The Memorial Monument's original design had only two sides.
The names of the dead were engraved on the front.
The rescue heroes were engraved on the back.
There was no place for the missing.
There was no place for those who had survived their injuries.
Witnesses unwilling to make their names public could only choose between full disclosure and disappearance.
The revision meeting divided the stone surface into five sections.
The confirmed dead.
The injured and those suffering long-term effects.
The missing and those whose identities still awaited verification.
Those who had taken part in the rescue.
And those who chose anonymity, withheld their names for the time being, or whose names still could not be confirmed.
No section stood above another.
The names of the dead were not overshadowed by heroic titles.
Nor did rescuers automatically gain the right to explain the entire disaster simply because they had rendered distinguished service.
Low, touch-readable plaques were also added in front of the stone surface.
People with limited mobility and children would not need to climb high steps to find the corresponding numbers.
The plaques displayed only public information.
Protected identities would not be revealed when visitors touched the seals.
Commemoration did not mean moving every archive into the square.
Visible text and information that still needed protection remained separate.
Takuya Yamashiro requested that he continue to use Witness 01.
The Memorial Monument would not bear his current name.
The link between his number and original identity would be kept only in restricted archives.
Other survivors could leave their names.
They could leave only a number.
Or they could have nothing engraved at all, retaining only a blank space that could be filled in later.
Some objected to the blank spaces.
"Leaving gaps after the Memorial Monument is finished will make