Recommended: Jin 2

About a week ago, I was walking into a video game shop when, just as I was going in, an eight year old boy was coming out. He was clutching a game to his chest, and when he saw me he looked up in fear, as if I was going to take this precious game away from him. Afterwards, I felt quite jealous since it had been a long time since I’d felt that excited about getting anything.

Well, I think I came close when I saw that Heiwa Fansubs had put up the subs for the last episode of Jin 2.

* spoilers *

The final episode is a triumph. As indeed are the episodes leading up to it. No one is forgotten and everyone has their story finished and nothing seems rushed. Certainly, there's no last-minute dash to fit all the explaining into the last ten minutes, which often happens with J-dramas. Our hero, the doctor returns to the present and slowly has to work out what happened. As it is, the waves of time wash over his adventures in the past and memories fade as much as the photographs of his colleagues in Edo had faded.

That part was especially touching – when he finds old photographs of the people he worked with in the 1800s. Then I really got a sense of the distance he’d travelled and, sadly, the impossibility of him ever returning. Plus I had a feeling of pleasure of learning how they all turned out (and of seeing Kyoutarou in Western clothes!)

The reason behind why he went back in time was also very satisfying, and had clearly been planned from the beginning. And this really made me happy. The writer clearly had the idea fully formed in her head, and wasn’t just making it up as she went along. (edit: actually this is based on a manga written by Morota Murakami)

I started watching the first series back in April, so I’ve been lucky enough to have almost four months in which I haven’t had to wait long for the next episode of Jin. Now that is no longer the case, I’m at a bit of a loss. But I’ll find something else, I’m sure. I’ll certainly try and track down more of writer Morishita Yoshiko’s work.

And on a personal note, I finished watching this at 10pm. Then I noticed that the sky outside was still very bright. Far too bright for ten o’clock in the evening, I thought, and I had to check three clocks and the television before I was satisfied that I hadn’t fallen through a tiny time-slip of my own.