Jin (TV)



"God only gives us challenges so we can overcome them."

Live Action Adaptation of the manga of the same name, broadcast in Japan as two (so far) miniseries in 2009 and 2011.

Jin Minakata is a neurosurgeon in contemporary Tokyo, living a life of guilt after an experimental operation he performed on his fiancee Miki two years earlier left her in a persistent vegetative state. The arrival of a severely injured emergency patient at the hospital where he works triggers a series of bizarre events that result in Jin finding himself flung 140 years into the past, when the city was still called "Edo". Stumbling through the city, he is set upon by a swordsman, and subsequently rescued by Kyotaro Tachibana, the son of a samurai family. Kyotaro is severely injured during the rescue, and Jin is forced to perform brain surgery on him with improvised instruments -- including, to the horror of Kyotaro's family, carpenter's tools.

But Kyotaro survives the operation and heals with no complications. His sister Saki is attracted to the mysterious penniless vagabond with the near-miraculous medical knowledge, and finds herself drifting into the role of Jin's assistant and student. And Jin finds himself called upon again and again to use his future knowledge to save lives, in the process giving 19th-century Japan not only new surgical knowledge and techniques but the miracle drug penicillin. But even as his reknown and reputation grows, he finds he also acquires enemies, among them the "traditional" doctors of Edo, who would rather destroy him and his methods than admit that they work.

Every step of the way he agonizes over the changes he must be making to the time he came from -- changes he can see, because he has with him a photo of himself and Miki that alters itself with almost every action he takes. And a time comes when he finds he must decide between being a doctor and a friend, and ensuring that his fiancee will even be born.

This TV show provides examples of:

 * Arc Words: See the page quote.
 * The Confidant: Saki, whom Jin tells of his origins and sometimes uses as a sounding board for his concerns about changing history.
 * Delayed Ripple Effect: Jin uses a photograph of himself and Miki (in an obvious Shout Out to Back to The Future) to track how badly he's disrupting future history. Unlike Marty's photo, though, Jin's doesn't show himself fading in and out, but his fiancee Miki -- and the location and poses in it change multiple times.
 * Disney Death:
 * Dorama
 * Giving Radio to The Romans: Penicillin and medical treatments from the early 21st century in Edo-period Japan.
 * High Class Call Girl: Nokaze. Unlike the typical High Class Call Girl, though, Nokaze was raised from childhood to be a courtesan, and is kept a virtual prisoner in Edo's red light district by the twin forces of law and tradition.
 * Historical Domain Character: Most prominently Ryoma Sakamoto and Koan Ogata ("Ogata-sensei"), but a number of other prominent Edo-period figures cross Jin's path.
 * Hooker With a Heart of Gold: Varying levels of expression and subversion among the courtesans and prostitutes of Edo's "red light district".  Nokaze seems cynical and cold, but it becomes obvious that this is a mask of sorts; .  Also Hatsune, the nearsighted prostitute to whom Kyotaro is attracted.
 * Identical Grandson: Nokaze and Miki.  It's even a plot point.
 * Inconvenient Hippocratic Oath: Actively subverted by Jin at the end of season one, who decides  instead of allowing events to transpire which might prevent the birth of his fiancee in the future.
 * Jerkass: Jin, for most of the back end of season one, as he offends friends and colleagues, alienates the women who love him, and violates his oaths as a doctor in his desperation to ensure that Miki still gets born (and by implication, remains his fiancee).
 * The Medic: Jin, who finds himself called upon for emergency medical treatment several times.
 * Meganekko: Hatsune, a nearsighted prostitute given glasses by Kyotaro.  Somewhat subverted in that she only wears them regularly for him.
 * Messy Hair: Ryoma, constantly.
 * Never Found the Body:
 * No One Could Survive That: Not exactly said word-for-word, but pretty much the thought expressed by a group of assassins (and their bosses) after their target falls off a cliff into a river during the assassination attempt.
 * The Ojou: Saki, although an Edo period version rather than the modern one.
 * Period Piece
 * Please I Will Do Anything: Kyotaro.
 * Samurai: The Tachibana are a samurai clan.  And there are samurai extras almost everywhere.
 * Screw Destiny: What several characters plus most of the audience are practically screaming at Jin toward the end of the first season.
 * Secret Secret Keeper: Ogata-sensei deduces that Jin is from the future surprisingly quickly.  (Later he reveals to Jin what he knows.)  And toward the end of the first season, Ryoma overhears Jin's confession to  and learns Jin's origins.
 * Shout Out: Jin's photograph of himself and Miki is a clear shout-out to Back to The Future.
 * Squick: Multiple depictions of surgery so realistic you'd swear they were filmed at a hospital. Lots of blood and bits, and sizzling smoke when blood vessels are cauterized with hot iron rods.
 * The depictions of burn and syphilis victims are also disturbingly realistic.
 * Steampunk: Probably the best description of the extremely low-tech production system for penicillin that Miki designed in order to show up Jin early in their relationship.
 * Time Travel
 * Victorian Novel Disease: Ogata-sensei's tuberculosis, which while more realistic than the usual implementation of this trope is still rather underplayed.
 * Wangst: Jin practically wallows in it at times, to the point that the viewers may find themselves wanting to slap him.
 * Yakuza: The firefighters, actually.  They are much more of the ninkyo dantai type than boryokudan, but are still a band of swaggering thugs when they're not actually fighting fires.
 * Yamato Nadeshiko: Saki.