I don’t consider this a recap because it sucks and I didn’t discuss a lot of dialogue. I’m not sure where I went with this post, but the point of it all is: WATCH THIS DRAMA. It is probably the best drama to have come out of Japan all year. I dabbled in a couple dramas each season & none of them, except for Meintantei no Okite, were as enjoyable as this one turned out to be. Solid acting all around, good story from what I can tell so far …
It’s obvious that I got very lazy towards the end here … I’m definitely doing brief brief summaries from now on
Meet Minakata Jin, brain surgeon. He’s not a fan of actually doing them, so he refers his patients to other surgeons (to the junior doctor’s dismay). A badly injured patient is rushed to the hospital, and being the only brain surgeon there … he doesn’t really have a choice but to perform an “emergency craniotomy and hematoma removal.
BUT WHAT’S THIS? A tumor in the shape of an fetus?! (SO GROSS) Some of the staff speculate that it might even be a real child (the heck?!) and they’ve heard cases like this before in infants and children… lolz, okay. Still gross though.°
The sight of the tumor causes Jin some unexplained headache. Hm! Anyway, they put that baby away for later examination.
Noguchi Hajime, the (new) junior doctor, asks Hiromi, another junior doctor, why he’s “that way” or, so reluctant to perform surgeries that shouldn’t be a problem to him. She explains:
“[Miki] Tomonaga-sensei, who was an excellent surgeon herself, was Jin-sensei’s girlfriend […] at last, just when they were talking about geting married, a tumor was discovered in her brain stem. It was considered hopeless, but Minakata-sensei decided he would perform an operation on it.”
Another surgeon warned him as the tumor had already eaten into the brain stem and the surgery was completely experimental, but Jin reasons that “if [they] do nothing” they would just be waiting for her to die. “When this surgery succeeds, untold thousands of people will then have hope. And if it doesn’t succeed, it can become the cornerstone for their desires. So she said.”
The situation was looking dire, but Jin decided to press forward. While he was able to completely remove the tumor, he damaged an artery and his fiancee was left in a vegetative state. From that day onward, he began leaving procedures to other surgeons.
Goes to visit Miki. Reflects. Aaaaand flashback.
“I’m scared, too. Incredibly scared. ‘What will I do if I fail?’ is all I think about. But … that’s when I remember. Miki’s favorite saying.”
“God only gives us challenges so we can overcome them.”
Jin (as well as some important looking guys in suits) wonder exactly who this guy is and how he came to sustain such injuries. They won’t be able to find out until later, since he’s still unconscious.
He goes to examine the fetus some more. “Well, this looks like any other tumor shaped like a fetus…”
BOO!!!!!
Series of events happens (bandaged man escaping and stealing medical supplies plus the weird embryo/fetus/tumor-thing), and he is transported to the Edo Period. I’ll admit it, I thought the fall down the stairs was kind of hilarious.
Now he ends up in the middle of nowhere. At first, he doesn’t believe this is actually happening. “This has to be some kind of play…”
Not.
A samurai (Koide Keisuke in an ugly wig Tachibana Kyotaro) saves his life and gets seriously injured in the process, so Jin resolves to save his — being a doctor and everything. The man’s attendants come (A LITTLE TOO LATE, I MIGHT ADD) to help take him back home. Jin explains what they need to have done and of course, nobody knows what he’s talking about. Operations? Surgery? Ga-gauze? WHAT IS THIS DEMONRY YOU SPEAK OF?
His mother and sister (Tachibana Sakae and Saki respectively) are freaking out, but Jin’s basically like “chill — I got this.” They let him do his work, even though his mother is more than a little apprehensive. And when I say more, I mean calling him a murderer and getting ready to not only kill Jin, but herself. Intense.
I was mortified when he had to use the hammer to open up the skull. MOR-TI-FIED. Basically Jin has to pull off some MacGuyver nonsense with the carpentry tools and successfully completes the surgery (with the help of Saki and Mrs. Tachibana, who finally came around). I’ve never watched a Japanese medical drama before, but I was happy that it all looked pretty legit except for one small detail — was it alright that he began to suture even though he didn’t put any sort of mold over the part of where he cut the bone out? Even though the injury was only in the front, can’t the brain shift? DAMMIT JIN, I’M AN ECON MAJOR NOT PRE-MED. °
He wakes up and he’s still in … wherever the heck he is. This is a bit of a problem.
“Um, what year is it right now?”
“This is Bunkyu 2 (1862).”
“This is the Edo period?”
“This is Edo.”
“Which Shogun… what is the name of the Shogun?”
“Eh?”
Blah blah sequence of events and he meets some samurai who has a voice that sounds mighty familiar. Kind of like that one dude who shoved you down the stairs! RIGHT?!?! He tries to catch his name and fails. Poor Jin can’t catch a break.
He stumbles into a more populated area and this scene was kind of hilarious because he spots ancestors of not one but two of his coworkers! This is actually a very important point (circle-circle, hint-hint) we’ll get to later …
A balding kid named Kiichi (ha) tries to get him to buy some edamame. Jin refuses. Kid says he hopes he gets kicked by a horse and dies. Apparently karma’s a bitch with four legs AND hooves because this little kid almost gets trampled by a horse, but his mom rescues him and gets hit instead.
Kiritani Kenta’s character (Saburi Yusuke) shows up to assess the situation. He’s a doctor. I love, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE his “HOW DARE YOU” face. (And him. ♥)
Jin (to the rescue!) ends up having to perform surgery on this woman without anesthesia ° and it’s kind of crazy. Kiichi is established as a slightly annoying character. The surgery is successful. Insert some reflective narrative and pretty scenery. All is good. Except for the fact that he’s still in the Edo Period, but eh.
More shit happens! Mrs. Tachibana becomes more accepting of Jin. Hobo samurai guy talks over assassination attempts (Who? “a cancer in the shogunate”). Jin looks at a picture of himself & Miki and realizes something is very wrong — her peace sign his reversed! Freaky. And speaking of Miki … I mentioned early that ancestors were a very important point to remember, and guess who shows up.
Fiieeeeerce. She happens to be a courtesan who goes by the name of Nokaze.
OH, and remember that guy who’s name you couldn’t catch? Yeah, well, that’s Sakamoto Ryoma, the (future) leader of the movement to overthrow the SHOGUNATE. I know!! By the end of the episode I was rubbing my hands together in glee. So great.
Notes
If I had to rate this episode, I would give it an A-; it started out at a decent pace, picked up momentum once he was transported back in time, but slowed way down once he began the second procedure on Kiichi’s mother. I’m not a fan of child actors in dramas because, let’s face it, they’re no Dakota Fanning (hah). That entire scene was painful to watch, and not only because she was struggling through it.
This would be the second time that Kiritani Kenta, Koide Keisuke (these two also worked on ROOKIES together) and Ayase Haruka are all working together! The first time would be Cyborg Girl, which was a very cute movie. I’m also very pleased to see Nakatani Miki in a drama. I can’t wait to see her character and how she will develop!
On a drama related note, could it be that the embryo is a memory? If the injured guy is who we think it is, then it’s possible that his memory of JIN (we’re talking dimensions now) manifested itself into this sort of tumor, and Jin is being physically affected by it in the present. HMMM.