19 Banme no Karte~The 19th Medical Chart

 As someone who has gone through their share of various physical problems only to be told by the Docs that they are merely due to age and stress, though you feel in your bones that they are something more, I instantly took to the premise of the new drama “19 Banme no Karte~The 19th Medical Chart” to heart, where patients of a fast-moving hospital are quickly (and generically) diagnosed so as to “move them along”, sometimes dangerously detrimental so, until a new Doctor arrives with a new mindset to shake up the old ways, prioritizing time and understanding in order to best serve the patients.

Fuka Koshiba plays Mizuki Takino, a doctor specializing in orthopedics in the hospital, who is frustrated at the limited amount of time she can give each patient as well as the fact that once the patient’s problem moves out of her specific field, she no longer can faithfully look over them or make judgement over their follow up care.

Enter a quirky young man named Akira Tokushige (Jun Matsumoto), a plain and unassuming fellow who is content to look over the hospital’s various goings-on and the methods they use to get their snap diagnoses, and realizes that with every doctor only focused on their specific area of expertise, sometimes the true malady can go undetected.

While looking over Dr. Takino helping an elderly patient in for a broken ankle, Tokushima observes things about the patient that she doesn’t immediately identify, and after asking the patient about his information regarding his lifestyle, job, and the way he injured his ankle, has him properly operated on for a much larger overarching malady.

 Turns out this Dr. Tokushige is the newest Physician in the building, the head of a brand new department of General Medicine, where his role will be looking over the various problems of the patients, make a clear and concise diagnosis, and, with the help of the other specialists in the Hospital, prepare what is best for the patients.

Humbled, amazed, and inspired, Mizuki confronts him, asking how he knows so much about diseases and afflictions that he can make such detailed determinations, and if there is a way to become like him, a super- doctor who can save every single patient he sees! He gently tells her that there is no one who can cure all, not even him, but she nonetheless sees in him something to aspire to.

 Mizuki aside,  Doctor Tokushige’s unorthodox way of spending so much time with each patient case and his way of involving himself in their diagnoses and patients makes him somewhat of an outcast among the other doctors, who feel they have no need for outside advice!!!

Kimura Yoshino

Taiiku Okazaki

First Summer Uika

Hiroya Shimizu

Tsuda Kanji

Below: Patient Kuroiwa (RiisaNaka) is in constant pain but, despite having seen many doctors, is told that the malady is either due to stress or simply in her mind! With Takino's advice, she takes her in to see Dr. Tokushige.

He sits her down and talks through her past medical history, her current job and routines, and when the pain began. And though he cannot immediately give her an answer to her problems, he is at least listening with his full attention and resolve to see things through. 

It's all one can ask in a doctor, and with his help, they find a way to identify her malady, discuss treatment, and get her back to living!

It will take time, but as time goes on, hopefully every naysayer in the hospital will see that this Doctor’s heart is in the right place, and his plans of having all the doctors working together, sharing knowledge and skills is the real way to go…all while chasing that elusive dream of a Physician who can save everyone.

That was quite a first episode! As some of you know, I only initially downloaded this for Fuka Koshiba, and was kind of disappointed that she had what I call those “reactionary” roles, i.e. a secondary character whose main presence is to look on in awe for every stunt the main characters does, and while there IS some of that, I somehow really liked the show!

I mentioned before in my post about RADIATION HOUSE that I do not necessarily like Doctor Dramas as a whole (too many predictable and irritating cliches) but I’m a sucker for those dramas like that doctor in the Jack Nicholson film “As Good As It Gets”, where Helen Hunt has been taking her boy to one bad doc after another without change and is finally given a good one (played wonderfully by Harold Ramis!)...“ Look, whatever I find, I promise you, at the very least, from now on your son is going to feel a great deal better, okay? ” he assures her, and Helen Hunt melts with gratitude. THAT’s the kind of Doctor shows I LOVE, and 19 Banme no Karte seems to be shaping up nicely!!!

Looking forward to seeing more!

The P.E. Teacher Who Leapt Through Time: “Futekisetsu Nimo Hodo ga Aru”

From the mind of zany screenwriter Kudo Kankuro comes a new drama all about a man and his time-travelling escapades, called “Futekisetsu Nimo Hodo ga Aru~ Extremely Inappropriate!”

Sadao Abe is a prickly single Father named Ichiro Ogawa raising a rebellious yankee daughter named Junko (Yumi Kawai) in 1986. Though feared as a punitive loudmouthed P.E. Teacher at the school he works at, he can barely contain his wild child’s extreme tendencies and is constantly stressing out about keeping guys away from her and intervening every time she tries to ‘hook up”!

As for Junko, she’s a real free spirit without a care to what the future holds and has the attention of all the juvie punks around, including  suave motorcycle-ridin’ Mutsumi Akitsu (Hayato Isomura), who considers her his main gal!

With her cavalier attitude and tuff-chick vibe, Junko ALSO wins the heart of a meek and shy new boy in town named Kiyoshi Sakisaka (Manato Sakamoto) when they bump into each other in town and he is spellbound by her assured allure!

When the shy boy confesses his love for her, the bemused Junko playfully tries to get him in the sack while Dad is out, but their supposed tryst is  interrupted by his sudden return!! Ogawa is naturally furious and chides Junko, who honestly couldn't care less! Taking advantage of the situation, Kiyoshi tries to state his love for Junko to him, but Pops won’t hear it!

The next day at school, Ichiro is thrilled to find that the young kid in his daughter’s bed that night is the newest transfer student! What luck, thinks Ogawa with a wicked smile! Planning revenge on his daughter's would-be boyfriend, he decides to give him the works, making him catch flyballs all period til he collapses with exhaustion!

Back then we would have called it “toughening up”, but Kiyoshi’s mother Sakae (Yo Yoshida)  is a strict and STERN woman, and immediately comes down to give Ogawa and the principal a piece of her mind! She calls what they have done to her son power harassment. She calls them insensitive to her son’s needs. And she calls the nonstop smoking a violation of her health!

Power harassment? Sensitivity Training? All this sounds way too MODERN, and there's a GOOD REASON- we are to soon find that both Mom AND son are from the FUTURE, some 30+ years ahead, and are here for only a short time until they go back!

The time travelling apparatus is a specially created bus designed specifically for Sakae and her Son, but on one fateful day, they MISS the bus...and the clueless ICHIRO gets on instead!!!

Thinking that he's taking a ride into town, once the bus crosses the bridge, it also crosses over into the past! But as it is seamless, Ichiro doesn't realize it yet!

The first thing that seems off kilter is the way the other passengers react to him smoking on the bus. "Who does this guy think he IS?" they think, but it gets worse! He sees the kids listening to air-pods and tease them "there’s udon noodles in your ears!" But when he comments about a teenage girl’s short skirt, they have had enough and flee the bus from this obnoxious weirdo!

Confused, he makes his way to his regular restaurant to get a beer, and is shocked to find it has been completely renovated and unrecognizable! 

????

Despite the change in appearance of the place, he is thirsty and grabs the first glass of beer he sees at the bar... and earns the furious ire of the harried young woman he took it from!

Her name is Nagisa Inushima (Riisa Naka) and right now, she’s having the worst day of her life! Troubles at work, troubles with family, and a crying baby in tow to boot, Ogawa swigging her beer is the last straw and she unloads on him!

Ogawa is flabbergasted at the tirade coming towards him over a measly glass of beer, but at the same time, finds himself oddly smitten with this beautiful, if entirely stressed-out woman, and finds he wants to help her!

Thus, with Ogawa stuck in 2024 and Sakisaka stuck in 1986, they decide to make the best of it, with Sagisaka and Son temporarily looking after the rebellious Junko in 1986...

 ...and Ogawa staying in 2024 helping out the alluring Ms. Inushima! 

How will things play out for these two parties out of their own time? 

I’ve come to expect wackiness when it comes to Kudo Kankuro’s works, and have absolutely LOVED some of his earlier comedies like “Kangoku no Ohimesama”, “Kisazaru Cat’s Eye” and the excellent “Tiger and Dragon” series, and Futekisetsu Nimo Hodo ga Aru promises to be his craziest one yet!*

I grabbed this mostly for Yumi Kawaii after falling in love with her in the touching “Kazoku Dakara Aishitan Janakute, Aishita no ga Kazoku Datta”, and I gotta say, she simply steals the SHOW as the spritely and SASSY Junko, doing a PERFECT profile of the 80’s yankee girl- I almost expected her to pull out a yo-yo and start fighting crime! LOLOL

Let’s see where this drama’s going to go!!

*Not that wacky comedies are ALL Kankuro is known for, he also did more famous coming of age dramas like "Ikebukuro West Gate Park" and "Ryusei no Kizuna", both of which I loved!