Fragile (2016)

The story of fragile centers on the character of Chihiro Miyazaki played by Emi Takei as she learns how to be a good doctor that is able to accurately determine the illness that is causing a patient discomfort by joining the pathology department that is led by the brilliant but unsociable Kishi played by Tomoyo Nagase. Unlike most other medical dramas that either focus on the normal ER doctors or nurses this drama features the characters that work in a field that is not well represented within this genre. This i felt was a interesting topic and setting to put the main characters into.

Each of the cases that were shown in the drama were self contained stories that never less featured multiple problems that were affecting the patient in addition to the illness itself. While Kishi is usually the one that deals with the illness itself Chihiro will be the one that listens and tries to understand the problems that are causing the patients harm. This combo i felt was a interesting as it made use of both characters differing personalities to their fullest. I actually enjoyed the cases that were featured in as each case is usually not what it appears to be and in some cases the circumstances of the illness and the characters situation can be rather surprising. Each of the cases i felt was well designed and thought out.

characters

Emi's character is Chihiro Miyazaki a doctor that works in the hospital and a
somewhat kind and compassionate doctor that cares about the well being of her patients.
Emi's portrayal of the kind hearted and compassionate Chihiro was as flawless as ever. Her character provides a great foil to Kishi and seeing her try and understand the feelings of a patient is really heartwarming.

Tomoya Nagase plays Keiichiro Kishi a pathologist that works alongside
Emi's character. He is excellent at his job but self centered and not sociable
to others.

His character though not sociable and not given to being nice to people
is straight to the point and is not afraid of speaking his mind to others
especially when their diagnosis are incorrect. And of course he doesn't like to meet people because of his personality quirks. His methods are not always by the rules but always aim to save the patient. However when Kishi does notice a peculiarity in a patients diagnosis he will try his hardest to determine what it is in an effort to save the patient. And its this determination that i respect.

This is the first time i seen Tomoyo Nagase in a lead role and in this i thought that he did a fantastic job of portraying the stubborn but steadfast Kishi who aims to get his diagnosis 100% correct and therefore treating the patient correctly. Seeing the bond that the Chihiro and Kishi develops over the series is one of the highlights of the show.

support characters

Kishi's assistant tech Mori though is an interesting character as he is the only one person in the department beside Kishi and the often absent department head. Mori without spoiling the review is pretty smart and often works in conjunction with Hosoki and Chihiro to get Kishi to get serious about a case. Mori's insights though are often useful to the cast.

The show has plenty of support characters some good while others villainous
for doctors.

Dr Hosoki played by Koyuki is a interesting support character in that she and Kishi are old friends and as such knew each other pretty well. Her character provides a lot of good advice to the main cast when they need advice on their cases or their lives. Despite being a support character Hosoki plays a part in nearly every case that Chihiro and Kishi tackle usually acting as the moral heart of the case.

Former SKE48 idol Rena Matsui plays the mysterious and shrewd Naomi Hibako who works for a pharmaceutical company that both helps and hinders the main cast. Though i only seen Rena act in a few dramas her performance here is a vast improvement of her past roles and i thought that she portrayed her character pretty well.

conclusion

Fragile i felt was a pretty good medical drama that had a solid cast of both veterans and newbees. As with all medical dramas it adapts a case by case format as its story along with a emphasis on the developing bonds between Kishi and Chihiro. Each of these cases were interesting and are all self contained story-lines. As the series progresses and you see Kishi, Chihiro and co work
to save the patients its nice seeing them develop bonds of friendship and respect for each other.

The acting ability of the cast i felt was excellent especially Kishi's actor Nagase Tomoya who portrayed the cool and brooding Kishi and Emi Takei who portrayed the new but honorable and determined Chihiro pretty well.

Normura Shuhei, Koyuki and Kitaoji Kinya who portrays the characters of
Morii, Hosoki and Kishi's mentor Nakaguma also deserve some praise for their
performance.

One aspect that i liked about this show was that how Kishi and Chihiro consistently deals with arrogant doctors that care only about maintaining the status quo and reminding them that they should do their very best for every one of their patients and ensure that their illnesses are correctly identified and treated correctly. This i felt was pretty hearwarming

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"Pathologists always have to battle against their anxiety because the responsibility is always theirs alone to bear." - Professor Nakaguma Kaoru

I like that it's a different kind of medical drama where diagnosis and investigations became the main focus here instead of surgery or other medical aspects. I think it's a well made drama except for the unnecessary romance subplot between the patient and Hibako. Each episode has its own issue, and I particularly love episode 4. The episode 4 story was heartfelt and touching. Nagase's and Koyuki's performances in this episode were flawless. Check out the argument scene  between Kishi and Hosoki. I love the interactions between Kishi and the people around him like Morii, Miyazaki, Nakaguma and Hosoki.

The last two episodes however felt forced and rushed. The often repeated line in every episode used by Kishi got annoying after a while though. The background music was too loud for my taste. But the theme song, Fragile by TOKIO is love.

On to the actors' performances...Nagase Tomoya as the HBIC pathologist, Kishi Keiichiro is excellent. He is sarcastic, intelligent and sassy. Nagase's a versatile actor who can play any role given to him with aplomb whether it's a melancholic character like Okazaki Ritsu, a badass cop like Kurokouchi Keita, the mature elder brother like Ishihara Shintaro, a memory loss ex-soldier like Shimanto Taro or a red demon like Killer K. And did I mention that he is gorgeous? Takei Emi excels as the scatterbrained rookie doctor, Miyazaki Chihiro. Nomura Shuhei shines as the trusted lab technician, Morii Hisashi. They are ably supported by Koyuki, Kitaoji Kinya and Kanji Tsuda.

I hope that Fragile sequel (if there's any that is) will have more in depth character developments and backstories for the main characters because here they didn't explored much of them.

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