Minami Hamabe in "Dr.White"

 
A Journalist named Masaki Karioka (Tasuke Emoto) on his morning jog comes across a dazed woman in white (Minami Hamabe) stumbling through the brush.

When she collapses and slips into unconsciousness, Masaki calls on his friend Maria Takamori (Miori Takimoto), a doctor in a struggling Hospital, to help bring the girl in for examination.

There is a bit of excitement as the mystery girl is carted in as a man suffering from abdominal pains is also being admitted. Though she is unconscious when she is wheeled in, her ears perk up upon hearing the Docs discussing the man’s symptoms, prompting her to leap up off the stretcher and give a succinct analysis of the man’s problems.

Masaki thinks that the girl must be babbling nonsense as she slips back into sleep, but when Takamori announces the exact same diagnosis, he does a double take. Did that mystery girl properly assess the patient’s malady in that mere minute she was up?

After all the excitement of the man in emergency, things quiet down enough for Takimori to look over the Mystery girl. When asked, she says her name is “Byakuya” but doesn’t seem to remember anything else. In fact, aside from her medical opinions which appear out of seeming nowhere, this woman has the mind of a child.

Aside from that, she seems healthy enough so they don’t know what to do with her. They can’t keep her at the hospital but she doesn’t know who she is. Masaki is reluctant to release her to the police and they decide for the time being to let her stay at his place.

Just then, the man from earlier is wheeled out and the docs are talking about his malady.
This doesn’t ring true for Byakuya, and when she touches the man’s pulse for a second, she curtly says the Docs have misdiagnosed the patient! The doctor in charge is furious at Byakuya’s accusation…but of course, when they reluctantly go back and double check, they find her diagnosis is correct!

Just who IS this mystery woman and where did she come from?

  I had mentioned early on that I only wanted to watch Dr. White if they focused on the amnesia because I was tired of Hospital dramas, and, indeed, as far as the Hospital goes, it’s more of what I’m entirely weary of,  arrogant blowhard doctors who belittle the underlings and corrupt hospital directors, etc. VERY tiresome.

Fortunately the mystery of Byakuya is interesting enough and Minami plays the genius-woman-with-mind-of-child quite well- very believable as the woman looking at the world through childlike eyes, though the skeptical side of me has to wonder how someone who doesn’t know what “Delicious” “Smiling” and “Strawberries” are can make or understand any kind of genius medical diagnoses, LOL!
Also really liked the parts where she is bonding with Masaki’s sister Haruna (Sae Okazaki), those scenes, though very cliched, i.e., shopping for clothes and the multiple-outfits in dressing room thing, was so cute to watch! Like I said, anything focusing on her character outside of the medical dramatics is enough for me…

PS: I remember back when Ayame Gouriki was just hitting her stride, there seemed to be a big backlash against her. Maybe she got too popular too fast? I don’t know, but I’ve been hearing some worrying rumors that the same thing is happening to Minami Hamabe, where people are saying that they’re sick of her, etc. How can this be? She’s only just started out, and is she really that popular? I dunno, I kind of felt like she was still a fan fave.