My memories of Hitogata

Here’s how I remember the commercial:

-It was in English.

-It may or may not have been from the Ad Council.

-I’m from the Philly/South Jersey area, and my stations at the time were CBS 3 (KYW), 6 ABC (WPVI), NBC 10 (WCAU), The WB 11 (unknown call letters), PBS 12 (WHYY), The WB 17 (WPHL), PBS/NJN 23 (WNJS), FOX 29 (WTXF, aired on channel 5 on our old setup), and UPN 57 (WPSG).

-I only remember it playing on one of those stations, though I cannot rule out that it played on cable.

-I don’t remember much except the people, and I don’t remember there being a background. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t, but I just don’t remember it.

-It had nothing to do with trains or railroads when I saw it.

-I can’t remember the length, and it could have been 15, 30, or 60 seconds. Most likely 30, only because how long can they show the same thing. I may even remember multiple times.

-It revolved around “Every two minutes...” or “Every two seconds...” I specifically remember the number “two” instead of “2”, which meant that it was definitely either made for or properly translated for an English-speaking country.

-It was not for anything related to opioids or opioid overdoses specifically, though it could be related to drug use or drug overdose. It could also be related to drunk driving, with any of the various injuries or deaths related to drunk driving a possible scenario.

-It may have had something to do with children dying from an illness or injury, such as abuse, poverty, accidents, illness, etc. It could also be a child catching an illness, being injured, being abused, etc.

-The simple answer of someone dies every two seconds and someone is born every two seconds cannot be ruled out.

-If someone or a child dies every two seconds, that’s 30 per minute, 1,800 per hour, 42,000 per day, and 15,330,000 per year. If it’s every two minutes, that’s 30 per hour, 720 per day, and 262,800 per year. Run those stats and see what we get.

-This was definitely a PSA of some sort. I can’t recall any non-PSA that was even remotely like this, while PSAs generally can be. This one in specific I remember to be a PSA.

-While I can’t remember the figures specifically, they may have been the nondescript figures everyone else claims to have seen, and they may have been children. The children also may have changed in between flashes. For example, child A and child B are there *clang* child A disappears *clang* child C appears *clang* child B disappears *clang* child D appears, and so on.

-There’s also a chance the children in the commercial were either deformed and/or injured in some way.

-At some point, the scene fades to black while the sound continues, and the “Every two seconds...” or “Every two minutes...” appears.

-In the shorter version, it flashes a few times, then the first message, then the second message (which is the more direct one of course), then either the commercial ends or it shows the Ad Council logo and websites in question and ends. This happens after roughly 8 seconds. The longer version fades into “Every...” after about 15 seconds. Then it goes back to the flashing, then to the second message, then either ends or shows the Ad Council logo and websites.

-I specifically remember the children being white, so maybe this is an American remake of the original Japanese commercial.

-While I can’t remember the last time I saw this commercial, it was in or before 2012. I saw it roughly ten times in my life.

Hopefully all this helps, and we can find this strange commercial someday.