and attempts to drown her in the bathtub.
Confrontation
When she wakes up, she finds herself in a different dimension where has to stop Ubume’s summoning. After successfully stopping the summon, Erena runs outside to see the scenery has been changed. From the water, Ubume pounces at her to bring her back into reality.
The landlord who was drowning her gets thrown aback giving her a chance to run towards her apartment. The old landlord quick in his feet, chases Erena to her apartment. He had the spare key in his pocket which he tried to use it to open the door.
Nowhere to go, suddenly Erena hears the sound coming from the peephole. The strand of hair tries to block the door, however, the old landlord manages to open the door and enter the room to strangle her.
After the fight, the landlord bested Erena and took her to the bathhouse. Where he enters the boiler room and lights up the firestick. He throws her inside the boiler and closes the lid to burn her to death. At the final moment, Ubume sticks her head in and looks at Erena before she dies.