SirMax wrote:Sorry if this has been covered before, but one of my friends is convinced that there is no reason for Hanako's burns to be as obvious as they are with the advent of advanced cosmetic surgery.
Has Hanako had all the possible treatments and it was just worst before?
Can she just not afford plastic surgery?
Short version: wrong in context, correct in context, and likely not.
Longer version: I'm not going to go into precise details because of obviously spoiler-y information, but you can assume that Hanako is very, very lucky to be alive at all, based on the extent and severity of her original burns. She has to be, though - she's an eroge heroine
. Surgery, even today, can only do so much and even then only over so much time.
Japan has a system of universal health coverage, but it is rather complex. I'm not going to pretend that I understand it entirely, but Hanako ought to fall under it, paying roughly 30% of inpatient/outpatient costs, up to a certain ceiling.
Time for exhibit A: minor blepharoplasty (eye-tuck) procedure costs. The procedure is pretty much the tiniest thing you can have that qualifies as surgery, lasts literally minutes, requires very small cuts and very few stitches, and so it practically requires no convalescence.
Current-day converted cost: approximately 500-2000 USD.
A "mid-weight" procedure, such as breast implants, a complicated nose, or facelift, STARTS at over 6500 USD. Ballpark the recovery at 3-6 weeks, while we're at it. Hanako's scarring, I'll remind, is NOT in the mid-weight range, requiring multiple staggered procedures over each interested area.
And notice that I'm not even considering the actual pre-stabilization burn treatment; other physiological factors; and psychological factors. Things add up, very quickly, both in amount of time required and in cost.
To sum it up, Hanako's situation is not nearly as unlikely as your friend thinks, nevermind considering our artistic licence. In a sense, I'm flattered to hear that my colleagues' work in Japan (and by extension, mine) is so highly thought of, but I
wish it were that easy.
