This odd incident took place during the weekend:
Police are baffled by an incident that saw a number of young women collapse suddenly in public in Japan's fashionable Shinjuku district on the night of June 21.
Members of a Meiji University tennis club are reported to have gathered outside a Shinjuku theatre.
Things turned chaotic however when female members of the group began collapsing suddenly.
Police and ambulances responding to the incident say that no serious injuries were sustained.
Curiously, it was also reported that male members of the same group had not been severely affected.
The situation quickly went viral on Twitter, where many speculated that some form of chemical poisoning had occurred, although most of the victims do not appear to have suffered any long term effects.
Police are currently investigating this incident. - The Real Singapore
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College Women Mysteriously Collapse in a Tokyo Street
Students getting drunk and passing out is part of the university experience. But this weekend, something strange and quite possibly sinister happened in Tokyo.
On Twitter and Instagram (via 2ch), photos of a group of young women passed out in the middle of the street circulated online. It's believed that the women are college students at Meiji University and members of the school's tennis club. The university is currently investigating the issue, states website Buzzap.
According to television reports, such as on morning show Tokudane!, over ten students fainted in Shinjuku after a drinking party. The incident was also covered on Excite News. Tokudane! is one of Japan's largest morning shows, and Excite News is a large website. Combined with reporting on the national news tonight, this story is getting mainstream coverage in Japan.
Police arrived on the scene, and online, some thought that the students were passed out drunk. However, as one eye witness told Tokudane!, it was largely females who had passed out on the street. Many of the women were completely incapacitated, leading many online in Japan to wonder if they allegedly had their drinks spiked by the male members attending the drinking party. This is currently internet conjecture.
Some of the collapsed individuals were so out of it that they had to be carried by the police. According to Excite News, there were even individuals who had soiled themselves after passing out.
On 2ch, Japan's largest forum, people were bewildered by the photos. "What happened?" asked on 2ch commenter. "Is this a cult?" asked another. "Why are the males okay?"
"This is no trivial matter," wrote one 2ch commenter. "The atmosphere, it smells of a crime." It is still unclear what happened. What is clear is that it's highly unusual to see a group of Japanese university women passed out in the middle of the street.
There is good reason for concern. In the past, there have been several well-known incidents with extracurricular university clubs, such as Super Free, raping women students at elite Japanese universities. The ring-leader of Super Free was sentenced to fourteen years in prison—a ruling that was unsuccessfully challenged in the country's Supreme Court. - Kotaku
NOTE: is this just another case of mass hysteria...or is there a more perverse explanation? Lon
Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mothers' Bodies (Explorations in Bioethics and the Medical Humanities)
Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusion
Outbreak! The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior
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