Black Forceps

Black Forceps (Japanese: ブラックペアン), also known as "Black Pean" or "Black Paean", is a Japanese drama based on the book "Black Pean 1988" by author Takeru Kaidō. It aired in April 2018 on TBS Television (Japan).

A sequel, based on the books "Blaze Mes 1990" and "Cerisier Center 1991" by the same author, is scheduled to air in July 2024.

Season 1
Tojo University Hospital is known for having high success in its Surgery Department. Its Director, Professor and heart surgeon Seigō Saeki has implemented the "Saeki Procedure", which is a heart surgery without stopping it. He has been considered as a candidate for President of the Japanese Society of Cardiac Surgery, as is his rival, Keisuke Nishizaki, Director of Surgery of Teika University. Nishisaki considers he is better for the position and schemes to bring down Tojo's fame to achieve it. For that, he sends surgeon Gonta Takashina, fervient user of the latest devices, to Tojo.

In Tojo, Takashina will face Seishirō Tokai, a genius surgeon whose (non-mechanical) surgical technique has a 100% of success, but whose attitude alienates everyone around him.

Season 2
Six years have passed since the last encounter with Tokai. Tojo's medical crew has continued to grow and improve, including Tokai's "rival", Takashina, promoter of the "Snipe" medical device, formerly of Teika, now a part of Tojo.

Saeki, creator of the world-famous Saeki surgery technique, is now Tojo University Hospital's director. He aims for the position of president of the Japanese Medical Association, pinnacle of research medicine in Japan, and plans to open a wing at Tojo that specializes in cardiac surgery. He has heard about Yukihiko Amagi, a devilish, world-renowned genius surgeon that works in the Heart Center in Australia's Gold Coast, and wants him for his team.

Sera, former resident and an assistant to Tokai, now a full-fledged cardiac surgeon, is in charge of getting to Amagi, who is, eerily, a Tokai doppleganger. Sera is to deliver a letter from Saeki to Amagi.

Cast
Additional information

Tojo University Hospital

 * Kazunari Ninomiya
 * as surgeon Seishiro Tokai (season 1). Known as a surgery genius for his perfect score, he is a rebel, rarely attends conferences and other administrative events. His attitude often alienates those around him
 * as surgeon Yukihiko Amagi (season 2), a world leader in cardiac coronary artery bypass grafting; has worked for many years at the Heart Center on Australia's Gold Coast. His other passion is gambling
 * Wakana Aoi as operating room nurse Miwa Hanabusa (season 1). Continues in season 2 as a more experienced, caring nurse.
 * Ryoma Takeuchi as 1st. year resident Masashi Sera (season 1). Continues in season 2 as a more experienced and reliable doctor
 * Seiyō Uchino as Director of the Surgery Department, Professor and cardiac surgeon Seigō Saeki (season 1). Known for the "Saeki Procedure". He has become Director of the hospital in season 2
 * Kotaro Koizumi returns in season 2 as doctor Takashina Gonta (originally from Teika), as a Tojo ally.
 * Taro Shigaki as Tojo University Director Nobuaki Moriya (season 1), his affiliation is with Teika, not Tojo
 * Satoshi Hashimoto as Surgery Department associate professor Seiichirō Kurosaki (season 1)
 * Misuzu Kanno as Head nurse Makoto Fujiwara (season 1)
 * Shuri (actress) as surgical nurse Mari Nekota (season 1), with a skill in preparing medical instruments, continues in season 2
 * Haruka Uchimura as surgeon Yūji Kakitani (season 1)
 * Hiroki Konno as surgeon Fuminori Sekikawa (season 1), second surgery using a snipe
 * Kanro Morita as resident doctor Kouhei Taguchi (season 1)
 * Yusuke Yamada as resident doctor Kōichi Hayami (season 1)
 * Sae Okazaki as resident doctor Tōko Shimazu (season 1)
 * Naruki Matsukawa as resident doctor Tatsuya Kitajima (season 1)
 * Kaho Mizutani as nurse Ayumi Miyamoto (season 1)
 * Anna Hara as nurse Mio Arai (season 1)
 * Kōki Okada as Sera's supervisor Tadashi Yokoyama (season 1). He leaves the Hospital after a botched surgery that Tokai has to fix

Teika University Hospital

 * Kotaro Koizumi as surgeon and lecturer Takashina Gonta (season 1), who is on loan in Tojo. Promoter of new surgical technology
 * Ichikawa Ennosuke IV as Professor of Surgery Keisuke Nishizaki (season 1). Mainly engaged in research

Others

 * Ayako Kato as Clinical trial coordinator Kaori Kinoshita (season 1)
 * Kōji Katō as Hideto Ikenaga (season 1), editor-in-chief of the medical journal Japan Journal of Surgery
 * Itta Maru as surgeon Kenichi Shinohara (season 1)
 * Jouji Shibue as surgeon Masato Fukumoto (season 1)
 * Kim Moo-joon as resident Park Min-jae (season 2), a resident in a Korean hospital that goes to Australia in search for Amagi.
 * Choi Ji-woo as Korean doctor, hospital and restaurant owner Park Seo-hyun (season 2). She is resident Park Min-jae's mother. She goes with him to Australia to look for Amagi.

Tokai family

 * Mitsuko Baisho as Tokai's mother, Harue Tokai (season 1)
 * Kazunaga Tsuji as Tokai's deceased father, surgeon Ichiro Tokai (season 1)

Season 1 guests

 * Momiji Yamamura as Taeko Minagawa, Sera's first patient (ep. 1)
 * Naoko Sawamatsu as Yoshie Koyama, the wife of a patient (ep. 2)
 * Yōshichi Shimada as Kaneto Koyama, a patient brought in an emergency (ep. 2)
 * Shinya Tasaki as Hideo Kusunoki, a patient under the care of Tokai and Sera (ep. 3)
 * Yugo Kochi (SixTones) as Hayato Tamura, candidate for snipe surgery, but ends being operated on by Tokai, due to being a complicated and rare case(ep. 3)
 * Tsukasa Yoda as Koji Tamura, Hayato's father (ep. 3)
 * Kurumi Inagaki as Koharu Shimano, a patient who has been transferred from Teika University Hospital. Takashina was her primary care physician at Teika (eps. 4, 5)
 * Masami Tanaka as Naho Shimano, Koharu's mother (eps. 4, 5)
 * Takuma Oto as Jin Matsuoka, a surgeon at Teika University Hospital who specializes in endoscopic surgery using support robot "Darwin" (ep. 5)
 * Akira Fukuzawa as Masayuki Tomizawa, Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (ep. 5)
 * Saki Aibu as Shoko Yamamoto, Kinoshita's former colleague nurse (ep. 7)
 * Shinobu Hasegawa as Hidefumi Takeda, a doctor at Teika University Hospital (ep. 7)
 * Shintarō Hayashi (Hayashin) (Youtuber, Laters) as Ryuichi Kobayashi, a patient without an apparent reason to be hospitaized.
 * Shōzō Uesugi as Kobayashi
 * Yo Takahashi as Katsuya Sakaguchi surgeon at Teika (ep. 8)
 * Akira Yamamoto as Tatsuji Iinuma, a patient under the care of nurse Hanabusa. He was originally Ichiro Tokai's patient.

Season 1
Doctor Seigo Saeki, professor and director of the Cardiac Surgery department at Tojo University Hospital, is renown for his method called "Saeki Procedure", in which he operates on the heart of the patient without stopping it. His rival from Teika University, Professor Keisuke Nishizaki, who is seeking the post president of the Japan Surgical Society, as is Saeki, has gone to Tojo, as have clinical trial coordinator Kaori Kinoshita and editor-in-chief of the medical journal Hideto Ikenaga, to watch Saeki in action, when a sudden emergency arises. Saeki sends a team to another operating room to attend that patient, but when his condition worsens, surgeon Seishiro Tokai, appears and finishes the operation, surprising doctor and lecturer Gonta Takashina. Tokai, who's called the "Devil of the operating room", has only one condition to do it: that the operating doctor submit his resignation letter and give him 10 million yen as compensation.

Takashina, who had been sent to Tojo by Nishizaki to promote the use of the "Snipe" medical device, has operated on a couple of patients with it, to prove the benefits of its use, but fails the 2nd surgery due to the patient's pre-existing condition, which was resolved by Tokai, after resident Sera begged him to (and got forced to work "for life" for Tokai), since it was his patient. On another day, Tokai works on patient Koyama to save his life, but he still needs another surgery to replace his mitral valve. Takashina suggests using the Snipe for it.

Music
"Kono Michi o", theme song for the drama, was written by Kazumasa Oda. The song was included in a single, released on May 2.

Soundtrack for the series was written by composer Hideakira Kimura.

Oda returns with "Sono saki ni aru mono", theme song for season 2 (2024), that has chorus by actress Takako Matsu and Triceratops member Shō Wada.

Main medical instruments shown in the drama

 * Dr. Saeki uses the heart-lung machine (a machine that temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during open-heart surgery by maintaining the circulation of blood and oxygen throughout the body) to work on the heart in his "Saeki Procedure", which can produce very little damage in the heart muscle. In ep. 2, Dr. Takashina, who proudly mentions the use of the "Snipe" device without the need to use the heart-lung machine, had to use it, as an emergency arose after trying to retrieve a stent from the heart of the patient they were operating on.


 * "Snipe" is a type of device used, including after cardiac catheterization, to install, primarily, a stent in a mitral valve replacement procedure. Takashina had studied the artifact overseas and took it to Japan to introduce it's use as an alternative to regular surgery. Though it does not exist in reality, there are several manufacturers getting up-to-date with technology that can bring them to light. The model in the series is a pistol-type apparatus, probably molded from some types of catheter syringes, used to insert the catheter into the body in angiography and other catheterization procedures. According to Dr. Shunsuke Yamagishi, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, IMUS Tokyo Katsushika General Hospital, and technical advisor for the series, the use of the "Snipe" as said by Takashina ("anyone can use it") was proven wrong, since not even himself could perform the operation correctly. Knowing all the technical data for the apparatus is not enough if the doctor has not taken the time to examine all possible consequences.


 * Use of the Da Vinci robot (named in the drama as Darwin) was shown in episode 5. Newhart Watanabe International Hospital, a pioneer in da Vinci surgery for the heart in Japan, was used as background for the drama, with Dr. Gou Watanabe providing technical support.


 * "Black Pean", the instrument that gives the name to the drama, is a type forceps called a hemostat. It is used to clamp exposed blood vessels shut during an operation. Saeki uses it as a symbol of his responsibility, and as an instrument during Iinuma's operation in the last episode.