Jin

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The manga Jin is born from the author (Motoka Murakami) asking himself a question: "If a doctor with knowledge of modern medicine was sent back to the Edo period, what would that man have been able to do?" While advancing through the pages, I realize that the main idea behind most (if not all) of the arcs this work consists of is roughly a direct answer to this question, with a different sickness or situation every time. However, this manga is so much more than just that.

Jin is a neurosurgeon that accidentally travels back in time to 1862 during the Edo era in Japan. ... This is a very interesting point in time in Japanese history, since it's the time right before the transition from the last Shogunate (military dictatorship of the Shogun) to the Meiji era, where power is restored to the Emperor and Japan undergoes an incredibly fast westernization and modernization of many aspects of its society from a medieval to a modern one. It's an era of huge contrast where Samurai were still in power, but Japan was under a growing influence of the West, which brought many novelties in terms of culture, tools, weaponry and many other things, including medicine.
If you have read or watched Rurouni Kenshin or watched the Last Samurai, both of these tell the perspective of the Samurai after their fall from grace, when society was leaving them behind as a thing of the past. This work shows the events that led to all of that happening.

I am very impressed with many aspects of Jin, but the one that shines the most is its attention to detail and the way this is delivered to the reader. I am not a fan of excess of exposition in novels or manga, and historically based works tend to fall into this pit more than others since exposition is such a common tool when presenting historical facts. Good historical works in my opinion, use exposition to set the context necessary to understand what is happening but let you experience the rest. And this is something I believe Jin does very well. Through the very detailed artwork alone, you will come to understand many things about this era and its people, what the buildings looked like, what people wore, how they lived, how they enjoyed their time and how did Tokyo (known as Edo, already a massive city at this time) used to look.

The main character gets to interact with both the common people and some of the important figures that played a decisive role in this era. And of course, he gets to be a doctor with medical knowledge from the future trying to put into practice what he knows with the limited tools he has available to him. The depiction of the operations and other medical procedures feel extremely realistic and the way he comes up with solutions to the medical problems he faces feel very convincing.
In general, for a comic involving topics such as time travel and adapting of modern medicine to the past, I am quite impressed by how believable the manga is from start to end.

The story is organized into acts that normally involve a certain event (like a trip to a different city) or the specific sickness of a patient and the process to treat them. Because of this format, the manga revolves mainly about a short cast of recurring characters of those closest to Jin, plus the characters from the specific arc. The latter have a strong presence through the arc but tend to disappear afterwards. They do come back from time to time after that, making the world feel alive though. I personally like this format, and I think it fits the story well, but I feel like it does not give much time or importance to character development in general. In no way do characters feel neglected, and you do get to see some development, especially for the important characters, but personally I did not feel very attached to any of them. That is, in my opinion, the weakest part of this work.

Regarding the story itself, I think it's well done. It accompanies the characters instead of driving them for the most part. And the common thread that brings all the arcs together keeps on slowly advancing until the finish line. The end is also satisfying and well done, which is never easy to do.

Overall, I think this is a fantastic manga. I enjoyed it a lot, and got to learn a lot of things with it as well. It may be worth saying that I'm no history or medicine geek by any means, but it's presented in a way in which you'll feel satisfied and interested as you read it. It strikes a good balance between being serious and lighthearted, fun and informative.

Finally, just wanted to say that it was fully translated to English by the end of January 2020, and accessible through the author's Patreon page. Which I hope more mangakas would do, especially with works as difficult to translate as this one.

So let me start with a review here since no one has done yet at the time.

Jin is a manga made for people that enjoy some kind of historical conflicts.
What I mean by this is a surgeon travelling back in time accidentally (Edo period) and without a way to turn back.
He will have an impact in people's life in the past, using his skills as a surgeon to help save many lives and challenging every day difficulties of the past, for example: A deadly plague.
With the techology known from the future he is able to cure a disease that in the past was incurable.

The ... story is good, it had some flaws but it's a good story for opening an understanding on a more complex theme.

I enjoyed the art quite alot, everything was well detailed, giving a great enjoyment due to that.
The characters are quite well done aswell, the main character had to adapt itself to the new way of living making the characters development quite good. It was impressive how the other people from the past reacted to the ways of the main character to take care of pacients.
These little details makes it all better.

Overall I enjoyed the chapters I have seen so far from Jin, while not an incredible over the top manga, it will prove entertaining for people that have a liking for history.

Jin is the tale of a Japanese brain surgeon named Minakata Jin that gets sent back in time to the Bakumetsu period. There he uses his modern medical knowledge to help the people of Edo while dealing with the various issues of the era. As such, one of the core aspects of this manga is medicine and medical techniques, with a goal of showing how amazing modern medicine through contrasting it with the medical practices of the era.

This manga is much more detailed and technical than I expected. And to be honest I often found it dull or hard to follow. Stuff like discovering and ... manufacturing penicillin and advances related to that was awesome and really satisfying, but things relating to very specific techniques in very specific surgeries was beyond me. Though I suppose I should note that I am just a lay person with no knowledge of medicine beyond what I learned in high school, and people with actual training and experience in the field will likely be able to get much more from it.

Beyond that, there are several overarching plot threads. The first is centered around time travel. This is heavily concentrated towards the beginning and end of the manga, but it pops up to a small degree at times throughout. Overall, I found this aspect pretty weak. Time travel in general can get pretty bizarre, but the explanation for time travel here I found especially nonsensical. I also found it strange how what Jin did in the past had so little effect on the future. For example, discovering and spreading penicillin 70 years early should have had a tremendous impact on history, but in practice the changes to history were pretty minor. As such, beyond the introduction I didn’t find much of value to this plot thread.

The second plot thread is chronicling the Bakumetsu period. The rapid changes to Japan affected everyone and Minakata is no exception. As such, a good amount of the manga is spent explaining the state of the world and how things were changing and why. However, Minakata is ultimately just a doctor. He meets and treats a lot of important people, but at the same time he isn’t directly involved in any of the historical events occurring. As such, the vast majority of this historical explanation is basically tangents and often narrated rather than actually shown. As such, it was often as dry as a history textbook. Thus, I would not say that this is all that great at portraying the major events of the Bakumetsu period.

However, that brings me to the next plot thread, or rather series of plot threads, the lives of Minakata and the various people that Minakata is involved with. Minakata treats all sorts of people, young and old, rich and poor, regardless of what faction they were in the various conflicts occurring. And there’s always some sort of story to them beyond just the treatment. In conveying these stories, the manga does a really good job of conveying what life was like in the era for various people of all types. This manga doesn’t do a good job of explaining the key events of the time, but does a great job of showing how these events personally affected different kinds of people. Thus, while it’s not all that great of a historical account, it’s pretty great historical tourism.

With that said, most of the characters in and of themselves I didn’t find all that compelling. While their place in the world was interesting, their individual stories were not. Most of the time, it never really felt like the author was trying to do anything or convey anything with these stories. I suppose that’s more realistic, but it’s also more boring. There were very few characters that were even slightly memorable, not counting historical figures. There’s also a romance involving Minakata that goes absurdly slowly and has a really lukewarm end. It also involves a love triangle that lingers far too long and ends up playing into unnecessary time travel nonsense. Due to this, the ending wasn’t really all that satisfying.

The art I didn’t really like. Though I suppose I should note that I’m not a fan of more realistic art styles for manga in general. However, I do acknowledge that such an art style worked well here. And the art relating to medical procedures especially seemed well done.

tl;dr: A manga with a strong and often deep medical focus that can get pretty dull, but that is also pretty great historical tourism.