It amazes me that to this point no one has ever written a review of this story on the MAL site. Well, I think it's better late than never. Hidamari no Ki is the story of the friendship between samurai Manjiro Ibuya (a fictitious character) and doctor Ryoan Tezuka (later Ryosen Tezuka, and this is a historical figure, Osamu Tezuka's great-grandfather). Even though they have diametrically opposite occupations (samurai are occupied with killing, and doctors with saving lives) a great mutual respect and trust is slowly built between these two characters. They both learn from each other and themselves, changing their beliefs and learning things aboutthe world. In the end, they are practically irrecognizable from the two men that started the story hating each other.

More than all, this manga is a lesson on how to craft a good historical manga. That is the main thing I have to say about it.

The first topic is on the practice of medicine, specially the intellectual feud between "Chinese medicine" and "Dutch medicine". The practicants of Dutch medicine, or "dutchies" as they were called by the members of the Bakufu, were seen badly and regarded as practicants of black magic. The japanese had a very retrograde view on science. Even though the Chinese Medicine was proven through science to be many times inefficient (and even sometimes harmful to the patient), people still held those practices because they were doing so for hundreds of years. When the dutchies tried to promote campaigns to vaccinate people, there was a rumour which said that it would turn people into cows. When you read it and remeber how some people nowadays react towards vaccines, you realize that times haven't changed much in the last 150 years.

The other historical topic has to do with the Meiji Restoration. The story starts in 1855 and go all the way to 1868, the year of the Restoration. At first it is not a main topic of the story, but then, with the appearance of historical figures Townsend Harris and Henry Heusken, the current state of the Shogunate and the necessity of change in Japan's intern and foreign politics starts to be discussed. It is all crafted very subtly in the beginning, but it soons takes shape in the manga.

The story mainly focuses on Manjiro and Ryoan, but there's a myriad of really interesting supporting characters, like Okon (a former prostitute who is quite fond of Ryoan), Koan Ogata (a historical figure, teacher of Dutch medicine), Tobei (he is quite hateful to be honest, but a very interesting character with a unique background story) and Taki Seisai (another hateful character, but a perfect example of the Shogunate's outdated worldview). If not for Hidamari no Ki's historical learnings, one can read it for the fictitious events as well.