Imagine your penis. Except it turned into chikuwa (fish cake). You heard that right. Dr. Ramune and Kuro investigate another tale of the bizarre in the 2nd episode of Dr. Ramune: Mysterious Disease Specialist.
"Your penis became chikuwa?"
From mayonnaise tears and family trauma to edible body parts, Dr. Ramune has another strange case to treat. And things get very fishy as his patient comes in with all cool but flustered, with frustration and more than a few dirty secrets. Nothing that Dr. Ramune couldn’t fix of course. But if the first episode was anything to go by, then you’d know his methods were far from the most comfortable. And it would always lead to what the patient needed the most.
"What a splendid chikuwa you got there."
Of course that all depends on if the patient was to listen to his advice. Like any doctor, Ramune gives his patients the autonomy to choose what to do. He very much delights in seeing how the patients screw themselves over whenever they don’t go for the best choice (Insert moral lesson no. 1).
See, the patient of the day, a guy named Kengo, has something to hide. What that maybe is something one has to discover for themselves. It’s safe to say that it isn’t surprising at all. But at the same time, it makes the entire episode much more entertaining (and could even leave some feeling a little vindicated). And like any good doctor, Ramune knows just what he needs. The question is, however, will Kengo take it?
"You’re lucky your body gave you the hint."
Kengo, and his mermaid meat issues, are obviously the central point of comedy. The entire idea of having a personal male commodity turn edible dish was the best part of the episode. And probably the best source of future memes if the show managed to gain longevity. Despite this gold mine of potential laughs, like the previous episode, it doesn’t really explore the extended weirdness of having the salmon hard-ons. And then the episode takes the obvious route. Character does something that Ramune expected, treatment goes wrong, and he has to step in to give them a big slap of reality-probably not how a doctor is supposed to do it. But this is Ramune and he’s not any ordinary doctor (or a mature one for that matter).
The main theme of the episode gets very apparent early on. It isn’t really subtle as it wants to be with the whole point of why suffering from supernatural man problems was happening. And maybe subtlety wasn’t really the point. Dr. Ramune is a show that seems focused on two things: solving peculiar medical problems and beating you over the head with its moral lesson. It’s not the best but isn’t bad either. It becomes a matter of how long it can keep it up without boring the audience.
"Just give me a temporary fix!"
It’s a pretty ‘rinse-and-repeat’ formula that could no doubt keep viewers entertained if the show continues to find new and bizarre anomalies to cure. But this could spell a problem in the future for the anime if it doesn’t introduce more characters and world-building soon. There’s only so long that formulaic stories can be used before they become background noise.
But for what it’s worth now, Dr. Ramune is very entertaining and something to look forward to. The second episode still had entertaining aspects that are fun to look back to. Hopefully, the future episodes take a much-needed detour into Dr. Ramune’s world.
In summary:
ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR DOCTOR KIDS!
Dr. Ramune Mysterious Disease Specialist Episode 2 will be released on Sunday, 24 of January at 1:30 am JST.
Got any thoughts on what peculiar cases you wish you could see? Write it below in the comments!
Official Anime Website: Dr. Ramune: Mysterious Disease Specialist
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