Dr. Ramune Mysterious Disease Specialist - Reviews

Alt title: Kaibyoui Ramune

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TheRogueNob's avatar
Mar 28, 2021

I'll be quick with dr ramen(I know it wrong). This was one of the few shows this season that in regretted investing my time.  Lackluster animation, poor sound (but good ep) , mediocre characters and decent story that becomes muddied by weird choices made and experience that can be summed up as dollar tree modern mushi shi but with way less charm mystery and less everything else that made mushi shi an amazing show. 

I wouldn't recommend dr ramen but if you do try it out then after 3 episodes you find your self checking your phone every few minutes then drop it, it won't get better. 

that was another rapid reveiw so thanks for the read peoples and have a good one 

6/10 story
5.5/10 animation
5/10 sound
6.6/10 characters
5.5/10 overall
BlackCatLef's avatar
May 10, 2021

3S review no. 30 (short, simple and sweet/salty/spicy)

Ok, lets talk winter 2021 season (Since this is my last review of winter 2021 shows excluding sequels, haven’t watched them yet, I might write one if I feel like I have something to say). So, very lame season when it comes to new shows, pretty much like fall 2020. Actually these two seasons had a couple of similarities. First of all it was all about sequels, fall was all about AOT, Haikyuu and dungeon pick up artist, winter was about Slime san, rinse and repeat zero, the Shawshank redemption nickelodeon edition and Dr Bronze. Both seasons had an overhyped shounen, fall had Jiu jitsu Kaisen and winter had kimono jihen. Both seasons had an anime that attracted attention mostly for its presentation but suffered from god awfully insulting writing, Akudama driver 3 and wonder scrambled eggs respectively. Where am I going with this? Well the point I wanna make is that this makes you looking for something new to watch, and you lower your expectations down to something that is just simply watchable and enjoyable. Fall was slightly better I’d say, since three series fell into that category for me, Moriarty, the psychotic princess on zolpidem (which I enjoyed a lot suprisingly enough) and Heaven's oficial bless you to a degree. Winter had what… the reincarnated virgin and… and this one apparently. Dr Ramune in da House. So is this a great show? No, but it is watchable, and enjoyable, simple as that.

Story ain’t very original, its the classic supernatural detective thing, but instead of an investigator, we get a doctor, which plays out exactly the same way, he is not operating or anything, he is just using intuition and mysterious supernatural items to solve the ca...eh cure the disease. It has an episodic nature and that is both good and bad. It’s bad for pacing obvisouly but not all of the cases are interesting so it’s good cause if you don’t like a specific case just skip the episode, you will miss nothing. Not every case is interesting, for example I didn’t like the one with the pepper fingernails or the one with the fuckboi, but I enjoyed the one with the mother with the gyoza ears, and the one with the artistic popcorn machine kid. This brings us to the next point, why I don’t like this show sometimes. It feels very didactic at times, in a very straightforward way which I don’t really like, I mean I don’t really need this anime to tell me that I don’t have to be dick (then what are shounens gonna do? They’ll run out of bussiness… jeez), a prime example was the fuckboi episode. The other episode I mentioned before was the one with pepper fingernails, that’s an example of the shows inability to maintain a certain level of quality to its writing. I mean the “patient” in that episode is just a complete idiot, not plausible in the slightest, and if the patient is silly, then the disease is silly, the cure is silly, hence the whole episode is crap. So, story could have been way better, but still its enjoyable most of the time.

Characters are fine, its mostly the doctor and his assistant that you get to see, the rest of them are the clients and some reoccurring minor characters. So they are not spectacular or anything, but they are likeable, they fit the tone of the series, they work just fine. Not much development for the main duo, but you get to see some background by the end of the season. As for the patients, they do develop but it’s like part of the healing process, don’t know if you can label it as actual character development, it’s more like the resolution.

Animation is pretty crappy. This show looks like it was made 20 years ago. Yeah… not good.

Sound though is… is… very very corny, but I very very like it. You see the show is kinda a corny, so it fits perfect, I also happen to be a sucker for stringed (cello etc) so I enjoyed the music very much. It is kinda serious, but also playful kind of like what the show is like. Opening was ok, they went with a kind of baccano-esque song. Voice acting is very good as well.

So, is it worth a watch? Well, the answer is twofold, if you don’t have too much time to allocate for anime and you only watch the creme de la crème then it is not worth it clearly, but if you are trying to spare pick something new to watch from the winter 2021 season, then this is ok, it’s watchable and enjoyable, nothing more unfortunately but nothing less fortunately unlike the majority of the season’s anime.

5/10 story
4.5/10 animation
7.5/10 sound
5/10 characters
5.5/10 overall
kizhuo0's avatar
Mar 28, 2021

If you want to learn about life lessons, this anime might be for you. Dr. Ramune was an enjoyable anime to watch, and I looked  forward to the release of all of the episodes. While I wish I could have had a little more input on the main character, the overall experience was positive. It taught me to be honest with myself and that lying has consequences. Since there are just 12 episodes, BINGE WATCH IT BESTIES. The viewer gets to know the characters over time as the episodes progress, but omgahd I'm about to go prepare some of the food because it all looked so delicious. Seeing the consequences of the events that arise is amusing and enjoyable. So give it a shot and see if you like it; if you don't, at least you took a chance and tried it.

9/10 story
8.9/10 animation
9/10 sound
9.5/10 characters
8.8/10 overall
mdchan's avatar
Apr 9, 2021

Body parts turning into random foods?  Move over, Bugsnax!

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Story

The episodes are broken down into "case of the day" stories.  The first couple are only an episode in length, while the latter half of the series entertains two-part stories.  The overall theme is the same:

Between strange little mischevious youkai and human stress, the issue stressing the person out often turns into a very strange mutation of a body part.  Since normal doctors can't deal with it, follow the unusual Ramune (and his assistant, Kuro) as they solve and heal patients afflicted with the strange body-horror like diseases.

The first couple episodes are a little strange, but all of them (save perhaps the second episode) deals with very serious human problems.  Though it's strange that the "diseases" all involve a body part turning into some sort of food product, the human aspect of the cases are interesting. 

While there is no overall antagonist, each case has an antagonist to it with those "human problems".  6/10

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Characters

The driving force of this anime is its characters; and not just the protagonists, but the characters whom the protagonists help in the cases.  The show has a very "human" aspect to it and plays on human emotions.

Ramune - A young man who lives at a temple and is the Special Disease Doctor.  His methods are somewhat unorthadox and sometimes involves a risk on the part of the patient, but he's empathetic and honest as well as just an all-around nice guy who sometimes can't help but get personally involved in the cases.

Kuro - A reticent middle-school student who assists Ramune.  At first he comes off as cold and calculating, but slowly starts to open up a little during the "Popcorn Head" arc.

There are, of course, other characters as well as those who come to Ramune with problems, but some of them are best left to introduce themselves in the anime rather than some random reviewer giving away hints about them.

The characters don't particularly stand out, but they also aren't dull.  Ramune doesn't change much of at all throughout the series, but Kuro and the others do.  Watching them face their fears/problems and how they handle it is the only reason I'm giving this a decent score in this category.  I'd give more points if I could still recall any of the names past the main protagonists.  6.5/10

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Sound and Animation

No complaints for either.  The voice actors do a good job in bringing the characters to life, and there really weren't any problems in the BGM.  That said, I can't really recall the opening/ending songs now that it's been about a week since I've seen the anime, so I suppose they didn't leave much of an impression.

The animation did fine, particularly during the "Popcorn Head" arc.  I wasn't a big fan of the way some of their eyes were drawn, but that was just a personal nitpick which doesn't really impact the score.

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Overall

I was relieved when this wasn't like House MD, since I'm not very fond of those sort of shows.  I feel it could have touched a little more on the supernatural aspect of it, but then again...people having their fingernails turning into chili peppers or growing gyoza on their ears is certainly supernatural.

All of the cases involve food in some way, as well as what the food represents as a result of the stress.  Only one of the cases didn't involve a body part turning to food, though it was still related to eating.  The entire food stuff is a bit weird, to be honest.  I wouldn't call it "horror" due to the silly nature of the body horror, but I'd add a little tag on that.

Personally, I enjoyed this series.  It was a fun series to watch, and since it was episodic in nature it was easy to take breaks between the arcs. 

That said, the first couple episodes were a little hard to get into.  I was rather confused during the first one, and only the comedy aspect in the second one kept me watching.  Once you hit episode 3, you've gotten over the hurdle this series produced for itself.

The silliness of body parts turning to food also conflicts heavily with the serious nature of the cases; that "human aspect" I talked about earlier.

The anime deals with serious issues such as child negligence, kidnapping, friendships, and family drama.  Sometimes, it's hard to take some of those seriously when popcorn is coming out of someone's head or you see chili peppers on their fingers.

Plus, one has to wonder just what hospitals are thinking when someone walks in with something like that fused to their skin.  Why is nobody really freaking out?  Or have they just accepted that it's a thing and give Ramune a call whenever they get a "strange" patient?

Speaking of Ramune, I would have liked to know a little more of his backstory.  We get a tiny bit, but not really anything concrete.  If anything, the anime feels like it's either advertising for the manga by giving viewers a "bite" of what it contains, or that it needs another season to cover these things.

Despite that, each arc wrapped up fairly cleanly without any gaping plotholes from what I was able to tell.  When I finished the series, I only had questions about Ramune's past and nothing else.

It's a solid watch, though prepare for some dark content starting about midway through.  Even so, fans of the unusual/supernatural will probably enjoy this.  7/10

6/10 story
9/10 animation
7/10 sound
6.5/10 characters
7/10 overall
nickelrandom's avatar
Mar 28, 2021

I think Dr. Ramune is a pretty decent show to teach you about life lessons and it's pretty similar to Toilet Bound Hanako-kun. There is a lot of comedy aspects, but the food looks great in this show. You get to know the characters better per episode with a supernatural of the week per se. Overall, this was a pretty good show for this season.

7/10 story
7/10 animation
9/10 sound
8/10 characters
8/10 overall