Wednesday, June 06, 2012
37-sai de Isha ni Natta Boku eps 1-8
- There's something about Kusanagi Tsuyoshi playing the everyman underdog feel good doramas like the Boku series. However Isha ni Natta Boku is not quite as good.
- Kusanagi plays Konno, a 37 year old who quit his job at age 30 and went into medical school and is now an intern. So now we have established that it it takes 7 years to reach internship in Japan. What does it say about the kid doctors in Code Blue?
- Konno is the super idealistic intern who works at a hospital where the director just cares about bed ratios/profits etc. Isha ni Natta Boku is like a mix between the GTO doctor genre with the Boku series with a heavy dose of soap opera.
- The only moustache twirling character is the director which is a good thing. The bad thing is that Konno's ideals and methods are very extreme, especially for an intern. For example him treating a patient without consulting the assigned doctor in a case where it was not an emergency. Rules are there for a reason and it was not a life and death situation.
- Konno's super idealism would work better if the dorama were grey instead of more black and white. Him taking that risk at the end of episode 1 was crazy, especially without explaining to the patient the details of the risk. (at least not on camera)
- Kusanagi has a great supporting cast with Nurse Miki from Iryu as the doctor who sees things logically and Mimura as Konno's girlfriend who is unable to speak and is ill. Yup, super soap opera story warning, not that I'm complaining since its Mimura after all.
- I love the humour of which there is limited quantity. Special mention to Mimura's dad. His deadpan delivery of his response to catching former Nurse Miki coming out of Konno's apartment was awesome.
- I enjoyed the first 4 episodes, especially episode 3 I think when a death happens. Thank the dorama gods they didn't let Konno get away with it. A lot of medical issues presented in this dorama are grey which is good. The bad thing is that the people who usually oppose Konno are the baddies and he blatantly ignores the other side of the coin.
- Episode 4 with the actress and the suicidal chick was pretty good.
- If other characters in the show did not state that Konno was a good doctor who did his job properly, Konno would seem to be someone who does a lot of 'special projects' to avoid doing his job. They are already pretty overworked and he has so much time for his extra curricular activities....
- I got really sick of Konno and Miki turning to the idealistic side was a bad idea cause she balanced him out in the beginning. The other characters were more interesting but they were mostly there for their story arcs.
- I had a hard time watching after episode 5 and just skimmed the rest. The nagging weaknesses in the beginning just amplified and Isha ni Natta Boku just tries to do to much that I get fatigued and I lost all interest.
- Its supposed to be based on about a doctor who became an intern at 37 and you can see ideas and arguments about the medical profession and hospitals but it just became too doramatised.
- Its time to bury the salaryman who has to inform a subcontractor that his services are terminated but is blamed when the subcontractor commits suicide plot. How can a story about the suicide's family shooting the messenger draw any pity from the audience?
- In summary, I liked the flawed first half but its really lost me. I will skim till the end just for Miki and Mimura but all I could think of watching this dorama, especially episode 5 was how good Doctors was.
I'm up to ep5. I keep watching because I can't figure out if Iryu Nurse is attractive or not. No matter how long I stare at her face I'm left with no impression. It's intriguing.
ReplyDelete^haha she is! Her face definitely has a personality.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, speaking of idealistic doctor, give Cleopatra a go. There's some parallel between the two shows, but Cleopatra is actually more realistic, and there's a lot less Japanese Cheese.
Don't know if you're aware of this but someone's been copying and pasting your reviews on their blog.
ReplyDeletehttp://bagijop.blogspot.sg/
Just thought I'd flag it cuz I enjoy reading your stuff.
I agree that the beg eps were watchable. (i enjoyed it evn til ep 6. N then it just lost it. I mean at least it was consistent in the beg. I esp' lykd hw they showed d conferences n just the 4 newbies in their office. There ws s/t likeable in its normality.
ReplyDeleteAnd then it went n lost its normalcy 2 force bs metaphors d way they usually do....with heaps of subtlety - NOT. Newai im just disappointed cos anything with sawamura sensei usually ends up being decent. But this drama has just become mundane. Now I have to wait til next season in the hope for s/t relatively decent....ah the pain...
Nurse Miki is attractive because as Jung says, she has personality.
ReplyDeleteHow good is Cleopatra? Don't feel like watching mediocre stuff for now.
Thanks for the heads up on the copy anon. Will need to read up on what blogger will do about it.