Nuclear Boy

Shortly after the Fukushima Daiichi reactors started failing in March 2011, a Japanese animator produced a short video explaining the nuclear crisis to children using the metaphor of a boy with catastrophic stomach problems. Nuclear Boy might poop everywhere—or he might not—and all the adults in the story were doing their desperate best to make sure he didn’t. It works as an explanation because the underlying mechanics are essentially identical: containment, pressure, the specific dread of watching something hold while knowing it might not. The fact that a poop metaphor communicated what the official press conferences couldn’t says everything about how badly the public language was failing people. It’s funny in the way only genuinely terrible situations can produce something funny. Everything really was just shit.