<figure id="attachment_382322" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 593px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-382322"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="810b2631"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/07/a73639b688e0c4e191eab22f1ccb8849.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-382322" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The double lead roles of Eiko Koike and Taiga Nakano are also a topic of interest.</span></figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kankuro Kudo&#8217;s new script, *Shinjuku Battlefield Hospital* (Fuji TV), has quickly become a must-watch.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The story is set at Sei Magokoro Hospital in Shinjuku&#8217;s Kabukicho. The heroine is Yoko Nishi Freeman (played by Eiko Koike), a Japanese-American former military doctor. She is bilingual in English and Okayama dialect and begins working at the hospital, which was seeking a surgeon.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The other main character is Takamine Toru (played by Taiga Nakano), the hospital director&#8217;s nephew and a cosmetic dermatologist. He drives his white Porsche around and spends his nights busy with pay-to-drink sessions with women from Minato Ward. He is a 30-something man often seen as a carefree yutori monster.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The people surrounding these two main characters are also quite eccentric. The former surgeon and hospital director, Takamine Keisuke (played by Akira Emoto), trembles when he holds a scalpel if he hasn&#8217;t had a drink. The head nurse, Shinobu Horii (played by Muga Tsukaji), is fluent in English and has an ambiguous gender identity. Internal medicine doctor Katsuaki Yokoyama (played by Takashi Okabe) is particular about distinguishing between &#8220;pay-to-drink&#8221; and &#8220;sugar daddy&#8221; arrangements. Additionally, local activist Mai Minami (played by Ai Hashimoto) also seems to have a complicated background.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The story further involves a diverse mix of people from Kabukicho, including organized crime figures, sex workers, illegal immigrants, and teenage girls. There have already been incidents such as shootings by former gang members and host falls. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yoko is a surgeon but does not hold a Japanese medical license. Although she pretends to be a support role for the hospital director, she actually takes on the responsibility of saving patients&#8217; lives.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yoko says,</span><b> &#8220;I became a military doctor to save lives that are within my reach.&#8221;</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> In the U.S., the disparity in wealth among patients affects the quality of medical care they receive.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the battlefield, there is no distinction between men and women, good people and bad people when it comes to life.</span><b> &#8220;Help everyone equally and roughly, that&#8217;s the doctor&#8217;s belief&#8221;</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> This is not &#8220;Dr. X,&#8221; but &#8220;Dr. Y.&#8221; The surgeries are rough, but the skills are good.</span></p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="Ikebukuro will be the stage in 2000."></div>
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<h3><b>Departing from Ikebukuro, via Kitami Riku, heading to Kabukicho</b></h3>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Initially, the setting was region-specific to Shinjuku and Kabukicho, which led to thoughts of a local drama like Ikebukuro West Gate Park (TBS, 2000), set in Ikebukuro. This was Kudo Kan&#8217;s first serialized drama script. </span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The protagonist, Makoto Majima (played by Tomoya Nagase), is a playboy who earns spare change through gambling and bowling. He helps run his family&#8217;s fruit store and works as a troubleshooter. Teaming up with Takashi Ando (played by Yosuke Kubozuka) and other members of the street gang G Boys, he solves troublesome cases.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The cases involve social issues such as compensated dating, hikikomori (social withdrawal), abuse, stalking, and pyramid schemes. The drama turned into a remarkable hard-boiled comedy.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Now, twenty-five years later, Kudo Kan has found a new area with a similar level of chaos to that of Ikebukuro back then Shinjuku and Kabukicho.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, while Ikebukuro was local to Majima and his friends, Kabukicho is not Yoko’s hometown. She is an outsider who has arrived and is, in a sense, an alien. Yet, this alien presence influences and changes its surroundings.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This structure is reminiscent of Kudo Kan&#8217;s morning drama Amachan (NHK, 2013). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In typical morning dramas, the heroines grow and change through various experiences. However, Aki Amano (played by Rena Nonen) in Amachan is different. Although she may have grown, her fundamental essence remains unchanged.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead, it is the people around Aki, the alien element, who gradually change as they are influenced by her. This includes both the people of Kitami Riku and those she meets in Tokyo. This dynamic evokes the concept of the trickster as described by cultural anthropologist Masao Yamaguchi. </span></p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="Aki Amano was a trickster."></div>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Trickster with the image of a mischief-maker, </span><b>&#8220;On one hand, they are excluded as a threat to order, but on the other hand, they are required as something necessary to invigorate and renew a depleted (withered) order.&#8221; (Yamaguchi, Culture and Ambivalence) </b></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When Aki appeared in Kitami Riku, she was merely seen as a supporting role or the daughter of Haruko Amano by the locals. Although Aki moved to Tokyo to become an idol, what was truly awaited was the cute one, Yui (played by Ai Hashimoto), while Aki, with her accent, was considered an extra. </span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">However, before anyone realized it, Aki had become the center of attention. </span><b>&#8220;A trickster appears as a supporting role but eventually becomes the main character&#8221;</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (Yamaguchi, The Concept of Alienation in the Study of Cultural Signifiers).</span></h3>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="English, Okayama dialect, and Yoko's narration are Kudo-kan inventions"></div>
<h3><b>A trickster who descended upon the local area.</b></h3>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If that&#8217;s the case, might Yoko also be a trickster who appeared in her local area of Kabukicho?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yoko&#8217;s speech, a mix of English that sounds like a Japanese-American and Okayama dialect inherited from her mother (Kimiko Yo), is a unique creation of Kudokan. It has a distinctive intensity and persuasive power that draws in the audience. </span></p>
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<p><b>&#8221; I saw it. Injured soldiers, sick children. When they are brought in, they are different people, different lives. But when they die, when life ends, (in Okayama dialect) everyone is the same&#8221;</b></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Then she continues,</span><b> &#8220;The heart stops, the breath stops, and it becomes cold. (In Okayama dialect) When dying, it&#8217;s the same. It’s really tough. It’s incredibly tough.&#8221;</b></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Because it&#8217;s so incredibly tough, helping equally and roughly is necessary. </span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When it&#8217;s hard to decide between &#8220;Yes&#8221; and &#8220;No,&#8221; Yoko navigates with &#8220;Yeah,&#8221; a middle ground between the English &#8220;Yeah&#8221; and the Japanese &#8220;No.&#8221;</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yoko’s presence is gradually, but surely, starting to change the people around her, including Tohru, the flashy doctor, and the patients.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kudokan&#8217;s works, from Ikebukuro in his 30s, Kitami in his 40s, to Shinjuku and Kabukicho in his 50s, reflect the evolution of Kudokan’s unique local drama over 20 years. </span></p>
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<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The two W stars of Shinjuku Field Hospital"></div>
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<figure id="attachment_382323" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1280px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-382323"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3fd08d92"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/07/c641efb362b1e2c466d362a8d56790a1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-382323" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="font-weight: 400;">After finishing work and having dinner, Koike was walking around the Daikanyama area. Her dress, which had a deep neckline, exuded a full sexy aura (July 6, 2018 issue). </span></figcaption></figure>
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<figure id="attachment_382324" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 2343px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-382324"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="684247dc"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/07/4c08a9eb765e0d53dca8d68958fff671.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-382324" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the set of #WeAreLookingForFamily (TBS), to the left is Daiki Shigeoka from WEST (July 9, 2021 issue).</span></figcaption></figure>
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 Born in Nagano Prefecture in 1955. Media culture critic. Joined TV Man Union in 1981. Has been producing documentaries and dramas for the past 20 years. His representative works include "Human Document: The Story of Masako Natsume. After working as an assistant professor at Keio University, he was a professor at the Department of Newspaper, Faculty of Letters, Sophia University until 2020. He is the author of "'Kita no Kuni Kara' Kuroita Goro no Kotoba" (Gentosha), "A Little Lie is Tolerable - Kuniko Mukoda no Kotoba" (Shinchosha), and others.

 Hiroyoshi Usui

 Takao Kawakami (Koike), Yusuke Kondo (Nakano)

 Kudo Kankuro's "Shinjuku Field Hospital" is a drama that one cannot take one's eyes off. Media critic Hiroyoshi Usui calls it an evolution of Kudo-kan's "local" drama.

From Ikebukuro to Kitami: Shinjuku Battlefield Hospital Redefines Kudo Kankuro’s Local Drama

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