Code Blue 2

コ-ド·ブル- Season 2 (Code Blue Season 2) is a Japanese medical drama series that aired from January 11th to March 22nd 2010 on Fuji TV. The series consists of 11 episodes.

Story: Once again we are following the four interns Mihoko Hiyama, Megumi Shiraishi, Kazuo Fujikawa and Kousaku Aizawa through the last year of their fellowship training. After Dr. Kuroda left the Shohoku University hospital the four of them work under Dr. Keisuke Tachibana who shares important memories with Dr. Kanna Mitsui. While this series still shows the life within the hospital and quite dramatic cases outside the hospital, it is also focused on family bonds and personal relationships.

Cast: Once again we have Tomohisa Yamashita as Kousaku Aizawa in this series, and what else can I say? I like his acting overall, and I like his character even more, especially episode 5 was pretty cute (you'll get what I mean when you know the drama).
By far another one of my favorite characters is Mihoko Hiyama played by Erika Toda. She's the one who has to encounter the biggest problem due to a mistake she made and I was just hoping for her to get through the hardships without too many problems. So her acting was quite on spot.
Yui Aragaki as Megumi Shiraishi shows an interesting development due to the experience in her field. While her father wants her to go a different path in the future she starts to take responsibility for her own life because she wants to stay in lifesaving and help patients with her knowledge.
Kazuo Fujikawa or actor Yosuke Asari shows an interesting development as well. While he's still called "the worst" (Ep. 11, figure out by whom on your own) as he has always been fighting to even be allowed to go on the helicopter, he's saving a life in the worst circumstances one can imagine but also manages to do a good job in general with his kind personality.
Luckily also flight nurse Haruka Saejima played by Manami Higa is back in this series and we hear more about her private life. Her character becomes even more warm and opens up and it's quite good to see how she's caring about the one's she loves.

Soundtrack: What can I say about this? Two songs by Mr. Children and I don't really like the band itself because of the vocals (just not my style, I don't want to argue about this) so it's only like "meh" to me.

My personal rating after all is 8.5/10 mainly because it focusses too much on family and relationship issues. Yes, that's part of everyone's life but I found myself to be rather bored by most of the scenes involving only relationships so I couldn't bring myself to give this a better rating.  It's quite nice though and reminded me of my childhood (there was a series called "Medicopter 117" airing here in Germany when I was a child and I loved it) so I really liked the topic in itself a lot.

Code Blue

コード・ブルー  ドクターヘリ緊急救命 (Code Blue - Doctor Heli Emergency Lifesaving) is a Japanese TV series consisting of 11 episodes that aired on Fuji TV from July 3rd to September 11th 2008.
The special was aired in January 2009.

Story: Code Blue shows the life of four interns in the Shoyo University hospital. Being responsible for emergencies, those four are flight-doctors-in training and work with Doctor Heli, a program involving a helicopter transporting patients to offer help as fast as possible. However, those four work under Dr. Shuji Kuroda, a senior doctor who's said to not really like young people. Mihoko Hiyama is a straight-forward young woman while Megumi Shiraishi seems to be more calm and doesn't want to hurt people with words if she can avoid it. Kazuo Fujikawa is a talkative young person but seems to lack skills sometimes while Kousaku Aizawa is extremely quiet and cold which is why he can deal with emergencies well.
While working together, those four experience difficult situations.

Cast: As I am not one of those who watched many J-Dramas I think it's something special when I can say that I've known a few actors. And well, those are actually two but nevermind.
Tomohisa Yamashita is a quite good as Kousaku Aizawa. Why exactly? Well, I don't really know about his acting in general but this cold character in this series just fits him perfectly, and also the emotional scenes with his grandma (not a huge spoiler I guess) seem to be fine.
Erika Toda is in this series as Mihoko Hiyama. Compared to the movies I've seen her in before (*cough* Death Note *cough*) her role in this one is strong and confident. While I found her sometimes to be the difficult type of person, I did like her acting overall as well and seeing two different sides of one actress is a good thing as well.
As Megumi Shiraishi we see Yui Aragaki. While her rather shy character sometimes was too quiet in my opinion (or just didn't say what she thought), I was a little frustrated with her being careless in the end. Nonetheless I think she was a necessary part of this series, mainly because they wanted to show completely different characters.
The same actually works for Yosuke Asari as Kazuo Fujikawa. While at some point you pity him because he's seriously not that good compared to the others, in the end it seems like he just needed to adjust himself to the team and the new surroundings while following his dream to become a flight-doctor. Since he doesn't seem to be blessed with extremely medical talent, he's working hard to make his dream come true.
My favorite character in this series was by far Haruka Saejima played by Manami Higa, a young and extremely beautiful flight nurse who seems cold at first but warms up in the end. She's an important part of the team itself and she's good in what she's doing, sometimes even better than the average doctor.
And lastly I feel like I need to name Toshiro Yanagiba as Shuji Kuroda. While at some point one might start to hate him he's a good doctor and wants to safe patients in the end. That's also the reason why he's strict when it comes to the interns.

Soundtrack: The music in itself is not bad. The opening, "HANABI" by Mr. Children isn't bad, as an opening song it's quite nice actually. But then again the music in the whole series sometimes missed the atmosphere. This might be only my opinion but especially during those emergency operations I would actually expect something more dramatic if it's about life and death.
That being said, the soundtrack is probably the weak point this drama has.


After all a 9/10 for the series and an 8.5/10 for the special are still a good and strong rating because of the interesting stories told in such a short amount of time.
While the worst part in fact is the music in general it's not that bad and didn't really make me dislike the drama, that was just something I need to say.
Also, something about the special in itself: I found the talk about separation alright. Yes, it was nice, but not nearly as exciting as that huge accident (should I feel bad for saying this?). The last part of this special episode (actually almost two hours long) was rather slow, there was no major action since emotions were most important then.

1 Litre of Tears

1リットルの涙 (1 Litre of Tears, 1 Litre no namida) is a Japanese drama series that aired from October 11th to December 20th 2005 on Fuji TV.

Story: The drama tells the story of Aya Ikeuchi, a young girl at the age of 15 who enters the highschool she wanted to along with her best friend. After tripping often lately, her mother, Shioka Ikeuchi, is worried and takes Aya to see a doctor, Hiroshi Mizuno, who diagnoses her with spinocerebellar degeneration. Though Shioka meets many other doctors as well as the specialist about this disease, the reality that it cannot be cured remains. She didn't tell Aya, but in the meantime the girl is able to figure out what's going on with her body on her own. One day when visitting Dr. Mizuno again, the information she found becomes reality - she won't be able to walk or speak or write and will be bedridden someday. "Why did the disease chose me?" As her everyday activities become more difficult, she even has to leave her friends and can't realize her dream to graduate from Higashikou anymore. But the young woman refuses to give up hope, also because of Haruto Asou whom she met on the day of her entrance exam and though the two of them didn't get along that well at first became a reliable friend.

Cast: Erika Sawajiri does a brilliant job as Aya Ikeuchi. She's fighting for her freedom, her life and in the end for her body to remain hers. Not being able to control her body anymore is a nightmare and I usually felt how thankful she was towards her friends and family but in the same time she was so sorry for being a burden to those around her. Also Ryo Nishikido as Haruto Asou is good in this one. I don't know if I would describe his acting as excellent. Sometimes he seems a little too cold, especially when he's more or less rebelling against his father but the scenes with Haruto and Aya were always nice to watch and I loved their friendship - I won't say love because not even once it is officially stated they are dating - we only know that they like each other. A lot.
My favorite actors in this series were actually Hiroko Yakushimaru and Takanori Jinnai as Aya's parents, Shioka and Mizuo Ikeuchi. Parents fighting for their child, trying to comfort her though they are in pain as well. Especially Aya's father has difficulties accepting the truth about the disease and though he tries to not show that he's in pain sometimes, when Aya's not around, it still comes through. As for Aya's mom, it's almost the same. She's trying hard to be strong in front of her children so they won't worry too much but then again her pain comes through while she's still fighting.
Naohito Fujiki as Hiroshi Mizuno is the doctor caring for Aya and while at first he's the one to accept the fact that he can't cure the disease, Aya becomes someone to make him go forward and work and research much more than before because he wants to cure the young woman.
Riko Narumi as Ako Ikeuchi at first seems like a rebellious teenager who wants attention from her parents because Aya always was the number one in the family. As she didn't seem to care too much at first, she's trying hard to help her sister later and even wants to try and get accepted at Higashikou so she can fulfill her sister's dream. The development of her character is really good and actually something one can understand. Yuma Sanada as Hiroki Ikeuchi has a lot less screentime but I somehow found him to be an interesting character as well. While he was somewhat embarrassed at first when his team mates found out about his sister 'walking strangely' he changed due to something Ako said and was sorry for hurting his precious older sister.


Soundtrack: One song became incredibly popular and I knew it belonged to this drama even before watching it - "Konayuki" by Remioromen! I still love this song a lot, especially the various versions shown in this drama. It's also known to be Aya's and Haruto's theme song.
But honestly one song made me cry. Once. "3月9日 (Sangatsu Kokonoka/ March 9th)", originally performed by Remioromen as well usually appears as a choir version. When watching Ep. 8, the very end of that episode, you might understand why this got me. Thinking about this scene still makes me cry.
Just to complete the soundtrack, there is one ballad track on the OST performed by Korean singer K/ Kang Yoon-sung called "Only human" which actually is the theme song of this drama. Combined with the pictures at the end of each episode it's beautiful but makes me feel sad as well.
After all it's a well-chosen soundtrack in my opinion.


My rating for this series is a definitely strong 9.5/10. I'm not a person who cries often when it comes to series but I admit that there were some episodes (or more endings of episodes) that got me. It's a good and strong series but with a rather slow development, especially in the beginning but it's a melodrama after all and it's not surprising. In the end, it became a lot faster and there were many times when suddenly months or even years passed by. I see why they did that though. Only watching Aya's daily routine in the hospital wouldn't have been interesting - at least not that much.

As for the special from 2007, I think it's worth watching if you enjoyed this drama a lot and want to see some moments again. The special is about two hours long but I'd just guess that roughly half of this are only flashbacks. That's why my rating for the special is only 6.5/10. It's interesting though to see how the family and Haruto dealt with the happenings as well as all those people coming to 'meet' Aya.

Bitter Blood

ビター・ブラッド (Bitter Blood, also known as Partners by Blood) is a Japanese drama series that aired from April 15th to June 24th on Fuji TV. It consists of 11 episodes with a duration of roughly 45 minutes.

Story: Natsuki Sahara is a rookie detective at Ginza Police department where he becomes the partner of his father Akimura Shimao. After his father abandoned the family, Natsuki started to dislike him. Akimura's eccentric personality doesn't make things better but he's trying hard to get closer to his son. And as much as both of them deny it: Like father, like son. Together they work on cases but don't know in what kind of a dangerous situation they are.

Cast: Okay, at first I need to tell you that sometimes, just sometimes, the acting is way too overdone. Yes, I know that. But we need to see that this drama doesn't take itself too serious, it's comedy so I honestly think it has to be done that way most of the time.
Takeru Satoh as Natsuki Sahara and Atsuro Watabe as Akimura Shimao are the two most important characters. The way they interact as a helpless father and a son who tries hard to really hate his father but can't be like that all the time seems to be real, they did great and really were in great sync.
The other team members appear all the time as well since the series focusses on the interaction between the members of the team and their unique characteristics. My favorite character was Koji Takano, called Taka most of the time, played by Keiji Kuroki of EXILE. Somehow a playboy, he's the charming cop among the team members but also has some funny sides. Shiori Kutsuna appears as Hitomi Maeda. She's pretty and well - a detective series without one female member around wouldn't be that much fun. As she tries to solve the case of her fathers murder, she happens to be in danger as well and has to deal with emotional conflicts at the end.
Every team needs a leader - this group of goofballs does need one more than anything else. The inspector and team leader Kensuke Kagiyama is played by Katsumi Takahashi. He's also the one who describes the whole team as a family, and he's not completely wrong with that.
Mitsuru Fukikoshi appears as Toshifumi Inagi, also called Chaser from time to time.
Tetsushi Tanaka can be seen as Bachelor Hisashi Koga, and Sarutoki Minagawa took the role of Skunk Kaoru Togashi.
And when it comes to a detective series, we need a villain, right? Mitsuhiro Oikawa appears as the.. slightly mad Takehisa Kaizuka. They could have found an actor who might be better for this role, yes. But after all he did a good job playing the weird psycho as well.

Soundtrack: As far as I know Japanese series usually have a theme song and not a full OST. In this case, it's Mayday's "Do You Ever Shine?" and this song is catchy! I liked it, it has this rock feeling around it.
What really surprised me was the use of the "Erlkönig" ballad written by Goethe. Sadly I'm not familiar with the musical versions but you can't imagine my facial expression when I noticed that it's German and I had to deal with this in my German classes in 12th grade (I think..). Since I was able to understand this, it actually scared me a little since the story is dark and atmospheric. It basically is about a father trying to save his son. I highly recommend reading a translation because it's no joke, this classical peace actually works well with the story!


So.. this was my first try to get through a Japanese series and it actually went well. My rating ended up to be a 9/10. The first few episodes weren't that good but the end made up for it. And please read the read writing in the last picture. There's hope!