The End Is Nigh~Get Ready!

 In an undisclosed secret base resides a renegade medical team of four people who operate in the shadows outside of the official hospital networks. Though no one knows  who they are, their unconventional means and superb skills make them an entity who can decide if one lives…or dies!

There is Jo “JOKER” Shimoyamada (Tatsuya Fujiwara), the PR man of the group who seeks out potential patients,

Gouhito “SPADE” Shirase (Wataru Hyuga), the “hacker” who gets all the pertinent info they need

, and finally Saki “QUEEN” Yoda (Nao Matsushita) and Eisuke ‘ACE” Hazama (Satoshi Tsubabuki), the surgeons of the team, the latter so nicknamed for his almost genius level skills on the operating table. With their powers they can perform virtual miracles…if they deem you worthy!

For their criteria they choose not only on if you can pay the exorbitant amounts they request, but also if the prospect of death and dying has properly humbled you into truly cherishing the idea of a “Second Chance” at living! The rich, powerful and influential are the ones they have their eyes on because those are the ones most in need of a real life reckoning!

Doctor Michizo Kenmochi (Takeshi Kaga) of Chiyoda Medical University, knows how sombre it is to have to tell a terminal patient that they have exhausted all practical options and that there is little chance of recovery...

Though he has excellent medical team including his daughter Reona (Moe Yuki) and Jion Someya (Hayate Ichinose),(as well as Manami Hashimoto, Masei Nakayama, Rea Nagami, Yuta Tanokura)  there is only so much the current medical field can provide…unless you are ready to step out of the light and into the grey areas, using untried medicines, questionable methods and dangerous surgery procedures, something that Kenmochi refuses to do…

...and it’s here the Black Market Doctors step in.

Once the Covert team has researched their potential client, they appear before him at night, clad in garish theatrical costumes, meant to convey mystery as well as to hide their true identities, and offer the deal of their services. It is through this exchange that the decide if  the patient is deemed worthwhile to save, or, callously, left to suffer their fates!

Of course, this kind of underground medical operations are clearly unkosher and highly illegal, thus they have caught the eye of a crack team of Police Investigators set on identifying them and bringing them to justice!

Led by Ryoichi Sakura (Kenichi Yajima) and including Todo (Takuma Sugawara),Kasu (Ryoya Yoshida), Kikukawa (Yuki Katayama), and Kuzu (Koki Kawamoto), their main purpose is to hunt down the renegade doctors!

Try as they might, however, they cannot cath hold of the elusive team, and once the deal is secretly brokered between the Undercover Team and the patient, the most skillful and almost futuristic operation goes underway, with QUEEN  and ACE performing the most tricky and RISKY of methods...all to save the client and send him onto a full recovery!

Get Ready! set up an interesting dynamic for the show, pitting these three distinct teams, i.e. the Hospital Crew, the Black Market Doctors, and the Police Detective team, all against each other and desperate to win for their own best interests! The Hospital wants the Renegade team shut down and pressures the Cops into doing their job, in the meanwhile the Black Marker Docs are silently doing their thing…A very unpredictable show where I have no IDEA where it’s going!!

Oh, there’s also this side storyline involving Hazama’s “real” job as a patissier of a fancy pastry shop, where every day a spunky schoolgirl comes to try out his baked goods. 

Her name is Mianmo Shimazaki (Ami Touma), and at this point we don’t really know her deal. Is this supposed to be an important part of the story or just a cute interlude? 

Guess we’ll have to wait and see! 

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Sei Shiraishi Reads the News of Tomorrow- Today! in “Kyoufu Shinbun”

Sei Shiraishi stars as Shizuru Onoda, a young girl who has just moved out into her own apartment. She takes it as her first step towards independence and is optimistic about the future...until a bizarre turn of events has her dreading the coming days...

 On the day of her move into her new apartment, movers are up and about, and Shizuru has been signing documents left and right! But she unwittingly signs a mysterious compact that a strange mover has slipped between her documents….Who IS this man, and what WAS that contract she signed???

While sorting through her boxes, she finds a disturbing newspaper that depicts four students being slain in a gas explosion. the newspaper is dated some days before and Shizuru doesn’t think much of it.

 But that night, at the stroke of midnight, there is a determined rapping at her door, and when she approaches the door, another newspaper is slipped thru her mailbox. This time the terrifying depiction is a girl hurtling to her death, a suicide from jumping off a building.

 She rushes to the door to see who might have left the disturbing sheet, but there is no one outside....

Shizuru's forgotten about it the next day, focused on her new job as a delivery courier.

 But when she is out making deliveries, she comes across a crowd gathered outside of a building she has just delivered to. Looking up, Sei is HORRIFIED to see a young girl leap off the building to her death...

 …RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER!

 The shaken Shizuru is sent home, and it’s only then that she realizes the suicide is EXACTLY what the newspaper had predicted! But it must be a coincidence, mustn’t it?

 She goes to her computer and, looking up the events from the day before, finds the gas explosion and deaths that the newspaper had predicted had ALSO occurred!

Thus she learns that the newspapers some mysterious being has been leaving her each night…reports unshakeable predictions of DEATH to occur that following day! 

No one seems to believe her. Her best friend Momoka (Yuki Katayama) is no help,

  nor her mother (Hitomi Kuroki), who seems to be having issues of her own...

...or even her co-worker Yusuke (Taiki Sato), who becomes her romantic interest in the days to come…

 But when she gets another paper predicting the death of her FATHER, Shizuru knows SOMETHING has to be done!

Holy Horrors, Batman!!! While a good and spooky idea (shades of Mirai Nikki), this Supernatural J-drama is so CAMPY that it seems like it’s done by Horror schlockmeisters BLUMHOUSE with its wacky, bloody murders, exaggerated effects and overbearing JUMP SCARES! (they even do that cliche jump-scare when someone’s hand grabs the girl’s shoulder…only for it to turn out to be her friend, groaannnn…) 

Seriously, everything is so OVER the TOP, Kyoufu Shibun is either a really HOKEY drama or a TERRIFIC cult-style romp, you choose!

Still, it is great to see pretty Sei Shiraishi again- I have high hopes for her to become one of J-dramas’s uprising stars and looks like she’s on her way!