Hello and thank you so much for your deep review, it is very very very much appreciated.
Posting art (or game here) only makes sense when I can get others' opinions like yours.
Whenever I produce a piece (or a story), it's always very important to me to leave its interpretation to the viewer. What I can provide are various hints but there's no right explanation, so I was very interested to read yours. The charm is, as in life, how we all perceive things differently. It's part of human nature and I love to celebrate this.
As I can't go back to Japan at the moment and I'm longing for it, most of my creations are based on memories (and further developed). I'd like however to make things accessible if possible. That's why I've purposely wrote "spirits" but "kami" would be better (often translated as "gods"). This story draws inspiration from shinto animist believes: I like your interpretation which makes perfect sense.
As for decay, it's both interpreted as impermanence and of course the decay of buildings. A hint is the Nakagin capsule hotel / tower which is about to be demolished (maybe it's done?) very very soon. Again I didn't want to make it explicit but I think you'd be interested to read that.
As much as I love to draw these images, the text is always the skeleton and Tatemono no Omoide really took me time before I could reach something I liked. I initially planned different variations on it but it was repetitive and didn't add anything . Taking a completely different angle and writing Aki-kun and Hanami was a very satisfactory experience. I'm quite happy that even if Tatemono no Omoide was the starting point, you liked Hanami. I think it's the same for me. Aki-kun is kind of special, it's a character for which I've already produced more than 130 watercolor paintings that viewers mostly enjoy on instagram, so he's very familiar to me and has his own life. He's depicted here as a fictional book character but he actually lives tiny adventures online.
Again, thank you so much! You've made my day. I hope that you will enjoy these explanations too.