Five episodes in and I am still very much enjoying Kuuchuu Buranko. Every patient of Dr. Irabu so far has their psychological disorder resolved, and whatever social, psychological, physical symptoms caused by the illness are curious and not particularly severe, and mostly mended by the end of each episode. The case studies presented so far are rather ideal. In real life, however, the landscape of abnormal psychology is much grimmer. Although I do not know the exact statistics, recalling from the psychology textbooks and academic articles I have read, a significant portion of those suffering from mental illness are never cured, or if incurable, whose treatment are partially or completely unresponsive. Of course, the cure or successful treatment rate is highly dependent on the nature of the disorder itself. Anyways, that is only considering the recorded cases. Imagine those unreported ones who suffer from mental illness but for whatever reason, lack of money, shame, unawareness, etc…, do not ever seek professional help. Not only that, there are extremely debilitating psychological disorders, such catatonic schizophrenia, or suicidal depression, that would essentially require the poor soul to be hospitalized in an asylum. What would lend verity and more depth to Kuuchuu Buranko is showing a few cases where the patient is afflicted with a severe psychological disorder, and/or the patient takes a turn for the worse, perhaps even tragically so. The show could sustain its trend and continue with its rose colored perception of abnormal psychology where everyone has a happy end. The show would be benign, but not believable, and it would miss an opportunity to make a serious but accurate statement(s) on field of abnormal psychology.
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