This is one of the latest dramas that was shown in Japan, having just ended it’s run on September 12, 2008. To me, it’s one of the best dramas I have watched recently. Recently meaning during the holidays, since this is the only drama I watched during the semester. It has a star studded cast, in my opinion, comprising of the follow actors / actresses:

Yamashita Tomohisa (Yamapi) – Wiki
Aragaki Yui (Gakki) – Wiki
Toda Erika – Wiki

Ok, perhaps it’s not really that star studded, but it’s quite good already. I’ve watched many of their shows. Maybe it’s not much, but if they star in a drama, I’ll probably watch it, sooner or later. I’ve watched Yamapi’s Kurosagi as Kurosaki, Proposal Daisakusen as Iwase Ken, Dragon Zakura as Yajima Yusuke, and Nobuta Wo Produce as Kusano Akira. I realized I didn’t blog about Kurosagi and Nobuta Wo Produce, but both are wonderful dramas in my opinion, especially since Maki’s acting in both.

I watched Aragaki in Dragon Zakura as Kosaka Yoshino (and she looks very different!), My Boss My Hero as Umemura Hikari, Papa to Musume no Nanokakan as Kawahara Koume and in a movie, Koizora (which I didn’t appreciate). Aragaki has grown up over the “years” and looks really different now compared to when she was younger. (Less baby fat?)

For Toda, I first watched her in Death Note (Movie) as Misa Misa, then Tsubasa no Oreta Tenshitachi 2 as Sakura. I also watched her in Liar Game as Kanzaki Nao.

Anyway, Code Blue is an exciting drama about four medical doctors who went to this emergency hospital as interns to train as flight doctors for “Doctor Heli”. Doctor Heli will receive emergency calls from fire engines or ambulances, and within 3 minutes the helicopter would be ready to take off with the 2 doctors and 1 flight nurse to go to the accident / emergency site to help the people in need. Most of the time, they have to do emergency actions, else the person will probably die.

At the start, Aragaki’s character Shiraishi was chosen to be the first intern to serve as one of the flight doctors, and she actually was quite nervous and blanked out upon seeing the victim. Their mentor, who’s the 2nd doctor, immediately took over. This shows how stressful it is, even for a doctor with numerous ER experience.

Yamapi’s character, Aizawa was chosen as the 2nd day flight intern doctor, and since he’s cool headed, he managed to go on site and immediately performed an amputation on the guy who’s hand is trapped in the machine. The rest of the interns would not be able to do it because they feel more for the patient, who’s a young adult. Aizawa is more focused and choose a treatment that’ll allow the person to live. If the amputation was not done, the person will die. When asked what he felt when he did the amputation, he said, “Heat. It’s hot inside”. As such, his character is actually quite “cold blooded”.

Toda’s first mission also ended up with her blanking out and Aizawa actually flew in via the 2nd round to replace her since there was 2 causalities so the senior doctor was busy.

The whole of Code Blue is a sequence of stories showing how the four doctor interns matured and changed, from being rivals to being good friends who’ll support each other. One particular character to note is the last flight doctor who was only allowed to become a flight doctor intern in the last episode after their mentor saw how he changed when reacting in an operation. This shows that if you put in the hardwork, eventually you’ll make it. And that people’s support to you is very important.

Aizawa also changed, after he amputated his mentor’s arm. He began to feel emotions and he wavers in his decision slightly, and becomes more “human”. One instance is when he decided to prioritise the mother in a difficult “birth”, but ended up suggesting an alternative way to save both mother and child. But the part where I could feel very strongly with him is the part where he says “I will save you and let you see your family again”. Don’t you feel that’s the way a professional is? If you are there and you can play a difference to someone’s life in such a way, even though you’re not a doctor, will you do something?

Shiraishi also learnt not to run away and be more courageous and became a more responsible flight doctor.

There are mini stories inside, like when a senior doctor was sued when her operation failed and killed a mother and child pair. Aizawa’s grandmother also appeared and suffered from dementia, during which it allowed us to see Aizawa’s human side when he teared and hugged his grandmother. Or how the proud mentor lost his arm but actually took it in his stride, not blaming Shiraishi (whom he suffered the injury to save her), or Aizawa (who amputated his arm), because if he didn’t live, he won’t be able to see his son for the first time. (He’s divorced because he spends too much time for his patients).

I felt that the whole doctor heli program (which is being implemented in Japan) is a good program, especially when you can make a difference to a person’s life and death. In Singapore it won’t be applicable I guess since our hospitals are not that far away. But I guess this drama has made me wonder what’s my mission in life. For doctors who became doctors because they want to make a difference in people’s lives, to save as many people as possible, I think they are great. But what’s in for me? Suddenly, there’s more things in life to live for.

I particularly like a sentence inside which goes like this: “A doctor can only lengthen the life of a patient by a bit, but whether its 1 second, 1 hour, 1 day, it’s worth it”. Link it to the mentor talking about seeing his son, and I just felt that it’s really true. There’s so many things in life worth living for.

I give this drama a 5/5 because I like it a lot.

If you want to watch this drama, go to MySoju.

For more information, visit the Wiki.

Kanzaki Nao is a really honest and innocent citizen. She is probably the most innocent character ever in all of Drama-world. I mean, at the start, they show how innocent she is by showing her returning a 100 yen coin she found to the police station, and making a police report for it. A 100 yen is probably about 1 US dollar? However the best nonsense got to be her receiving a prank call about her brother having some trouble, and she actually believed it till she realized she’s an only child. -_-"

All the troubles begin when Nao receives a package containing a letter and a 100 million yen (equivalent to a million USD). The moment she opened the letter, it is deemed that she is voluntarily participating in this game called the Liar Game .

In the first round, she has to cheat her opponent of as much money as possible. At the end of 30 days, the Liar Game team will return to collect a 100 million yen from both participants, and any money left over will be the prize money. Hence, the cheated victim will have to get a loan to pay back the money.

She gets cheated immediately because her opponent was her former teacher, and she actually handed over a 100 million yen to him to put in the bank "later". With the help of a convicted swindler Akiyama Shinichi, she manages to get the 100 million yen back, as well as successfully win another 100 million yen as prize money. But due to her innocent nature, she saves her former teacher by giving him back the 100 million yen.

That, is the first round of the liar game. Nao actually ends up in a few more rounds. She proceeded to the 2nd round because she couldn’t pay the opt out fee (she returned it to the teacher) and by some turn of events, Akiyama took over another participant to end up with Nao again. There is a reason why Akiyama helps Nao so much, and is in the sub-plot I won’t reveal.

Basically the second round is Minority Voting. As long as one votes in the minority, he/she is safe. Else, he/she will leave and incur a 100 million yen debt. It sounds disgustingly dangerous, but by Akiyama’s strategy it seems actually easy. It’s all mathematics and trying to find a way to last till the end.

Nao finishes and manages to exit from Liar Game. Some events lead her to go to the resurrection round, which is the restructuring game. By voting who to keep in the game, the person with the least number of votes will be restructured, and won’t have a chance to pay back the 100million yen incurred in the former round.

Nao eventually ends up in round 3, a smuggling game which I don’t know how to describe. Eventually Nao manages to create a win-win situation, and wins over certain selfish people to get a harmonious result for everyone to draw.

Liar Game is exciting and you may get irritated because the people there are so bad to innocent Nao. The main moral of the story is, if everyone works together and not backstab each other for selfish reasons, everyone can be saved. It’s those selfish people that spoils everyone’s chances by wanting to earn more money.