The Lying Counselor’s Eloquent Reasoning - Chapter 41
His next stop was the kitchen.
“This is probably what he used to consume to suppress his epileptic seizures.”
“This?”
Both Tomomi and Sayuri cocked their heads. What Uroma was pointing at was an empty can of macadamia nuts piled next to the refrigerator.
“Is eating macadamia nuts good for people with epilepsy?”
“It’s not so much the macadamia nuts, but the sugar restriction itself that counts. It can help prevent epileptic seizures.”
“Eh, really?”
Tomomi was slightly incredulous. She only knew about sugar restriction as a way to lose weight and had no idea how it could be connected to brain diseases.
“As I mentioned yesterday, scholars are currently divided on the effects of carbohydrate restriction on diet and health, and I can’t say that there is any solid scientific evidence. Personally, I regard it as a mere form of picky eating. However, there are people who are advised by their doctors to consume such diet. That is epilepsy patients.”
“Does sugar restriction help epilepsy?”
“Yes. Although it varies from person to person, it is believed to improve the symptoms in about half of the patients. For a long time, the mechanism of this improvement was unknown, but recently it has become evident that changes in the intestinal flora induced by sugar restriction may be relevant to the suppression of epileptic seizures. The intestinal environment and the brain are strongly connected. Well, this is not only a story about epilepsy.”
“Oh, so brain diseases can be improved from inside the gut?”
It was another unexpected explanation.
“This is a dietary program that is advised especially for people with a type of epilepsy that does not respond well to medication. There is no evidence that this is the type of epilepsy Mr. Hirose had, but in any case, it is likely that he was restricting his carbohydrates just in case.”
“I see, as a precautionary measure…”
For a moment, Tomomi was nearly convinced.
“But that explanation doesn’t clarify whether Mr. Hirose was limiting his sugar intake as a health measure or to prevent epileptic seizures.”
The question arose again. In theory, it made sense, but as with the sunglasses, it seemed inconclusive.
“Of course, there is other evidence that he may have been epileptic.”
Uroma left the kitchen and went to the living room. Then, he unceremoniously pulled out a videotape from James’ collection from the storage cabinet next to the TV. At first glance, it seemed to be a robot animation, but in fact, it was something about a transforming hero.
“Yesterday, when I heard about this film, there was one thing that stuck out to me about Mr. Hirose’s behavior. That is, when Ms. Kiyokawa asked him to watch it with her, he declined.” Uroma held up the videotape and said to Tomomi and Sayuri.
“Doctor, you said that it was because the artwork in the animation was awful, didn’t you?”
“It’s true that the artwork in this work is terrible. However, most of the fans don’t bother with such things. The story is what makes this work highly acclaimed.”
“Ha?”
Tomomi thought that Doctor Otaku had begun to babble about trivial anime again.
“In short, a fan of this work would not reject the idea of watching it with Ms. Kiyokawa when she shows interest in it, knowing that she is not familiar with it. On the contrary, he would happily introduce it as follows. The artwork is trash, but the story is interesting! You know.”
“Trash…”
What a horrible thing to be called. Wasn’t this a famous hit piece?
“Nevertheless, he refused to watch it with Ms. Kiyokawa. I suspect it was because he had a problem with the visual expressions used in the film.”
“Problem?”
“… You’ll understand when you actually see it.”
Uroma quickly inserted the videotape into the deck under the TV and played the video. This was someone’s house, yet without permission.
The story of the anime started with the amnesiac protagonist being discovered by the other main characters. Perhaps it was the first release, but the animation didn’t look as bad as people claimed. It was indeed old-fashioned, but it had an interesting atmosphere.
“I’ll skip ahead to the scene in question.”
Uroma fiddled with the remote, fast-forwarded through the characters’ detailed interactions, and stopped the video just before the main character’s transformation scene. Then, after telling Tomomi and Sayuri, “Please look at the screen carefully,” he undid the pause.
Tomomi recognized immediately what Uroma was trying to show. At the end of the transformation scene, there was an intense blinding light that resembled a flash.
“Doctor, could it be that these things are not good for people with epilepsy?”
“Yes. People with epilepsy are more likely to have photosensitive seizures if they watch this kind of video, as I explained earlier. In the case of this film, besides the transformation scene of the protagonist, there are also a lot of flashing lights in the scene where he executes his special move, therefore it is not recommended for people with epilepsy to watch.”
“Ah, so that’s why Jimmy refused when I asked him to watch this with me,” Sayuri said with a sudden realization.
“Yes, I suppose he did,” Uroma nodded.
“In fact, this kind of intense flashing of lights is not uncommon in films of this era. It wasn’t until a certain children’s cartoon aired a few years after this one that it was recognized as a problem.”
“Oh, there was an incident like that a long time ago!”
Sayuri seemed to have recalled something, but Tomomi was clueless. According to the story, an anime that was fairly popular among children at the time had involved a violent flashing of lights, and many children who had been exposed to it had suffered health problems. Naturally, this was widely reported every day and turned out to be a major social problem, which led to the establishment of guidelines not only for anime but also for all other forms of visual expression, including movies and video games.
“This was a shocking event in the world of psychiatry. Many academic papers even mention the title of the Japanese anime that produced it.”
“Oh, really?”
I never knew. Before I was born, I have no idea that such a thing had taken place.