“Kai Byoui Ramune”, aka, Dr. Ramune, Mysterious Disease Specialist” is a new shounen series about a young Doctor of Mysterious Diseases who cures people who have developed strange psychosomatic illnesses. Ramune has his office in a temple, acts and
dresses oddly and generally behaves in a seemingly unprofessional manner. He is assisted by his laconic young assistant, Kuro. They take on cases that normal doctors and hospitals won’t handle.

In the first episode Ramune takes on the case of a pre-teen actress who has been crying condiments – mayonnaise, ketchup, soy sauce and so on. This is caused by the stress put upon the girl by her mother who is determined to make the girl succeed at
any cost. Ramune sets up a situation where the mother has to choose between the wealth that she acquired through her daughter or the wellbeing of her daughter and eventually chooses her daughter’s wellbeing.

As you can tell from the summary above, this is not a subtle series by any means. There is a forced juxtaposition of paint-by-number melodrama and ridiculous humor. The buddy team of Ramune and Kuro are cut-and-paste from any of a number of similar
shounen “mysterious buddies” shows of the last 25 years. I drifted off to sleep in my chair during the final credits and preview. In any event, this is not a series that I want to follow so I’m dropping it with a final rating of C.

Dave Baranyi

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