Vi

Milgram sideblog. Here I think about Kirisaki Shidou.

[throw-down-enjoyer]

Welcome to the blog. All you need to know is that I am Throw Down’s #1 fan and a diehard Shidou apologist

I may occasionally post art or just reblog it from my main

Please read my dissertation on Shidou https://www.tumblr.com/throw-down-enjoyer/756898945461010432/organ-donation-compassion-fatigue-and-japanese

Organ donation, compassion fatigue, and Japanese perspectives on brain death

I don’t think Shidou’s sin was actually a crime (as in, it was perfectly legal) and I’m going to explain why. This is essentially a very lon

[throw-down-enjoyer]

anyone else really into green apples

[throw-down-enjoyer]

I miss Shidou

[dai-mondai]

So, is there any mention of the Truck Driver anywhere? (Quick Look)

There is like nothinggg, it's almost funny, but there isn't absolutely nothing! Just, almost nothing. More like implications. It's something haha

Went back to look for any clues, and while there isn't much in his MV, there is a small bit else where

The Second Trial Character Voice Trailer

"You're in my way...hurry up and die"

His glitched voiceline in Trial 2, which @ricebagel pointed out here! Which puts this voiceline into perspective since he does not sound like he's talking to a brain-dead patient. I never really understood this voiceline so kind of cool to see what it was probably for.

It's also one of the few events we get information from the Prisoners that is not permitted by them, since these voicelines are given from before and after the murders without the Prisoner's input, the only time Shidou willingly mentions the Truck Driver because it's from his only interaction with them.

The title: Triage

It was a devastating accident, and it was clear that both his wife and children would not survive without immediate care. (Shidou Kirisaki Report)

Both his family and the Truck Driver needed immediate care, but as the husband and father to his wife and kids, he was instead tasked with the Truck Driver recovery.

Shidou's head was in a panic, but his hands moved automatically. He quietly killed the truck driver, taking care to make it look unintentional. He thought, the sooner he was done with this surgery, the sooner he could take care of his own family. (Shidou Kirisaki Report)

If the Truck Driver unfortunately died, than his family would be the main ones that need immediate care. All resources would go to them. Kind of bizarre he was permitted to treat his family, chalk it up more to narrative than reality, he would have to either be the most qualified person there (doubt) or fellow doctors agreed to just, let him (odd).

Triage as the title of brain-dead patients is also weird, since triage is always about trying to get aid to those who need help the most quickly, not what to do with (brain-)dead patients.

The Second Trial Teaser Movie

"Have you ever extracted someone's insides...? There's no difference in the value of a human life. So I... will save the people I want to save."

Alternatively: "Have you ever taken someone's insides out? It doesn't change. The weight of a human life. It doesn't change. ...So I save the people I want to save."

(a couple of translations because I had to google-translate)

This line can be seen to be towards his brain-dead patients, but with the line that he will "save the people I want to save" there's the implication of "I won't save the people I don't want to save", and it's sounds more direct choice, as opposed to the "it couldn't be helped" attitude towards his brain-dead patients originally. It also a lot more personal energy here than towards the strangers that his brain-dead patients were.

There is not much else, but it's interesting to say the least!

[sarachidouin]

I would also like to point out some lines from his second VD (translation by @onigiriico)

We learn here that he did something else beyond the organ transplants. At the same time, the VD pretty much denies the organ harvesting theory, so we know this is about something else.

This could hint that he committed a crime for the sake of his family, but organ transplants done as part of his job wouldn't quite count as that. The fact he killed the truck driver is very consistent with this passage.

And much like he did in the first VD, he confirms he killed for selfish reasons, which still doesn't add up with the organ transplants he did as a doctor, but adds up with killing the driver.

[throw-down-enjoyer]

Organ donation, compassion fatigue, and Japanese perspectives on brain death

I don’t think Shidou’s sin was actually a crime (as in, it was perfectly legal) and I’m going to explain why. This is essentially a very long Kirisaki Shidou Is Not An Organ Harvester post

To start: Shidou’s sin was convincing the families of braindead patients to donate their relatives’ organs. He confirms doing this in his T2 voice drama, and the way he words it makes it clear he thinks of it as murder. (He does say that this is only half of his sin, but we’ll get to the other half later.)

You know, I… continuously tried to persuade the relatives of braindead patients who were against organ transplants.

“In order to save the life of someone you don’t know, please let me kill your family member,” I told them.

It doesn’t even take much thinking to realize how cruel that is, but… I didn’t realize that until the very end.

Translation used: https://youtu.be/9xmokVJ-6x4?si=VgcIp5LCdNnUwqUW

Brain death is the irreversible, complete loss of brain function, meaning there’s no chance for a braindead patient to ever come back. Because of this, some people may feel that removing life support from a braindead patient doesn’t constitute murder. It definitely doesn’t constitute murder from a legal perspective, but it makes sense why someone might think of it as murder— especially in Japan.

Japanese perspectives on brain death

In evaluating Shidou’s case, we have to consider the cultural context within which it was written. Many people in Japan do not consider brain death as human death, and brain death cannot be declared without consent from the family and the intention to donate organs. In fact, braindead patients are not removed from life support until their heart stops beating. Shidou isn’t being dramatic when he frames his words as basically saying, “please let me kill your family member.”

Brain death is a very contentious topic in Japan—Doctors are put under scrutiny for declaring brain death and performing organ transplants. It’s important to know that in Japan, brain death only exists in relation to organ transplants. And only certain designated hospitals will do this. Even more so, if a person writes an advance directive asking to be taken off of life support in the case of brain death, doctors are not required to follow it. And many of them don’t, out of fear of the patient’s family lashing out at them.

Only in 2010 was Japan’s Organ Transplant Law revised so that organ transplants could be performed without prior consent from the brain dead patient (now only requiring consent from the family).

Here’s a couple of scholarly articles on the topic if you’d like to read more about it.

https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12910-021-00626-2

Background In an increasingly globalized world, legal protocols related to health care that are both effective and culturally sensitive are

https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2022.0019

Project MUSE - An American’s Experience with End-of-Life Care in Japan: Comparing Brain Death, Limiting and Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Inte

Another very important facet of this discussion is how low organ donation rates are in Japan. To give you an idea, here’s a chart showing the per million population of donations after brain death (DBD) and donations after cardiac death (DCD) in a few different countries.

Sourced from this article, which has some other interesting statistics as well: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpr.2023.100131

As you can see, Japan’s rates are astronomically low in comparison to other countries. This helps to contextualize why Shidou had to try so hard to persuade families to donate, and why he later became extremely desperate when his wife’s life was on the line.

I’ve seen a lot of people confused about Shidou’s crime, and many speculations about him doing heinous things such as organ harvesting or purposefully botching surgeries—but I think this is because we’re approaching the case with a western perspective. As we know, many (if not all) of the Milgram prisoners represent a controversial social issue. Brain death is not nearly as divisive in western medicine as it is in Japan, so it’s easy to overlook the idea that all Shidou actually did was take organs from braindead patients. Perspectives on brain death in Japan have changed a lot in the past couple of decades, but it’s still quite controversial; because of this, I truly believe that this is the point of contention behind Shidou’s case, and there’s nothing more sinister secretly going on.

Compassion fatigue

Compassion fatigue is commonly thought to be the manifestation of secondary traumatic stress and burnout, caused by caring for others who are in stressful situations. This commonly affects people who work in healthcare.

I believe Shidou experienced compassion fatigue from working in the hospital, as he exhibits some of the symptoms—in particular, a reduced sense of empathy and a detachment from others.

I feel that Throw Down makes a lot of sense when you view it from this angle.

Lyrical analysis on Throw Down

Shidou expresses that he no longer remembers what it feels like to take away in order to give.

Pomegranates represent death in Greek mythology, and I believe that’s what they represent here too. Shidou has become desensitized to death; the pomegranate no longer has any flavor.

If it’s not needed, I’m not interested

Shidou only thought about what was physically necessary to keep a patient alive, and remained emotionally distant.

They’re dead either way, so it doesn’t really matter to him.

Now slowly close your eye, put your regret on display

Wish for being there for someone

With the same expression no matter who comes

This is the part that most makes me think of compassion fatigue—Shidou had difficulty expressing empathy for grieving families and had to fake it.

I don’t feel scared because I don’t know

Shidou didn’t understand what it was like to be in that situation. But now that it’s happened to him… he understands. And, looking back, he understands how unkind he had been about all of it. This is why he considers himself to be a murderer, why he truly believes that he has killed many people.

Ethics is a delusion

This is a line that definitely struck me as odd for awhile, but I think it makes sense in the context of his situation. His sin was not illegal—but is it ethical? That’s what all of this—whether you forgive him or not—hinges on.

The other half of Shidou’s sin

Going back to what I said earlier, Shidou’s sin wasn’t only convincing families to donate their relatives’ organs. His sin is also transplanting his son’s organs in an attempt to save his wife.

I believe that Shidou’s family got into a car accident, which resulted in his older child experiencing brain death and his wife being left in critical condition (and the younger child presumably died immediately). Considering the views surrounding brain death in Japan, it would have been difficult to find a donor, so Shidou became desperate enough to transplant his son’s organs. Since he’s the father, there wouldn’t have been any issues with receiving consent for the transplant.

Some people believe it’s the other way around—that he transplanted his wife’s organs into his son—but I believe otherwise, for multiple reasons.

In Shidou’s T1 voice drama, he expresses relief at the fact that his judgment is being determined by Es, who is a child. This makes sense if he feels that he killed his son.

Instead of being told by the law that I won’t be forgiven, I wanted a child like you, Es, to tell me that.

I feel sorry that you had to be given this role. And, I truly apologize for being so insistent about sentencing me to death as well… But, you’re perfect. You’ll give me the ending I’m most suited for.

Translation used: https://youtu.be/C4MiQ3V3YjQ?si=hPmlUkc6BfdcacNg

Additionally, a few scenes in Triage…

As stated before, I interpret the pomegranates to represent death. Shidou brings home three pomegranates, one for each of his family members. He later hands his son a price tag from the pomegranates—a representation of Shidou sentencing him to death.

And at the end of Throw Down, an organ tag falls out of the flower person. The name seems to read “Rei Kirisaki” and has XY marked, probably indicating that the donor is male.

Not to mention, it’s much more plausible for the flower person to represent Shidou’s wife rather than his son. When the person falls apart, there’s a shot of a red rose—the flower most known for representing romantic love—falling out of them.

Final thoughts and conclusion

To summarize: Shidou used to routinely try to persuade the families of braindead patients to donate their relatives’ organs. Despite that the prevailing thought in Japan is that brain death is not human death, Shidou did not think of it this way.

Shidou’s family later got into an accident; he transplanted his braindead son’s organs in an attempt to save his wife, but it was a failure, resulting in her death. This situation made him reflect on his past actions—he did not consider it murder before to discontinue life support on a patient, but now that he did it to his son, his perspective has changed. Everything he has done is within the confines of the law, but he is now burdened with immense guilt and thinks himself a murderer. Not just in regards to his son, but to all of the patients that he had pulled the plug on.

Side note: I don’t think having low empathy is inherently a bad thing (I have naturally low empathy), but in this context it would make sense for Shidou to feel bad about lacking empathy.

Side note 2: Shidou is a surgeon, so it is entirely possible he personally performed the transplant on his wife. Operating on family members isn’t illegal or anything, but is widely considered to be unethical and not really a good idea.

Well, that’s all I had to say—Feel free to either add on to this theory or debate me on it. This post ended up quite long, so thank you for reading!

[throw-down-enjoyer]

I may have not been 100% correct but I feel So vindicated

[vi-violetrose]

tHIS DOGMA caN’t BE STOpped

[throw-down-enjoyer]

Wahhhh…. Life MV was fantastic. There’s a LOT to unpack so I shall give it another look later and maybe share my thoughts

[throw-down-enjoyer]

THERE’S TOO MUCH NEW CONTENT TO TALK ABOUT HELP

[throw-down-enjoyer]

Organ donation, compassion fatigue, and Japanese perspectives on brain death

I don’t think Shidou’s sin was actually a crime (as in, it was perfectly legal) and I’m going to explain why. This is essentially a very long Kirisaki Shidou Is Not An Organ Harvester post

To start: Shidou’s sin was convincing the families of braindead patients to donate their relatives’ organs. He confirms doing this in his T2 voice drama, and the way he words it makes it clear he thinks of it as murder. (He does say that this is only half of his sin, but we’ll get to the other half later.)

You know, I… continuously tried to persuade the relatives of braindead patients who were against organ transplants.

“In order to save the life of someone you don’t know, please let me kill your family member,” I told them.

It doesn’t even take much thinking to realize how cruel that is, but… I didn’t realize that until the very end.

Translation used: https://youtu.be/9xmokVJ-6x4?si=VgcIp5LCdNnUwqUW

Brain death is the irreversible, complete loss of brain function, meaning there’s no chance for a braindead patient to ever come back. Because of this, some people may feel that removing life support from a braindead patient doesn’t constitute murder. It definitely doesn’t constitute murder from a legal perspective, but it makes sense why someone might think of it as murder— especially in Japan.

Japanese perspectives on brain death

In evaluating Shidou’s case, we have to consider the cultural context within which it was written. Many people in Japan do not consider brain death as human death, and brain death cannot be declared without consent from the family and the intention to donate organs. In fact, braindead patients are not removed from life support until their heart stops beating. Shidou isn’t being dramatic when he frames his words as basically saying, “please let me kill your family member.”

Brain death is a very contentious topic in Japan—Doctors are put under scrutiny for declaring brain death and performing organ transplants. It’s important to know that in Japan, brain death only exists in relation to organ transplants. And only certain designated hospitals will do this. Even more so, if a person writes an advance directive asking to be taken off of life support in the case of brain death, doctors are not required to follow it. And many of them don’t, out of fear of the patient’s family lashing out at them.

Only in 2010 was Japan’s Organ Transplant Law revised so that organ transplants could be performed without prior consent from the brain dead patient (now only requiring consent from the family).

Here’s a couple of scholarly articles on the topic if you’d like to read more about it.

https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12910-021-00626-2

Background In an increasingly globalized world, legal protocols related to health care that are both effective and culturally sensitive are

https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2022.0019

Project MUSE - An American’s Experience with End-of-Life Care in Japan: Comparing Brain Death, Limiting and Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Inte

Another very important facet of this discussion is how low organ donation rates are in Japan. To give you an idea, here’s a chart showing the per million population of donations after brain death (DBD) and donations after cardiac death (DCD) in a few different countries.

Sourced from this article, which has some other interesting statistics as well: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpr.2023.100131

As you can see, Japan’s rates are astronomically low in comparison to other countries. This helps to contextualize why Shidou had to try so hard to persuade families to donate, and why he later became extremely desperate when his wife’s life was on the line.

I’ve seen a lot of people confused about Shidou’s crime, and many speculations about him doing heinous things such as organ harvesting or purposefully botching surgeries—but I think this is because we’re approaching the case with a western perspective. As we know, many (if not all) of the Milgram prisoners represent a controversial social issue. Brain death is not nearly as divisive in western medicine as it is in Japan, so it’s easy to overlook the idea that all Shidou actually did was take organs from braindead patients. Perspectives on brain death in Japan have changed a lot in the past couple of decades, but it’s still quite controversial; because of this, I truly believe that this is the point of contention behind Shidou’s case, and there’s nothing more sinister secretly going on.

Compassion fatigue

Compassion fatigue is commonly thought to be the manifestation of secondary traumatic stress and burnout, caused by caring for others who are in stressful situations. This commonly affects people who work in healthcare.

I believe Shidou experienced compassion fatigue from working in the hospital, as he exhibits some of the symptoms—in particular, a reduced sense of empathy and a detachment from others.

I feel that Throw Down makes a lot of sense when you view it from this angle.

Lyrical analysis on Throw Down

Shidou expresses that he no longer remembers what it feels like to take away in order to give.

Pomegranates represent death in Greek mythology, and I believe that’s what they represent here too. Shidou has become desensitized to death; the pomegranate no longer has any flavor.

If it’s not needed, I’m not interested

Shidou only thought about what was physically necessary to keep a patient alive, and remained emotionally distant.

They’re dead either way, so it doesn’t really matter to him.

Now slowly close your eye, put your regret on display

Wish for being there for someone

With the same expression no matter who comes

This is the part that most makes me think of compassion fatigue—Shidou had difficulty expressing empathy for grieving families and had to fake it.

I don’t feel scared because I don’t know

Shidou didn’t understand what it was like to be in that situation. But now that it’s happened to him… he understands. And, looking back, he understands how unkind he had been about all of it. This is why he considers himself to be a murderer, why he truly believes that he has killed many people.

Ethics is a delusion

This is a line that definitely struck me as odd for awhile, but I think it makes sense in the context of his situation. His sin was not illegal—but is it ethical? That’s what all of this—whether you forgive him or not—hinges on.

The other half of Shidou’s sin

Going back to what I said earlier, Shidou’s sin wasn’t only convincing families to donate their relatives’ organs. His sin is also transplanting his son’s organs in an attempt to save his wife.

I believe that Shidou’s family got into a car accident, which resulted in his older child experiencing brain death and his wife being left in critical condition (and the younger child presumably died immediately). Considering the views surrounding brain death in Japan, it would have been difficult to find a donor, so Shidou became desperate enough to transplant his son’s organs. Since he’s the father, there wouldn’t have been any issues with receiving consent for the transplant.

Some people believe it’s the other way around—that he transplanted his wife’s organs into his son—but I believe otherwise, for multiple reasons.

In Shidou’s T1 voice drama, he expresses relief at the fact that his judgment is being determined by Es, who is a child. This makes sense if he feels that he killed his son.

Instead of being told by the law that I won’t be forgiven, I wanted a child like you, Es, to tell me that.

I feel sorry that you had to be given this role. And, I truly apologize for being so insistent about sentencing me to death as well… But, you’re perfect. You’ll give me the ending I’m most suited for.

Translation used: https://youtu.be/C4MiQ3V3YjQ?si=hPmlUkc6BfdcacNg

Additionally, a few scenes in Triage…

As stated before, I interpret the pomegranates to represent death. Shidou brings home three pomegranates, one for each of his family members. He later hands his son a price tag from the pomegranates—a representation of Shidou sentencing him to death.

And at the end of Throw Down, an organ tag falls out of the flower person. The name seems to read “Rei Kirisaki” and has XY marked, probably indicating that the donor is male.

Not to mention, it’s much more plausible for the flower person to represent Shidou’s wife rather than his son. When the person falls apart, there’s a shot of a red rose—the flower most known for representing romantic love—falling out of them.

Final thoughts and conclusion

To summarize: Shidou used to routinely try to persuade the families of braindead patients to donate their relatives’ organs. Despite that the prevailing thought in Japan is that brain death is not human death, Shidou did not think of it this way.

Shidou’s family later got into an accident; he transplanted his braindead son’s organs in an attempt to save his wife, but it was a failure, resulting in her death. This situation made him reflect on his past actions—he did not consider it murder before to discontinue life support on a patient, but now that he did it to his son, his perspective has changed. Everything he has done is within the confines of the law, but he is now burdened with immense guilt and thinks himself a murderer. Not just in regards to his son, but to all of the patients that he had pulled the plug on.

Side note: I don’t think having low empathy is inherently a bad thing (I have naturally low empathy), but in this context it would make sense for Shidou to feel bad about lacking empathy.

Side note 2: Shidou is a surgeon, so it is entirely possible he personally performed the transplant on his wife. Operating on family members isn’t illegal or anything, but is widely considered to be unethical and not really a good idea.

Well, that’s all I had to say—Feel free to either add on to this theory or debate me on it. This post ended up quite long, so thank you for reading!

[daniople]

hi OP i love your theory and agree with it wholeheartedly!! i just wanted to include in your post the fascinating detail that his first voice drama was titled 'Molech'

Molech (also known as moloch or molek) was a god whose practices were heavily associated with child sacrifice. with this in mind, im 100% sure you're right on the money with shidou trying to utilize the organs of his son to save his wife

his second voice drama is named 'Aesculapius' after the greed god of medicine. he is the origin of the symbol of the Rod of Asclepius, one thats often associated with shidou. (a fun fact is that shidou's birthday art actually features the incorrect rod! shidou's cake is drawn with the Caduceus, the magic wand of Hermes. it has two snakes instead of one and has no relation to medicine whatsoever but its a very common mistake)

Aescluapius was known as an incredibly proficient healer who could bring the dead back to life. it was for this that he was feared and slain by Zeus. i see similarities in how shidou's profession was regarded and how he, too, wishes to be slain. i think it aligns well with your observation with how japan generally views his medical practices.

[throw-down-enjoyer]

Yes I am alive and YES I have seen the T3 sprites I was just waiting to talk about it because I was unsure about sharing something that was potentially a leak…. Now that we know that some of the sprites are leaks I will only talk about the ones they aren’t

[milgramvisualarchive]

Hello, I know your focus is physical media but there is something I want to share because I don't see it shared often: Yamanaka's drawings of the prisoners. And it'd be nice to have it all in one place (all pictures are linked back to Yamanaka's twitter account via nitter, allowing them to be viewed w/o a twitter account, replies included)

Haruka: Posted 21 June 2020, caption "難しいのね…" ('it's difficult' in the replies he said he can only draw faces and from only one angle)

Amane: Posted 26 June 2020, caption "すんっ" (hmm)

Muu: posted 4 July 2020, caption "むぅずかしい" (a pun on muzukashii meaning difficult and Muu's name), the kana next to her name is 'muu' because she has a habit of making that noise (like a pokemon)

Kazui: posted 4 August 2020, no caption, someone was very happy in the replies lol

Yuno: posted 1 September 2020, caption "ム↑ズゥ⤵︎" (hard to explain but just sort of noises)

Mikoto: Posted 6 October 2020, caption "尊。" (Mikoto.), you can tell this is early days of the project because it has no replies/less retweets than other drawings

Shidou: posted 25 November 2020, caption "遅れてごめんのシドウさん" (Sorry for the late Shidou-san), Shidou's birthday was the 24th October but this drawing and 2020 TL convo were delayed a month due to writer sickness

I feel like I remember a Fuuta drawing too but I can't find Fuuta, Mahiru or Kotoko

Thank you so much for sharing this! I had a quick look myself to see if there were any other illustrations, but came up with nothing too... oh well. Maybe they're out there somewhere!

[throw-down-enjoyer]

so much Shidou content lately. but at what cost

[throw-down-enjoyer]

Throw Down is so peak that we couldn’t have gotten a better song anyway. It’s ok if Shidou’s dead he died an innocent man it’s Fine

[throw-down-enjoyer]

IT’S SHIDOUVERRRRRRRRR

[throw-down-enjoyer]

HAPPY THROW DOWN DAY ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[mikodachi]

long time no watercolor

[thetrashyflower]

Please tell me no one has done this yet