Too Thin and Falling Through Gaps: Popular Drug Sales Suspended — Railway Company 'Physically Impossible to Detect'

Major pharmaceutical company Mobius Pharmacy announced on the 12th the voluntary recall and suspension of sales of their record-breaking hit oral diet drug, “Slim Zero”. This is due to a series of cases where users lost their physical thickness, falling below the “minimum mass and surface area for a human being” expected by living infrastructure. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has issued an unprecedented warning, describing it as “a crisis of maintaining existence rather than a health hazard.”

The situation came to light early this month on the platform of a private railway station in Tokyo. Amidst the rush hour crowd, a male office worker in his 30s was smoothly sucked into the gap of just a few centimeters between the train and the platform, just like a letter being dropped into a mailbox. The station staff who rescued him recounted with a pale face, “When I pulled the customer up from the gap, he was so thin I thought my fingers would get cut.” According to railway companies, there have been over 40 similar falling incidents in the past week.

“Slim Zero” boasted the revolutionary mechanism of transferring fat cells to a different dimensional pocket, gaining explosive popularity with the slogan, “The more you eat, the thinner you get.” However, as a result of the effect going too far, the users’ bodies are infinitely approaching two dimensions from three dimensions. Dr. Kenta Usui, a physical body physician at Tokyo Metropolitan Central Hospital, sounded the alarm: “Medically, they are extremely healthy. However, physically, they have exceeded the limit of being recognized as an ‘object’. If they turn sideways, they cannot be seen; if they face forward, they are paper-thin. This is no longer dieting, but a defection of dimensions.”

Confusion is spreading in the city due to “people who are too thin.” There have been numerous troubles where automatic doors of convenience stores and office buildings fail to detect their presence and do not open. This is because infrared sensors pass right through their bodies. On the streets of Tokyo, office workers catching the strong spring winds and flying in the sky like kites have been witnessed, causing a commotion that required the fire department to be dispatched. One user posted on social media, “I almost got sucked in when I walked near a ventilation fan. It’s life-threatening even inside the house,” which gathered 100,000 “likes.”

Railway companies are also throwing their hands up in the air. A spokesperson for Toto Railway explained, “Current fall detection mats and sensors are strictly designed for three-dimensional humans. The phenomenon of customers as thin as paper slipping into gaps can only be described as a physics bug, and detection is impossible.” As a countermeasure, they are rushing to physically cover the platform gaps with duct tape, but an impact on operations is inevitable.

As an emergency response, Mobius has started distributing “Presence Enhancement Kits” for free to existing users. This is a set consisting of heavy shoulder pads sewn with lead, thick-soled boots, and special paint that reflects infrared rays. However, many users refuse to wear them, claiming they ruin their fashion sense. Complaints are pouring in: “I took it to lose weight and become beautiful, so why do I have to wear heavy equipment like I’m at a construction site?”

People who are gradually losing their physical sense of reality as a price for acquiring ultimate thinness. When the standards of beauty collide with the laws of physics, perhaps people are destined to disappear into the gaps. Please watch your step on the station platform. What’s falling might not be a ticket, but your boss.

Stakeholder Comments

• Victim user (female in her 20s): “I’m scared to walk over the mesh of drain covers. It’s not my heels getting stuck, it’s me getting stuck.”
• Railway company technical staff: “The motion sensors keep judging it as a ‘malfunction (no one is there)’. It’s impossible for us to revise the definition of a human being any further.”
• Mobius development chief: “We said it would reduce fat, but we didn’t say it would erase thickness. It’s a difference in interpretation.”
• Automatic door sensor: “To me, things that don’t reflect light are the same as air. No offense.”
• On-site rescue team member: “Dispatch calls increase on windy days. I’m sick of catching salarymen caught on power lines with a net.”
• Fashion critic: “The ultimate skinny means becoming the clothes themselves. They are too cutting-edge, physically sharp.”
• Izakaya owner: “Lately, it often happens that I think it’s a shop curtain (noren) and pass through it, only to find it was a customer.”
• Dry cleaner: “I almost end up pressing the customer themselves along with their dress shirt. I want them to wear a tag.”
• Physicist: “This is a serious challenge to the law of conservation of mass. Where did the calories they ate disappear to?”
• The Gap: “I never thought the day would come when I’d be the main character. I’m always waiting.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Spring breeze blows, people fly up, a journey in the sky
• Drafty wind, inescapable on the station platform
• Too skinny, even automatic doors don’t react
• More fragile than treading on thin ice, my body
• Fat leaves, shadow thins out, early afternoon
• Ignored by the sensor, I knock on the glass door
• Flying a kite? No, it’s the section chief, spring sky
• The drain cover, an abyss swallowing me up
• Shaving off dimensions for the sake of beauty, such folly
• Wearing lead, finally knowing the weight of being human

Kanji / Chinese Characters

PhysicsBugOccurred SuperWeightLossDrugUsersConsecutivelyDisappearing StationGapFallsFrequent AutomaticDoorDetectionImpossible WindBlownOfficeWorkersSurge ManufacturerLeadClothingRecommended ThreeDimensionsMaintenanceLimit

Emoji

💊📉🚶‍♂️➡️🕳️😱🚉👀🚫🚪🌬️🍃🎈💼🏢🙅‍♂️

Onomatopoeia

Flutter, flap. Swoosh, plop. Silence… (automatic door). Clatter (heavy lead equipment). Whoosh (strong wind). Flip. Miss. Spinning. Thump (hitting the glass). Float.

SNS

• #SlimZeroVictimsAssociation Tired of jumping in front of automatic doors…
• The gap between the train and the platform looks like a death game again today💀 #commute
• My boss got blown away by the wind and left work early. So jealous.
• Were the holes in the drain covers always this wide? A lifeline is mandatory.
• [Urgent] How to gain weight (other than fat)
• The lead-lined jacket is too heavy lol. This is just muscle training.
• I’m so thin that my smartphone’s face ID won’t react.
• I’ve acquired the skill where if I turn sideways in the city, no one notices me. Am I a ninja?
• #PhysicsBug I couldn’t get a judgment as a human being.
• Ultimate diet success! However, physical interference seems to be bugged.