Experiment 3: Silly Costumes
For this experiment, two members of the Seigaku tennis club were recruited to dress up in potentially amusing costumes based on previous assessment of their willingness to dress up and the probability that Tezuka would find this amusing. A third member volunteered and was included in hopes of maximizing the likelihood of laughter. Fuji Syuusuke and Echizen Ryoma dressed as women, with clothing generously donated by the Kikumaru family. Preliminary tests found that 100 of observers had reactions of shock upon seeing them, followed by laughter in 92 of cases. No tests were done to determine whether Horio Satoshi, who chose to dress up as a dinosaur for reasons that will not be discussed here (5), was amusing to anyone. Costumes are shown in Figure 1.
The three costumed members arrived early at afternoon practice and positioned themselves at key points around the court before Tezuka's arrival. The subject immediately noticed Fuji and Echizen, but no surprise or amusement was detectable in his expression or behavior by even the most sensitive of measurements. The only observable reaction was an order to the two regulars to go change immediately and run 100 laps before rejoining practice. Horio appeared to go completely unnoticed for the five minutes before he left of his own volition. (Upon returning, he was told to run 50 laps for his late arrival.)
From this experiment, we must conclude that Tezuka does not find silly costumes worthy of laughter. No conclusions can be drawn from his lack of observable shock, as this could be due to a number of factors ranging from extreme self control to having seen Fuji and/or Echizen in similar attire at some previous point. (No data is available as to what the most likely reason is, and the researchers would prefer to leave that question to others with less of a potential conflict of interest.) There is a possibility that different costumes on different people might be more successful in inducing laughter, but given Tezuka's complete lack of reaction, we believe this is highly unlikely and have therefore chosen to abandon this avenue of experimentation.
5. Echizen, R. (2004). "Incontrovertible proof that Horio is an idiot". Journal of People No One Cares About. Volume 87, pp. 300-462.
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Author's Note: To see this story in its proper form complete with figures and a little extra text that I couldn't include due to formatting issues, check out my livejournal (link in my profile, as I can't get it to work here).
Apologies for the shortness of this installment, but I may not have time to write the next one for a while, so I figured I'd post this while I had a chance. Coming up next, Experiment 3: Puns...