Now Into the Medical Fray!

Say you're grievously injured and you need to get to the ER, stat. But maybe the ER is ten miles away. Luckily for you, if you're in Tokyo there's Tokyo MER, or "Mobile Emergency Room". A team of hotshot doctors and nurses are ready to perform intensive surgery on wheels in this hit series. It's a bit cartoonish for a medical drama but that's par for the course in just about any television or film genre in Japan lately. The emergency scenes are filled with a good energy, though, and are genuinely exciting. I watched just the first episode last night.

Ryohei Suzuki stars as Doctor Kitami, a brilliant, eccentric young gentleman with an upbeat personality. As a child, he was caught in a mass shooting where his parents died due to the lack of doctors among the emergency personnel. This occurred in the US and the show scrupulously avoids implying such a thing could ever happen in Japan. Nonetheless, Kitami was compelled to spearhead the Mobile Emergency Room in Tokyo.

Assisting him are several upbeat nurses (three beautiful young ladies) and a surgeon called Otowa (Kento Kaku). Otowa is the black sheep of the group. He's not upbeat and he conferences with the series villains, a few bureaucrats who are so over-the-top in their performances, they're practically twirling moustaches.

They'd like nothing better than to see the MER shut down. However, they're humiliated in the climax when live video footage shows Kitami rescuing a number of people from a collapsing building. Foiled again!

Tokyo MER is available on Disney+ in Japan.

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