Reviews for Iryuu: Team Medical Dragon

It’s a bit of a surprise seeing no reviews when this thing’s been out for 8 or 9 years. I've marathoned through the currently available chapters in English (scanlation in process), and decided to make a quick review since this manga's review section is empty. But before going on to the main chunk of the review, I think I’ll give a… uh… “slightly” elongated introduction to my personal exposure to Team Medical Dragon. Team Medical Dragon’s been a very different experience for me, someone definitely not well versed in seinen anime/manga. I used to be a more avid anime watcher, and most of the stuff Ipreferred was that good old spunky shounen rom-com actions. It started with Naruto, transitioning to Bleach and eventually to the less known series. Up the top of my favorites are the ever epic Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and the less well-known Eureka Seven.

The point is that I was that I've never really had a great exposure to seinen anime/manga. There’s a multitude of possible reasons for why I didn't watch it, though none of them are really distinct. If I had to give my most solid reason, maybe it’s because I feel seinen anime/manga was just much more “involved” and gut-wrenching than shounen. Instead of a focus on an episodic/arc-based action plot, there’s instead a focus on a concrete, serious story. I see it kinda as the blood boiling shounen fights versus the serious seinen storylines.

In order to avoid that “deep” nature of seinen, I probably opted to just concentrate on shounen series, and for the first couple years of watching Naruto/Bleach, shounen seemed to be a great answer. As time progressed, however, my attention span for shounen grew thinner and thinner. Series began to dull and I began to lose interest, failing to continue on series and simply dropping them. My anime list… and now growing manga list… are perhaps testaments to that, where I’m currently watching/reading a hundred series at a time—99% of those in which I’ve probably dropped though I’m too stubborn to admit it. So... after a while, with my shounen fetish dwindling, I began to branch outwards, still usually looking for something new, experimenting with other genres. There's been some shoujo exploration, which has given me some up and down satisfactions but more importantly, I've started on the genre that pertains directly with Team Medical Dragon, seinen.

And what an invigorating experience it's been, TMD, a rewarding experience that I decided to pick up and marathon through the night.

Really, in many respects, I think in many ways Team Medical Dragon could pass off as a shounen. Hell, it’s got plenty of slicin’ action, it’s got some side romance, it’s got the comedy and drama action. You’ve got your bad ass main leads and supporting seconds within his band of warriors, or “medical team." And perhaps most comparable between TMD and shounen is the desire to fight against evil, fighting against the evil ruling lords that have taken over society.

But as happy dappy as I try to make it sound, TMD sure as hell isn’t some hope-riding adventure story. At its core, it’s an involved, gut wrenching series that delivers powerfully. It isn't a simple 2000 chapter joyride that ends up in absolute victory. While there’s definitely hope, happiness, and positivity, there’s always an impending sense of hopelessness, cruelty, and negativity lurking closely by the sides.

And, I'll be honest, I love it! As much as I espouse my love for shounen and its crazily hope-hope nature, the edge of bleakness that TMD offers creates an amazing balance between good and bad. I've always been well acquainted with the goody-good natures of anime, but never have I really been buckled down and forced to acknowledge evil like TMD's shown me.

This contrasting nature provides and nurtures so much more than a simple good or bad series can. The people, characters, the interaction, the dialogue, heck even the setting, feel much more alive. It isn’t a single black and white color of “I’M-THE-BAD-GUY” or “I’M-THE-HERO” going on, there’s a lot more gray spread out. And this gives birth to a much bigger sense of realism ever-present within the pages, showing the reader not just a communication between characters, but more importantly, a communication between real people.

Clever and realistic interactions are the end result between these characters. While characters are built off general archetypes, not a single character is a bland stereotype. The main characters, the secondary characters, the villains, the heroes, they're all shaped from both good and evil. They’re not characters simply crafted out of thin air, but characters crafted from their past experiences with good and evil. And through these developments, we, as the readers, are handed these great characters, presented both originally and realistically. Nobody’s a solid good guy or bad guy, all these characters have the sense and capability of both good and bad within them.

Now, imagine putting a large cast of these characters within a story, a medical story at that, and the result is the well-furnished Team Medical Dragon. Worried about knowing medical terms? No sweat. I’m no doctor; I’m hopeless in medicine; I just read manga in my spare time; but I not much prior knowledge of medicine is needed to understand the story. TMD presents the medical arena in such a way that everyone--or at least me--can understand.

I mean, for one, it’s not even heavily focused towards medicine. The main conflict is about corruption, not about learning medical jargon. Don’t understand the complicated maneuvers/words going around in the surgery room (me included)? Who the hell cares, just look at all that kinky slicing shit going on with that body on that table.

The emphasis is more so within the plot progression, character interactions, and personality developments, not so much about the medical aspects. It’s not that big of a problem. With lengthy footnotes accompanying the reading, good old Google, and of course the outstanding visuals, you’ve got an army of resources to march off of.

And I’ve gotta really hand it to the artist for their great drawings of the body/organs. Being somewhat of a drawer myself—outrageously skilled of course—organs have been something I've never attempted, and they're one of the more distinct features I noticed within the story. Expect to see a lot of organs guys; this is a medical series after all. But in addition to recreating great anatomy, the details of the extra blood vessels and of course BLOOD, make a pretty in-depth drawing for all readers to both understand and enjoy. Bottom line is, if you’re a medical junkie, you’ll probably feel at ease with this manga, or, if again, you’re like me, no sweat, just look at the sharp knife things doing their sexy work.

In conclusion, TMD has been a great, refreshing experience for my shounen-loving self. I think that it’s really changed my genre preference, and in the future I’ll be looking forward to reading more TMD and seinen stuff. I love the sense of evil that TMD, and probably other good seinen, strikes me with, giving me not only a more realistic and engaging storyline but also a realistic and original cast. And let’s not forget about all the medical stuff involved though. While some parts are confusing—though I’m sure if you do some quick research or read the footnotes, you could figure out everything—the visuals do an absolutely amazing job of supporting whatever the hell is going on.

Really, really, really good job, I enjoyed my current read a lot.

As for my score, I am leaning very heavily toward a solid 10 because of how well done, in-depth, and life changing the story is. However, because of my incompleted reading, a few chunks of beef with medical jargon, and a couple bites of beef with plot (for sake of spoilers I won’t say why), I’ll leave my score as a 9 for now.

As for my current plans with this manga, I’m thinking of letting it sit for now so scanlations can catch up, then I’ll recommence my marathon.

I recently finished a reread of this manga and enjoyed it just as much if not more than the first time around. Iryuu is a must-read if you like realistic fiction. The story is balanced between plausible events and the touch of suspension of disbelief that makes one more entertaining. The motivations of each character are understandable if not always admirable, and their interactions follow that same winning mix of realistic and fun. Something that I only realized after reading was that we are very rarely, if ever, shown the internal voice of Asada, despite being the main character and pretty much everyone elsehaving their thoughts shown. This is an unconventional choice that shows the authors understood how Asada should be used. Asada as a personality is static and indomitable, having a philosophy that works well for himself that would be a compromise of his character to change. So, the story is about how others are changed through their interactions with him.

Because of this, how 'strong' a character is doesn't factor into much of anything on its own. Really, Asada isn't even a focus but rather a means to showcase other characters; the role is switched from the typical structure using the supporting cast to highlight the main character.

A main example of this is Kihara's story. He resents Asada because of how he looks by comparison, as a surgeon and in his personal life. However, when his mother is rushed in for surgery, he drops all of that to beg Asada to abandon his own surgery and save his mother instead. Asada, featuring here only as a skilled surgeon, highlights the character of Kihara as envious but also shameless. However, the audience is also able to empathize as we have been shown how much his mother means to him. So, an entire story is realized by using Asada passively.

Even characters that seem to be nothing but anti-entertainment, like Ijuuin's attitude at first, are actually central to what gives this manga its appeal. His situation and reaction is perfectly reasonable; he resents Asada for making chaos in the department and potentially screwing his own career prospects. Ijuuin's situation deteriorates further to the point where his unluckiness becomes comical as he is continually dragged deeper into Asada's antics. Of course, the series of coincidences that drag him along follow that same pattern of realistic/suspension of disbelief.

The weakest parts of the manga were definitely portions of the candidacy story, I felt it was getting too drawn out at times. I thought the final large event was also a little contrived but I can understand wanting to have a dramatic finale.

Overall, a great manga that I'll be coming back to in the future.

As a seinen manga.... i would really recommend it... it don't know about other readers but for me this manga is worth the read specially people who have medical background or hospital experience. I share same experiences in the real world, specially about the corrupt part and i think the author really did his research. Art is somewhat good because it doesn't have to be detailed to be understood..everything is with the story... the art complements the story very well. And it was drawn very well.. especially female characters. Characters are of course impossible in the real world but as a manga they are very interestingsince all characters are very human like , mentally and emotionally.

Enjoyment is like a popular asian drama unfolding... I did feel excited sometimes and all sorts of emotions maybe because some scenes also happened in my past.

Overall verdict is that this is not for fantasy people... this is High drama with a lot of commonality to the american series "House" except that it is about surgery.

Institutional corruption is prevalent in many systems, and one such prominent example is the medical field. Present day, one would think such is no longer the case, but as recent events would have it, it is very much an issue. Akira Nagai's Iryuu: Team Medical Dragon takes a fair shot at bringing this injustice to light, displaying the supposed traditional Japanese values that are upheld at the cost of human life. It's easy to get lost in the trappings of immersion when consuming fiction, and as per course, separating reality from it is an important distinction. However, when the subject matter is acutely insightful, it'sjust as essential to look past the dramatic disguise and accept the criticism for what it is, be it against a medical system that no one person could change. The manga follows Ryutarou Asada, a genius surgeon recruited by Akira Katou, vice professor of the cardiothoracic department at Meishin University Hospital, to join her Batista research team that will produce enough results to cement her leadership position. The Batista procedure is an experimental heart surgery with an extremely low success rate to mitigate the effects of dilated cardiomyopathy.

Iryuu: Team Medical Dragon takes its medical subject matter incredibly seriously. It is obvious not only in the various procedures and techniques that are named, but the tension of discussion is present when we see doctors engaged in conversation. Mangaka Akira Nagai was a successful doctor, and the accuracy in the story finds a fantastic combination of fiction and education without turning into textbook fare. The learning aspect extends further when we see procedures that reuse certain techniques or apply information the reader may have seen, and now that we are able to recognize these things without being guided, it is inherently fun. A great deal of our introduction to the various dynamics in a hospital workplace is through the eyes of Asada, a carefree man confident in his skills with a knife and seemingly unbothered by anything unrelated to his practice. He's an interesting character because we still know relatively little about him by the end of the story, and the reason is how Nagai has intentionally written how prodigious people are viewed.

In the hospital, Asada is put on a pedestal, a larger-than-life presence to the intern he forms an unlikely partnership with. Unlike the usual direction this archetype goes, Asada isn't framed as some kind of self-described fraud or troubled individual. Contrarily, he is uniformly flawless, and thus he rises above being the lead into being a vital character device. This literary mechanic excellently structures the narrative around the people he willingly influences or those simply inspired by him. The character writing in Iryuu: Team Medical Dragon is consistently compelling, often dancing with the many hypotheticals that spawn during a procedure and the repercussions that affect a team. Emphasis on teamwork is the primary motif in the first half of the manga, as the Batista team follows Asada's lead in believing they are the locus of control during a surgery. Subsequently, everyone but Asada is now the main character, or rather, the team itself is. The regular shift in who the spotlight falls upon makes for what can loosely be described as an exciting ensemble cast.

When we're not at the heart of surgical terminology, no pun intended, the focus on hospital politics underscores the daily critical surgeries being performed. The corruption that gnaws away at patient finances and turns a blind eye to malpractice is what Katou aims to radically change. At one point, the manga is completely engrossed in the power struggle, and while it could be argued that the time spent could be shortened, I felt it was a worthwhile endeavor. Nagai shows that outside of patient-doctor relationships, the health system is fundamentally a filthy business when power is centralized. This arc sets the stage for an important thought about career trajectory, and it's not often that we see this topic assessed correctly. Earning a promotion is a means to ambition, but for someone like Asada, rising through the ranks may not be as appealing. The dialogue pertaining to stifling medical careers and lack of ability to practice when one is a student is perhaps the most societally dense part of the narrative. Nagai targets the misconceptions and anxieties through an intern, a cog in the medical wheel.

Tarou Nogizaka's art in Iryuu: Team Medical Dragon is constantly high quality, with special emphasis on shading. It's heavily incorporated into the manga's ability to highlight expressions during serious climactic moments. However, it's lightly spaced across a wide area, typically using cross-hatching to establish the faces of shock or relief. An especially impressive aspect of the art is the clearly different designs, making it impossible to mistake a face among the numerous characters that come and go. The storytelling frequently uses metaphoric imagery to isolate the degree of surgical precision on the panel, and coupled with the genuine optimism present throughout the storytelling, the manga is life-affirming. Even in the apparent evil forces that oppose the lead characters, the antagonism isn't overbearing to the point of disbelief. Neither are most of the medical procedures that are undoubtedly coincidental, but again, plausible in comparison to the miracles real doctors perform all the time. A captivating criticism of healthcare that avoids being maudlin through its positivity.

The manga started off great, but after 90 chapters it started going downhill for me. The main reason is that the story started focusing on Ijuuin, the intern, and less on Asada. I thought Asada was the MC, and I liked everything about him, but then he completely disappeared for 30 plus chapters. I already disliked the intern, with his constant whining, even though he was being trained by the best. All of a sudden, he has become the main focus of the series, even though he is a whining, ungrateful, and disloyal piece of work. Some of the antagonistsof the story are better written, and bring something to the story. One of the main antagonist, Noguchi, that I despise is more worthy than Injuuin. If the story would not have completely disregarded the original MC, I would have given this manga a higher rating. Imagine reading GTO, and the MC disappears and only makes some cameos in certain chapters, would you still enjoy the series as much?