Detective! Night Scoop: A woman in her 50s who wants to go down the stairs without using the handrail.

"Detective! Night Scoop" (ABC TV, Fridays at 11:17 PM) is a popular variety show where "detectives" tackle bizarre requests and worries submitted by viewers. On June 19th, Detective Seiya investigated a housewife who couldn't go down the stairs. Singer GACKT made his first appearance on the show as a special director, with Matsui Kemuri as assistant director and Masuda Saori as secretary.

The request came from a 51-year-old woman in Hyogo Prefecture. She said there was something she desperately wanted to be able to do: "Go down stairs without using the handrail." Until she was in high school, she could run down stairs without using the handrail, but in her 20s, she started needing to use both hands to maintain balance, and now in her 50s, her knees become shaky without the handrail, and she can only go down slowly, one step at a time.

When I encounter stairs I'm not good at, I sometimes just freeze in place. It's a nuisance to the people around me, so I want to do something about it. I try practicing on the stairs of a shopping mall where there are hardly any people, but I still sometimes almost miss a step. I can't go down stairs with bags in both hands, so it's a frequent problem in my daily life. I'm wondering if there's any way to help me "go down stairs without using the handrail."

The client's biggest fear is long staircases that are wide and have a long distance to the handrail. Their dream is to descend the stairs with bags of sweets in both hands. To assess the situation, we had them actually descend the stairs, but it was as precarious as walking a tightrope.

So, the 2024 champion of "stair climbing," a competition where participants race up the stairs of high-rise buildings, and Matt Okui, a familiar face on the show, appeared as helpers. The client seemed to lose his balance when he shifted his weight to his right foot, so they began a series of special training sessions, starting with exercises to strengthen his gluteus medius and adductor muscles.

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Greeted by loud, shrill cheers, Special Director GACKT, dressed in a white tank top over a leopard-print blouson, slowly walked in front of the audience seats, waving in response to the cheers.

The way she read her lines in a slightly melancholic tone gave off a strong sense of mystery. When asked about Night Scoop, she said, "It's a long-running program, so I've been watching it for a long time," and when asked what kind of story she was looking forward to this time, she said, "Hmm, I hope it's interesting to watch, but if it's not interesting, I might leave halfway through," which startled the detectives.

The first story was about a housewife who couldn't go down stairs. The woman who made the request was healthy, but for some reason, she hadn't been able to go down stairs smoothly since her late twenties. GACKT, the special director, listened to the request, nodding occasionally, and revealed, "In my case, it wasn't stairs, but when I was a child, I couldn't ride escalators. I didn't know when to put my feet down, and it was really scary. I kind of understand how you feel," showing great empathy for the woman.