Coji Coji and mental health

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I've been a fan of Momoko Sakura's Chibi Maruko Chan for a while now. Recently, I've started looking at another work of hers, Coji Coji, which was made somewhat later and is perhaps not as well-known or popular. One of the things I was struck by was the way the characters seemed to have mental health issues, including the main character Coji Coji, whose sex/gender is left unspecified. In fact, when I was watching it on Nico Nico Douga (a Japanese video site), the comments that scrolled across the screen during a discussion the characters were having were like "Are they menhera?" which is a Japanese abbreviation for the English term "mental health," and can be used to refer to people who are having mental health issues.

Coji Coji is a very happy go lucky person who does their own thing, but is a very tangential thinker and never seems to give relevant replies to anything asked of them, instead saying off-the-wall stuff that ends up illuminating something important anyway. (I guess it all depends on your defintion of relevant.) The other characters have shocked, mortified expressions whenever Coji Coji responds to something they've said. As an example, there was an episode where the characters were walking down a path and Coji Coji comes running up behind them carrying a strange mushroom, asking them if anyone wants to eat the mushroom. They respond shocked, saying that the mushroom could be deadly. Coji Coji responds by saying, "You must try eating it in order to know if you would die."

Later, when they're visiting a friend named Sakio (name probably means blooming man), who has a flower growing out of the top of his head but which has slumped because he's recently growing ill, who is currently being tended to by his mother (who also has a flower growing out of the top of her head), Sakio was very down, and had all but accepted he was about to die, even though all he had was a cold. In response to Sakio's comment where he said he was going to die, Coji Coji, who still had the strange mushroom, responded saying, "That's right. You must try eating this mushroom in order to know if you're going to die." Immediately, Sakio's mother noticed the mushroom and realized what it was and gave it to her son, who immediately recovered upon eating some of it. It was a "miracle."

Now, I've heard nothing about the author dealing with mental health issues, though in her semi-autobiographical comic Hitori Zumou ("one man sumo wrestling," equivalent to "tilting at windmills"), the character Momoko Sakura (who is obviously based off of her) did have sensory issues. At one point in high school, she was in a crowded place with a lot of people talking and she became somewhat disoriented and confused, but immediately felt better upon leaving. At home, her parents wondered why she always hated crowded, noisy spaces and then we see a reflection from the character (and presumably from the author), where she says that ever since she was little, whenever she went into a place where a lot of people were talking different conversations, she would become very tired and her head would begin to hurt, but when back home working on her own thing she feels a lot better. Also, in mid- to late 90s, during an interview, she refused to show her face, because she was worried that if someone saw her on the street and recognized her and greeted her and if for whatever reason she wasn't paying attention and failed to return the greeting, then they might not like her anymore. Now maybe this was a cultural issue, but honestly I've read up on a lot of other mangaka and I've never heard of any other mangaka refused to show their face. On 2ch (big Japanese language internet forum), some of the posters wondered if she might have dealt with ADHD and in another discussion they wondered if she was on autism spectrum. Because of this and the actions of the characters in Coji Coji, I wonder if the author has ever dealt with mental health issues herself, whether in herself or in like a relative.

Of course I might be bad for speculating, but the different stuff does make me wonder.

I am interested in watching this. Where could I go to do that? I do not read nor understand Japanese (although I did learn "s'koshi" many years ago).

Here's an English language review of the books where she mentions the sensory issues (though the review doesn't mention them):

http://www.muzuhashi.com/1/post/2012/05 ... akura.html

Still, the review mentioned this: