Manga of the Month- November

Thought I forgot eh!? Thought you escaped EH?! Well, I simply haven't had time, but NOW! Now I can finally do a manga of the month hehehehehe *sinister laughter*

I'm sorry I'm like 2 weeks late for this, but I know you're all waiting eagerly so I won't waste anymore time.

This month I have grown mixed feelings towards a certain Manga called 'Team Medical Dragon', it is one of the few surgery-related mangas, I think it's well written and drawn, the problem is, that it has some rather controversial views of the Japanese healthcare system that I would personally have to see with my own eyes to actually believe.

This manga is drawn by a well known mangaka, but written by a surgeon, the aim of the manga to my 'reader' point of view is just to slag off the healthcare system in japan, particularly the University (i.e. Research) based hospitals in Tokyo. It is described as a 'Feudal age' run by incompetent lords (professors) governing over peasants (patients). Among discussed roles of nurses as surgeons, framed negligence charges, avoidance to treat foreigners and corruption at the height of the hospital governors, there is also a strong disdain towards drug and clinical trials tested on patients.

I can't really say 'we shouldn't test on humans' because otherwise we would have no development of medicine and the pitiful form of treatment that we have for some major diseases just won't ever evolved. But this manga made me realise that it is on humans, not just the sick that we test drugs with unknown effects on. The manga also made me remember that drug trials are only part of a commercial game for pharmaceutical companies, I kinda forgot about that.

The series might seem to say 'Hate research' or 'Stop drug trials' but what it really is trying to say is 'think of the patients, their pain and suffering' and 'stop using humans as numbers in your sample group'. I guess being in such a research orientated atmosphere made me forget about the humane side to life, and this manga was quite a 'science shock' to me.

Team medical Dragon also sympathises with the horror of being a junior doctor and the naive medical student that will soon bend to the corrupted ways of the system. So I think it is a well rounded manga. However, the one thing that I HATE is that there is occasional pointless sex and nudity which tags the manga as slightly trashy. My only explanation for these unnecessary themes, is that this manga has a lot of medical terminology and hence makes it targeted for those within the field, adding nudity would enhance the number of sales. URGH!

Despite this I do recommend this manga, but I find some of the topics too controversial to believe completely as it could just be controversial to raise sales.