What I Saw: Jin Season 1

I went to a nerd convention last weekend, and I didn’t do any real TV watching. I also spent some time trying to fix my (ancient) gaming PC which has been glitching. It seems to be working okay now, so I’ll keep trudging along with that story rich game I’ve been playing and post on it eventually. What I did manage to accomplish was finishing what apparently was half of the show I’m writing about today. My friend, the one who recommended the J-Drama to me, just told me there were two seasons of it; which would explain why there was no explanation at the end. Anyways, on to the actual content.

What I watched:

Jin Season 1:
After a neurosurgeon causes his fiancé to end up in a coma after an experimental surgery, Jin comes across a mysterious patient who’s face is wrapped in bandages. He removes a brain tumor which looks like a fetus, and the patient escapes carrying an emergency aid kit. In the struggle to subdue the patient, Jin falls and wakes up in Japan’s Edo period. Once there, he is taken in by a samurai family and meets a historic figure in Japan named Sakamoto Ryoma. He then encounters a courtesan who is very likely the foremother of his fiancé. Jin then decides to teach modern medicine at a much earlier time in order to advance medical science in the present day and save his fiancé.

What I saw:

This was an interesting show on many levels. It features strong believable characters, existential ideas, and discusses the ethics of time travel all wrapped into a medical drama. If you couldn’t tell by the setting, it is a Japanese Drama (J-Drama), which differ from K-Dramas not only by the country of origin, but also by the lack of formulaic storytelling. There are loads of spoilers from here on out, so if you plan to watch the show (which I recommend) now is the time to avert your eyes!


Existentialism

Jin has a big existential crisis right in the beginning of the show. Jin took a leap of faith and decided to conduct an experimental operation on his fiance, Miki, risking what little and precious time left with her in the hopes of curing her. The problem with a leap of faith is you don’t know if the choice you make is the correct one until after it is made, and it seems like Jin chose incorrectly. Miki ends up in a coma and he becomes scared to take on any risky surgeries after that. The progenitor of existentialism, Kierkegaard, discussed how a leap of faith is necessary to accomplish our goals. The reason it is called a leap of faith is because the outcome is unknown. All anyone can do in life is make the best decisions that they can in that moment and hope it is good enough. And in those times where the choice is wrong, it is up to that person to get up and make another choice, and then another, and then another.

The other existential concept presented was the Absurd. Jin saved some people’s lives from one incident, and starts to think maybe he was sent to the past for a reason: to save lives and in turn the life of his fiancé. He saved some people’s lives only to see them at risk of dying from cholera days later. He then questions whether his presence in the past has any meaning at all, since the universe seemed intent to balance out his actions. Hence the absurdity that is life: if our actions mean nothing, then why do we feel so intent to keep living. But much like everyone else who comes across this absurdity, Jin pushes forward and tries to fill it with meaning anyways. Because honestly, the only alternative to living is death, and while it makes no logical sense to stay alive people don’t commit suicide for ontological reasons. We just force ourselves to keep on keeping on because while the alternative is just as meaningless, at least we’re not dead.

Being active in your own life was also presented after Jin was almost assassinated for his “Dutch” medical knowledge. He admitted to the sister of the samurai that took Jin in, Saki, that he was treating his experience in Edo as a sort of dream, thinking he was sent for a reason and nothing would harm him until he was ready to go back. But after the assassination attempt he realized he was alive, that it was not a dream, and he needed to start acting like his life was in the balance; because it honestly was. I think people in more developed countries often experience this dream-like state at times, where they coast through life day after day. When there is no outright struggle to work for physical survival (we work for money to buy what we need for survival), it can be possible to forget that tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us and the decisions we make for our lives today are always important. That cliché of “if you only had one more day to live, what would you do with it?” is something that we need to ask ourselves from time to time to help us think about what we truly value in our lives. We are mortal beings, never forget that.

Feminism

The Edo period is not really known for it’s fair treatment of women. Much like everywhere else, women were treated as second class citizens in the past; hell even in the present. However, Saki becomes enamored with Jin and his abilities as a doctor. She takes up the mantle of being a nurse. She was willing to break with social norms and work in a field dominated by men. She also sacrificed her honor and potentially her family’s honor by breaking off an engagement in order to return to Jin’s side as a nurse. It is not her right to choose her fate, but she went ahead and chose it because she knew what she valued, and she was willing to fight to uphold it. She even rescued Jin by helping him to run and hide from would-be assassins sent by the traditionalist doctors.

The other feminist is Miki’s foremother, Nokaze. She is the most sought after courtesan in all of Edo and with it she has a certain status, albeit a limited one. She is able to decline (I guess I’ll use the euphemism) customers if she does not like them. Since her status is limited only to the red light district, she encourages Saki to pursue her desire to be a nurse. She recognizes they both love the great doctor, but she accepts it with elegance and does not demean herself in any jealous spats. She has a sense of pride which carried with her throughout the season, and I really did like there were no vindictive tricks to fight over a man.

Politics

With what little I know of Japanese history, the country held an isolationist policy for decades in the 1800’s. Contact and trade were very restricted, and the ideas and religions of European culture were actively persecuted against. Ryoma was actually a real-life political figure in Japan who was assassinated as he organized against the shogunate. While in the first season there is some political maneuvering, the most prominent example of the politics of the day is isolationism. Many traditional doctors felt threatened by Jin’s medical knowledge, and went so far as to destroy a facility producing penicillin to stop him from gaining more status. They confront him under the guise that he is a student of “Dutch” medicine and he is not following the rules set for those students (in those days, the Dutch were the biggest figures to have trade/contact with Japan).

Ethics
There are many ethical ideas presented with regards to how much Jin should change the timeline, if at all. Jin saves the life of the samurai who saved him after waking up in the Edo period. For all he knew the samurai was supposed to live had his own plight not distracted the samurai. His only goal after saving the samurai was to return to his time, but then a woman in Edo became critically injured, and he debates on whether he should interfere or act like he does not know how to save her. He takes into account the famous Butterfly Effect, and does not want to save one life which could go on to give birth to a whole new family of descendants and change the world. He is reluctant to act not only in her case, but also in teaching others how to successfully treat cholera which was spreading all across Edo. Unable to see others suffer, he ultimately decides to act and use his knowledge to treat those around him. He decides to do what he thinks is right despite not knowing how it will effect the future.


Jin’s fiancé is in a coma in the modern day, and right before he attempted the experimental surgery they took a photograph together in the hospital. The photograph changes very slightly at first after he saves someone’s life, but then the photo changes setting completely when he decides to teach some modern technique to others. He uses the photo to guide his progress on the likelihood of saving his fiancé Miki, and she starts to fade from the picture towards the end of the season. Jin discovers that he may have to let Nokaze ignore a diagnosis of breast cancer so she can be sold to a man and begin the line of descendants that will lead to Miki being born. With this knowledge, he revisits the idea of just how much should he interfere in the past.


It was different when he had no idea what would change, but now that he had a clear cause/effect and the ability to choose what effect he wanted, his actions held more weight. He even knew he was doing a wrong thing by allowing Nokaze to die, but he was selfish and wanted only to save Miki. At least so he thought. Jin then realizes he would hate himself for letting someone else die for Miki, and he would also hate himself for erasing Miki from existing at all. Ryoma figures out Jin’s story and saves him from making the choice by begging him to save Nokaze, and Ryoma says he will bear the responsibility along with any hatred from Jin for the choice. After removing the malignant tumor from Nokaze, the photo with Miki disappears entirely, and most likely Miki along with it.


The whole discussion about ethics revolves around consequences. Jin accepts the fact even if he returned to the present, his world is no longer there because of all the changes he already made. He resigns to staying in Edo Japan, and decides to make a life for himself. You can do anything you want in life, so long as you are willing to pay the consequences. While Jin may have been ready to accept the consequence of allowing Nokaze to die of breast cancer, he realized Miki would never have wanted to have someone else go untreated for her own sake. Facing Miki after such a sacrifice was not a price he was willing to pay.


Since Jin already knew of Ryoma’s fate, when Ryoma admitted he was being followed by the shogunate Jin would warn him to take the threats seriously, giving the hint that he knew something. At the end of the season Jin starts to tell Ryoma about what happens to him, but Ryoma stops him. Even though he caught on to the fact that Jin was from the future, he declined to learn more about his own fate because he felt it would keep him from living his life. No one should know too much of their own fate, or else they will be driven mad trying to avoid it. Ryoma understood that, and chose to live his life the way he wants to.


Conclusion

Kind of odd how despite the lack of formulaic storytelling, I ended up making this post a lot more structured than usual. I figured it was probably easier to break it into categories since I talked about a whole season rather than one episode at a time.

With that said, I really liked this first season of Jin. The characters, especially Jin, were believable because they all had flaws one way or the other. Jin started off timid and unsure of himself and his actions, but grew more confident. The characters, setting, plot, and theme were all very coherent and well done. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the story ends!

What kind of approach would you take if you were thrust back in time? Would you try to play it safe and keep from altering history, or would you just go ahead and do whatever you wanted? Let me know in the comments.