This is only really discussed in full in the manga and not the anime (I've yet to play the games in any form), but the reason Takano's research was downtrodden despite his wealthy influential friend liking it is because, allegedly (this is a historical point I'm not good on) Japan got involved in WWII due to fighting with China, and the inciting incident was a gunfight at a bridge. As far as I know, the true inciter is currently still unknown, but China and Japan have argued that the other shot first: though, again, I don't really know for myself, Higurashi frames the question of who shot first as a matter of legitimacy for the other side. It also states that a soldier from Hinamizawa was at the bridge incident, so therefore, if Hinamizawa Syndrome was to become public knowledge, it would inevitably lead to the public conclusion that there was a very high possibility that that soldier may have been responsible for the inciting shot, thus badly damaging Japan's defensive claims that China shot first. Hence, politicians in Japan put pressure on Koizumi to shut Hifumi Takano up and also discredited his thesis as much as possible, which we did see in the anime.

June 3rd, 2020

Such a small thing. A small, meaningless thing.

Or, perhaps, not such a small thing after all.

Unseen by Koizumi-sensei, her fist clenches under the table.

This, she wants to scream and spit at the world, this is why her beloved Grandfather's valuable research was cast into shame and obscurity?

Politics?

The greedy squabblings of a few stupid, rich old men. That was what had driven the man who had taken her in from that hellish orphanage and treated her as his own blood to work himself into an early grave.

Politics.

Realistically, the analytical part of her mind argues, their decision does make a certain amount of sense. Horrific things had spread across the world as a result of what many were calling the Second World War. Many deaths and much suffering had been cast by Japan's involvement. It was not irrational to try to shift the blame for getting involved to begin with –to avoid it, in this case, rather.

But still.

It made her teeth grind.

There were terrible, unforeseen possibilities in the disease her Grandfather had tried to bring to light in the world. Her research –it could shake the foundations of religion, of the understanding of civilized thought. In the future it created, the mindset and beliefs of today may very well become as laughable, as primitive as those early cavemen trying to cut holes in each other's skulls to let out the wicked spirits that "caused" mental illnesses. A parasite in the brain? It sounded like the work of science fiction, and yet: so had the idea the earth revolved around the sun, so had the idea that diseases were caused by germs, so had many, many other things that existed before science fiction and yet now, despite a thousand howls of blind stupid old politicians, had become widely accepted fact.

There was a Belgian, she believed, a Nobel Prize winner by the name of Maurice Maeterlinck, and in one of her textbooks as a child she had run across an interesting phrase of his.

"At every crossway on the road that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past."

Guarding the past was all very well and good, and those fat old fools could do it until they fell into their own graves and became part of the past they so dogmatically protected. What Miyo took issue with was their attempts to meddle with her future, the chosen future of every human being on earth. Hinamizawa Syndrome, and its accompanying viral branches, were a discovery that would rock worlds. Human understanding would be shattered. They would learn so much, probe so much deeper into the root of all human thought and religion, perhaps unlock the very secrets of life and death themselves. It wasn't impossible: a disease that altered thoughts, what did that mean for the human soul? For the afterlife? For gods and spirits and demons and a thousand other things people had thought they'd seen?

And standing there, a block between her and that wonderous, glorious future that spread out endlessly like a jeweled tapestry climbing up a mountain, was a few dozen, no more, a few dozen dozing, complacent, balding politicians more concerned with covering their ample seats than anything else. There were nonentities, and could have been produced in a factory for all their mind-numbing similarities.

Wealthy, wanting more. One or two vices, bordering from the venial to the truly corrupt. Male, usually at least slightly overweight. Stern glances and inflexible opinions. Marginally devoted to their family and charity in front of cameras, obsessed with the delicate dance of gaining and building political and temporal power every other second of every other day.

It was infuriating. There wasn't a single damn one of them who wouldn't be repeated down the line of history, endlessly, like a parade of stupid little clockwork dolls that never changed or did anything truly worthwhile except, maybe, keep the country running.

It grated on her beyond belief that these men were capable of blocking her path.

So obsessed with making history, of changing it, of hiding it, that they denied the future.

Well, she'd show them. She'd show them all.

They could bury Hinamizawa Syndrome as deep as they liked: she'd rip it out of the world and carve the proof of its existence out in bloody letters so that no one, no civilian, no foreigner, and no politicians would be able to deny the history she'd made.

And with Koizumi-sensei's help, she'd get there soon.

1.00 PM, USA Central Time