Episode 2

The bean jam donuts that Jin Minakata (Takao Osawa) had produced as “sweets to treat beriberi” have gained quite a reputation around Edo. Jin is requested by the shogun’s palace doctor, Ryojun Matsumoto (Tatsuhito Okuda) of the western medical research institute, to donate some of his donuts to help cure the shogun’s wife (Tomoka Kurokawa) of her beriberi. The incident promises to bring tremendous honor and prosperity to Jin and the elated members of his clinic, Jinyudo, including Saki Tachibana (Haruka Ayase), but once again, Jin gives pause in fear of altering history once again.

Jin then re-encounters Nokaze (Miki Nakatani) who has been evicted from her home and is in search of work. Sympathetic to her plight, Jin puts her to work at Jinyudo where she also is welcomed by Saki who is hard-pressed to manage the books of the struggling clinic.

Some days later, Jin has decided to donate his curative donuts to the shogun’s wife, Kazunomiya, and together with Saki, makes a secret rendezvous with her at a theatrical performance by the famous actor, Tanosuke Sawamura (Hisashi Yoshizawa). Jin and Saki are heartened to see Kazunomiya happily savoring the donuts when all of a sudden, she collapses in front of them!

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