Common Health Problems in Anime Part 3: from fake drowning to finger sucking!

sexy but wrong

It’s been more than two weeks since the first and second parts of ‘Common Health Problems n Anime’ were published. I was emotionally distracted by the rainy weather and I felt tired all the time. Anyway, in this third part, I am discussing some of the most common accidents and injuries from anime. Let’s begin!

Finger cuts and finger sucking

Finger cut is hardly serious in reality but in anime, finger cut is a specific condition that only happens to specific population in specific circumstance and it requires very specific treatment; sounds important! This condition exclusively happens in the kitchen. The incidence has female to male ratio of 10:1 or more. Many factors must also be present in order to make it happen. Firstly, in most case, the injured is cooking (or chopping carrots). Secondly, the injured is never alone while the incident occurs. And lastly, the one who is with the patient when the injury happens almost always has romantic relationship (sometimes secretly) with her. This witness can be male or female, it doesn’t matter.

Now the most important part is the treatment. For cuts or wounds in reality, you need to clean it first and compress it to stop the bleeding. You may apply antiseptics later and if the cut is large, suture may be indicated. In contrast to reality, these protocols are useless or have never been used in anime. In anime, the only way to cure finger cuts is to put the said finger in your lover’s mouth and let him/her suck it passionately. Despite the fact that human’s mouth is full of bacteria that can infect the wound, finger sucking seems to be the only effective cure for finger cuts in anime.

leg cramp...how typical

Pool accidents, Drowning and CPR

In real life, accidents commonly happen on streets and highways. In anime, beaches and pools are extremely dangerous especially for high school girls wearing nosebleed-inducing swimsuits. The accident can occur in several ways; the girl gets leg cramps and drown, the girl can’t swim but stupidly jumps in the pool anyway, the girl’s leg gets tangled in seaweed or similar objects, the girl gets pulled down by supernatural beings or the girls simply drown without apparent cause. But beware; sometimes wicked girls fake the accident in the first place!

So what do you do if your friend is drowned? Of course, first call for help and get the victim out of the water. Then determine if she is breathing and if she still has a pulse. CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) must be initiated immediately if she’s not breathing. Before further discussion, you must know that the purpose of performing CPR is to maintain blood flows to the brain by blowing oxygen into the victim’s lung and do the chest compression to push the oxygenated blood to the brain. It’s like the rescuer is trying to do what heart and lungs are supposed to be doing.

yuri kissing is good but it's still not CPR

Now imagine any anime CPR scene. It seems like in anime, CPR is performed to make the victim cough out the aspirated water! The positioning and steps are all WRONG! Plus, direct mouth-to-mouth CPR should be avoided. The worst part of all is that the rescuer is always hesitant and shy and flushed! It eventually boils down to a romantic plot device (sign). But the good news is that despite the awfully wrong CPR or lack of CPR in some cases, the girls usually survive and they often flush afterwards as if they know they have been kissed. In fact, maybe they are all faking!

okay, this girl hurts her toes

but why does she put her whole leg in a cast? and she does it at home all by herself!

Broken bones and other injuries

Broken bones or muscle sprain happen after traumatic incidents or heavy impacts. Broken bone at different location leads to different treatment. Some can heal spontaneously, some needs cast and splints and some needs surgical correction. But in anime, these problems can be solved by either applying short arm cast with arm sling or short leg cast no matter where you are injured.

Let's face it. Rei looks really good with all these pointless bandaging.

Another cure-all method is to use bandaging. Wrap the bandage around the place you are injured and everything is completely cured! The easiest example is when a character get shot or stabbed, they will just wrap bandage around the arms and torso and tada! No more shot wound, no retained bullet and no internal organ injury! This is exactly why I want to live in anime world!

That’s it for the third part. I hope you enjoy reading all these ramblings of mine. For now, I have no plan for further posts in this topic. I will go back to my beloved anime review in my next post.