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| Features | Pokémon Shock
Below is an English
translation of How to Craft
a Story: Takeshi Shudo, How Anyone Can Become a Screenplay Writer (シナリオえーだば創作術 だれでもできる脚本家 首藤剛志), a blog written by former Pocket Monsters series organizer
and head writer Mr. Takeshi Shudo. The following are excerpts taken
from Blog Post No. 160 "The Pokémon Incident: Meanwhile,
at the Hospital...," a blog entry related to the Pokémon
Shock incident.
Notes about the translation below
I have two notes
about the translations you're about to read.
One, the Japanese version of the blog is written the way a lot of
Japanese blogs
are written in that the author only types out (roughly) one sentence
per
one line. To a native English speaker like me this makes the blogs seem
weird and choppy but that's just the way a lot of Japanese blogs are
written, for some reason. For simplicity's sake I've replicated this
one-sentence-per-line writing
style in my English translation.
Two, the following translation is a truncated version of a much, much
longer blog entry. Mr. Shudo is
an absolute treasure trove of behind-the-scenes
information you can't get anywhere else but his blogs are, as far as
your
average Pokémon fan is
concerned, about 80% filler. The writer had a tendency to trail off
into
some very off-topic tangents in his blog and so what I've decided to do
is to pick out the parts
that actually discuss the Pokémon Shock incident and present that
to you on the page below. I hope you
will find this abridged presentation a bit easier to read that it would
have been otherwise. If you're someone who would prefer to read an
unabridged translation, however, I've also got you covered; you can
check those out here.
Blog Post No. 160 "The Pokémon
Incident: Meanwhile, at the hospital..."
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Mr. Shudo starts to talk
about the girl who was brought to his hospital:
I
found out about the girl who had been rushed to the hospital in Odawara
because of the incident about a year and a half after it happened.
It was around the time I had finished up writing the script for the
second Pokémon movie. My health had taken a hit and so after I
checked with the director to make sure my final draft of the script was
indeed the version they were going with I admitted myself into a large
private hospital in Odawara City.
The sisters (we call them nurses now) say they distinctively remember
the girl who was brought into the hospital a year and a half ago.
|
The
doctors and nurses in this hopsital, especially the ones in the
pedriatrics department, would've definitely known all about
Pokémon, that video game and animated series that's a huge hit
with kids.
And so the ones that happened to be on duty that night would
have had to take care of the ill children who were being brought in on
ambulances, one after the other. Even though it had been a year and a
half since that night the impact left by the Pokémon TV series
was still felt by all.
|
"Anyway,
that time was really tough."
The nurses told me about what it was like back then.
And just so there are no misunderstandings, the doctors and nurses
didn't just blurt all sorts of confidential patient information to me.
When it comes to their job, medical professionals are just that;
professionals.
And even when I, a patient at their hospital, told them that I worked
for Pokémon it wasn't like they just started telling me
everything I wanted to know.
But at the same time, it was less like the relationship between a
patient and his doctors and nurses and more like that between friends
or acquiantances, venting about this and that.
It's been over 10 years since that incident and so I think their
experiences from back then are probably distant memories now.
But back then, I had no idea that, a year and a half before I was
admitted into that hospital, that there was a victim of the incident
right there in Odawara.
It was also shocking to learn that she had been rushed to the very same
hospital I was in now.
It's a bit embarrassing to admit this but my memories from even a year
and a half ago have started to fade.
A lot of things happened to me, both before and after that incident.
But if I want to try to make sense of all of it'd be easier to just
write about what happened in chronological order, starting with the
immediate aftermath. So that's why I added in the part the girl who was
admitted despite not learning about it until a year and a half after
the fact.
|
The next
few parts of the blog talk about phone calls he received throughout
December 17th -- the day after the incident. Here's the first one:
But
let's go back to the day after the incident, December 17th.
Pretty soon we got a call from the company that produces Pokémon.
They basically told us "In regards to this situation making the news
right now, we want the stories being told by the production side and
the network to be consistent with each other and so if you get a call
from any news outlet make sure not to give them any of your personal
opinions on the matter."
I imagine almost everyone involved with the production of the
Pokémon animated series got the same call.
The reaction was swift, but telling us not to make any comments was the
right move.
Because for the mainstream media, this was a huge incident, sure, but
it was also a great chance for them too.
There would have been a bunch of half-truths and speculation; the media
would've had a field day with this.
"Someone involved with Pokémon said this," "He said that,"
"Here's what I think," "I don't think that's right," "Who's fault is
this?"…it'd get out of hand real quick.
I personally had experience with how dangerous making public comments
can be. I had answered a question about some other incident in the
past, but the way they reported it was completely different from the
way I meant it.
Comments often get taken out of context or put together in whatever way
fits the writer's narrative.
And then if you try to correct the record and say "I didn't mean it
like that" then they'll come back with "Well those were your words,
weren't then?" And then what can you do?
But back then, whenever I'd do interviews for the animated shows I
wrote scripts for or the novels I've written, misunderstandings don't
really mean all that much at the end of the day. But this time was
different.
Because this time, there were victims.
Though we had no idea just how many there were at that moment.
And I had almost no knowledge about the actual incident itself.
Even if I had been interviewed, what could I have actually said? "Yes,
it's true that I'm the series organizer for Pokémon. No, I had
no idea an incident like this could happen. We apologize profusely for
everything that's happened." That's about it, right?
But even if I had just said that, the mere fact that someone like the
series organizer apologized meant that he's accepting responsibility
for what happened. In other words, "the Pokémon animated series
is to blame." That's what the mainstream media would write, probably.
So no matter what I said it'd just be filtered through the lens of
whoever was writing up the news story that day.
So if someone comes up to us and asks for a comment and we say "I can't
say anything at this time. I believe an official statement will be made
later" then that's the right way to proceed.
That's how the big publishers who put out those weekly tabloid
magazines get stories about the production of the Pokémon
animated series.
It's like they say, you have to brush the sparks off you before they
cause a fire.
And so they were quick to silence anyone involved with the show.
I was amazed at how quickly and efficiently they moved.
I know people who've gotten phone calls from the mainstream media,
especially from the big newspapers, and then thanks to their half-assed
reporting have had horrible things happen to them. |
Later, he
received a second phone call:
I
got another phone call the day after the incident.
"Hey you, no matter what don't claim any responsibility for what
happened."
"But as the series organizer I can't pretend like I have zero relation
to what happened…"
I'm not good at articulating myself.
The people in my life don't know anything about what it's like to work
in animation.
But they know a whole lot more than I do about how to get along with
other people and groups.
"Now if you go and say that then -- and this is the worst case scenario
-- the things that were done or not done would all become your
responsiblity. Whenever something like this happens it's only natural
for people to want to find someone to point their fingers at, after
all."
I'm really grateful to have received this warning.
But when I asked "Why did you think you had to say this?"
"Because I know you, and you're the type of person to raise your hand
and say "It was me, I'm the one responsible," no matter how big or
small."
"Do I do that?"
"It's kind of become like your catchphrase."
I hadn't noticed that before.
"I'm the one responsible"…maybe that's proof that I think too much
about myself? |
He then
received a third phone call:
That
day I received a third phone call.
It was a doctor from a famous university hospital that I'm friends with.
I would sometimes get information about the medical world and other
hospital matters, stuff your average person wouldn't know about, from
that friend and the nurses there.
"Be sure to watch your drinking. You're the type of person who'll find
any reason to drink your sorrows away. Don't forget about your poor
liver."
"Ah, thank you" I replied.
But that warning came too late.
I was already working my way through some cheap liquor I had gotten
from a vending machine at the ports in Odawara. That phone call made me
stop after that cup, though…if I hadn't gotten that call I probably
would've ended up downing a whole bottle of sake at some bar somewhere.
And so that's what happened on December 17th, 1997, the day after the
incident. I'll talk about the things that happened after that a little
later, but for now I want to go back to my time in the hospital a year
and a half later. |
Mr. Shudo
then goes into a long history about the hospitals in Odawara City
(where he lives) and how they all have a very loyal clientele. After
the history lesson he resumes his story about the girl who was brought
in:
It
was in one of those hopsitals where, at around 7 o'clock at night, when
the day shift had finished handing everything off to the night shift,
when the patients had already finished their dinner for the night, when
the staff was finally able to take a breath for a moment...that's when
a girl was brought in, a girl who had collapsed for some unknown reason.
The doctors and nurses there all rushed into action, doing what was
within their means to treat this patient and try to come up with
a diagnosis.
But they had no idea what had happened to her.
The girl's parents wanted their doctor, the one from this hospital they
had put so much trust in, to tell them that everything was going to be
OK.
That doctor must have been so conflicted.
He couldn't tell them she'd be OK without knowing what was wrong with
her first.
|
If
you know the cause then you can start to look for treatment, but they
didn't even know the cause.
And even if they had taken her to another hospital that specializes in
brain activity they might not have known either.
But if you don't act fast then too much time will have passed.
Why did I have to be on duty at a time like this…it seemed like the
doctors were really at a loss.
But then, at around 11 o'clock that night, information from somewhere
-- they don't remember if it was from the news or if they got a call
from another hospital -- came in saying that patients all over Japan
had succumbed to the same symptoms as the girl in their care.
And so they asked the parents.
"Was your daughter watching Pokémon on TV tonight?"
When they found out she had it seems as if a lightbulb had gone off.
…She's not the only one then.
"This might be a strange way to put this but if other people watched
Pokémon tonight and had the same issues then that weirdly makes
me feel not as scared."
It's like crossing a traffic light while it's still red…if everyone
starts doing it then it's not so scary. I guess.
Eventually, they decided to keep the girl overnight for observation,
and then once they confirmed that she was back to normal they released
her to her parents the next day.
All of this was told to me a year and a half after the fact.
I forced a laugh when they told me this, but when it was actually
happening I wasn't laughing at all.
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