I gave this one a shot because Wrigh over at HappyScans said "it's the best series we do that nobody seems to read," which appealed to me. I've read up through ch5 now, everything that they've scanlated so far; it's got some pros and cons, but all in all it's good, much better than I expected from the initial description above (which I have now updated). I plan to keep reading.
For cons, my biggest complaint is the style of the comedy in it: it's a layer of quasi-slapstick (mainly visual) pasted on top of a serious and exciting underlying story, and it can be distracting. On the other hand, this is pretty much the only respect in which the manga feels dated to me, and that's saying something. It's from a different era.
There's also one pillar of the plot that has the potential to be weak. We have a lot of these historical dramas about the informed and conscientious doctor fighting an uphill battle against benighted but politically powerful traditional medicine ... the setup is almost a caricature right out of the gate, and in the same way that this manga has a tendency to overplay the comedy in a given situation, it also flirts with turning that aspect of the drama into boilerplate. But it hasn't gone off the rails yet. It's as likely, for the moment, that Tezuka (the author) is attempting to lay down the parameters of the situation with a few broad strokes, to get things started quickly.
For pros, it's a fast-moving plot with a rapidly growing cast of characters. We go back and forth between Ibuya and Tezuka (the character), watching things get complicated with one and then the other by turns. Their first few meetings have an accidental quality, and then in one swift stroke they're thrown in the stew together. The story is going at full speed now, and it's going to be interesting to see where it goes.
Another thing that is striking about this manga is the care with which the late-Shogunate era is drawn, and the vivid depiction of the changes tearing through it. There are several scenes in which this is done with a very fine hand; the scene at O-Tama's Pond in ch3, for example, is exceptional. The author obviously has a strong sense of the analogy between the path of the doctor and the path of the samurai in this time of upheaval, and uses each to throw the other into relief. Good stuff.
(-29)
