The Shiryō (死霊) are smoky spirits that take over Yamijima island after the Red tsunami.
They're not major enemies by themselves, considering that their only attack is its feeble attempt to harm you by "hitting" their bodies against you, but can be dangerous in groups. They can be defeated easily by shining a flashlight onto them, causing them to burn and disintegrate. They can enter and reanimate dead bodies creating the Shibito, they probably enter dead bodies in order to acquire resistance to the light.
The Connection Between Yamirei and Shiryō[]
The Shiryō and the Yamirei were originally of the same species, but as time passed they both began to change into different things. The Shiryo have conflicting wishes, yearning to return to Mother but also hatred at having been abandoned, following after Mother persistently, but Yamirei see the Shiryo as nothing more than troublesome beings that follow them everywhere despite being inferior. This means that the Yamirei and Shiryo are always at odds with each other and that's why they fight between them[1].
Despite the rivalry between the Shiryo and the Yamirei, they can fuse upon making contact into a darker version of the yamirei. This type of Yamirei being capable of creating Yamibito.
Trivia[]
- Otoshigo is able to spawn several Shiryō from its mouth during the final battle against him, making it sure to assume that they come from Otoshigo.
- Both the Shiryō and the Yamirei have a collective consciousness, sharing the same mind as Otoshigo (or in the case of the Yamirei, with Mother), but after entering a human body, the former person's will begins to intervene (memories and emotions from life faintly remaining), a small price to pay in exchange in order to be able to resist the light.
- Siren and Siren 2 codirector Naoko Sato is the face behind the Shiryō, interestingly, the Director Keiichiro Toyama and Yasutoshi Amemiya are the face behind the Yamirei (The shiryō's counterpart).
- Actually, it is unknown if the Shiryō fuse with the Yamirei into their darker version; it's also possible that the Yamirei are simply white while being in the underworld and darker when they reach the outter world.