Resident Evil Requiem, the long-awaited 9th mainline entry in Capcom’s horror series, finally hit the stores on February 27, to positive reception from both fans and critics. Riding on the online hype surrounding the comeback of now 50-year-old “hot uncle” Leon Kennedy, some overseas fans on X noticed a bit of dialogue in the Japanese version of the game that might indicate who Leon’s canonical spouse is. However, in an interesting turn of events, this theory was soon completely debunked by Japanese speakers and domestic fans of the game, who explained that the line doesn’t actually hold much weight in Japanese.
Please note that this article contains spoilers for the game’s ending.
To provide some context to how all this started, as you progress in Resident Evil Requiem, you get to unlock character concept art – and in one artwork of Leon, you can see both his T-virus-infected left hand, and his healthy left hand, on which he is wearing a ring. Furthermore, one scene in the ending shows Leon making a motion through which he hints at wearing a ring.
As wearing a ring on the ring finger of your left hand typically suggests that you are married, this led many to speculate that Leon had married somewhere between the events of previous Resident Evil installments and Requiem. While these are merely hints at Leon’s private life, fans have been feverishly theorizing about who might be the lucky spouse.
Against this background, some overseas fans have noticed that, in the Japanese version of the game, Sherry addresses Leon with the 2nd person pronoun あなた (anata), leading them to speculate that she may be Leon’s wife. And indeed, “anata” is a word that wives sometimes use to call their husbands, especially in Japanese television dramas, which became the basis for this theory. However, it is also a common pronoun that simply means “you” in most contexts.
In Requiem, Shery usually calls Leon by his name, and the only instance she calls him “anata” is in the phrase ああ 良かった あなたが無事で (“Ah, I’m glad you’re safe”). From the perspective of a Japanese speaker, her use of the word “anata” doesn’t particularly evoke any deeper meaning in this case. After one X user, who is a student of Japanese, called the theory “absurd,” other Japanese Resident Evil fans started joining in on the discourse to debunk the theory.
It seems like fans are dead set on pinpointing Leon’s spouse, to the point of comparing different language version of the game to search for more clues. However, Leon’s marriage has only been hinted at throughout the game, and it doesn’t seem like official sources will actually confirm who his partner is for the time being.
On a related note, Capcom has recently announced that it would produce additional story content for Resident Evil Requiem. While we don’t know what exactly the new content will be, the probability of getting some more hints on Leon’s private life and relationships isn’t exactly zero.
Resident Evil Requiem is available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and Windows (Steam).
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