Into the Dark With Keiko Kitagawa in "The Hippocratic Oath"

Keiko Kitagawa in The Hippocratic Oath

After seeing Keiko Kitagawas in the winsome and lighthearted Ie Uru Onna, it’s quite a shock seeing her in a more serious drama, and believe me, her new show Hippocrates No Chikai, is very, very serious indeed! A drama centered around the medical Field of Criminal Forensics, this show reminds me a lot of the Showtime Clive Owen drama The Knick, very bloodily graphic in its procedures and just as desperate in its storylines.

Keiko Kitagawa as Makoto Tsugano

Keiko Kitagawa stars as Makoto Tsugano, a bright and optimistic doctor training in the field of Internal Medicine when she is instructed by her superior (Ikko Furuya) to train under a colleague of his, Tojiro Mitsuzaki (Kyohei Shibata), a doctor known for his mastery of Autopsies. Makoto is puzzled by this sudden placement, but he tells her to think of it as a final training of sorts.

When she arrives, she meets Mitsuzaki who turns out to be a very gruff and cantankerous doctor who makes light of Makoto and tells her in no small words that he doesn’t need her. This takes Makoto aback and she wonders just WHY her Superior would tell her to come here. Mitsuzaki’s capable assistant Kashiyama (Mari Hamada) steps in and says they COULD use the help since they are shorthanded, and he relents, dropping the subject as they are on their way out.

While exploring the ramshackle Building housing Mitsuzaki’s Offices and Autopsy Room, she answers a call from a young girl at a Police Station pleading with her to come and do an autopsy on a woman for her.

Concerned for the girl’s safety, Makoto makes a beeline to the station, where she is met by the small girl and a Detective who is concerned about the case, Onoe Matsuya (Kazuya Kotegawa). He explains that the girls’ father is charged with hitting and killing a woman on a bicycle who rode into his car head-on, but the father insists he braked and didn’t hit her that hard, and thinks she may have been dying even before he struck her.

Only an Autopsy can determine such statements, but the police consider it an open and shut case, and the grieving dead woman’s parents refuse to permit it. Seems Matsuya is a bit of an outsider in the station and though he wants to investigate things more, the others want him to drop it.

Matsuya is revealed to be working on the side with Mitsuzaki trying to  get to the truth of the matter, and it’s here that Makoto finds out just how serious this Doctor Mitsuzaki is about  autopsies. He insists on performing one even if the Police department and Victim’s family are vehemently against it!

Makoto is a Pure hearted doctor. She believes in the healing power of medicine adn one of the main reasons she took the path she is on is so she can cure people like her friend Yuko (Megumi Sato) who is suffering from an illness.

One of the reasons she chose to intern at the hospital she is at is because it was the only one who recited the Hippocratic Oath at the beginning of its opening, the oath being the promise that you will uphold what is truthful and never betray the patients you are there to serve.

She believes in this strongly, and is torn apart inside when she sees the adamant and sometimes diabolical way Dr. Mitsuzaki and detective Matsuya work to get the ball rolling on things they need. But something in her heart knows they are ultimately striving for the truth, the truth that only the victim’s body can tell them.

MAN, this was SUCH a dark show to watch! With A Romance Drama from Emi Takei and Comedy Dramas from both Yui Aragaki and Satomi Ishihara, Hippocrates no Chikai is the lone serious drama on my J-drama watching list since I wrapped up the Haru crime drama ON.

And remember how I said the Ayase Haruka drama “Never Let me Go” seemed more like a movie than a TV show, well, Hippocratic Oath is just like that. Even the ending credits aren’t like a regular show, instead, it fades to black and just has a sombre credit scroll.

I do have one worry, and it’s that fact that Hippocrates No Chikai is so medically dense with its terminology, I’m worried that the subtitling team might give up on it if it becomes to hard, facing the same fate that equally Terminology-heavy drama FRAGILE did! Ah, but hopefully since  Hippocrates No Chikai is only 5 episodes, they can hang on!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com