First hospital stay (1993, at age 31)

In 1993 (one year after completing MIDORI), Harada collapsed from a rare and incurable disease.
Overwork from the production of MIDORI and various personal stresses may have been the cause.
Later, Harada self-published a memoir of his battle with the disease.
The hospital in downtown where Harada was first hospitalized for an incurable disease was full of yakuza.
Because it was difficult for yakuza members to pay their membership fees, they asked the hospital director to let them stay for free.
In return, the yakuza helped with cleaning the hospital and serving meals.
In Harada's hospital room, a yakuza was sleeping in the bed next to him, but he was healthy and told Harada many stories. He also openly explained the yakuza organization to him.
One day, the boss of the East Japan Yakuza General Union had surgery at the hospital.
The boss amputated the little finger on his left hand with a sword, as is customary in the yakuza world. In movies, fingers are usually left cut, but if surgery is performed immediately after the cut, the finger can be reattached.
The hospital director operated on the yakuza's finger for about 12 hours to reattach it.
A few days later, Harada met the boss on a bench in the hallway.
His left hand was bandaged.
The boss was about 60 years old, and said he wanted to hear Harada's story, so Harada told him about his work.
The boss listened, nodding, saying, "I see, any job is tough."

It is said, based on hearsay, that the previous director of this hospital treated people who had no money, which is why he became the subject of a TV drama.

The drama production company Harada worked for at the time was indirectly connected to the yakuza. (Japan's major companies and the ruling party also have connections with the yakuza, but they are just hiding them).
There, Harada experienced various underworld scenes.
If he had been able to live without working and continue making his own works for the rest of his life, Harada's works would have been completed sooner, but the various experiences Harada experienced when he was young may have contributed to the expression of his works somewhere.
In fact, Death Lullaby, Horizon Blue, and Zashikiro are not based on his happy experiences, but on unpleasant memories that he would rather forget.
Even painful experiences seem to be halved once they are objectively expressed in a work of art.