Black Jack (ブラック・ジャック) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in the 1970s, dealing with the medical adventures of the title character, doctor Black Jack. Black Jack consists of hundreds of short, self-contained stories that are typically about 20 pages long. Black Jack has also been animated into an OVA, two television series (directed by Satoshi Kuwahara and Tezuka's son Makoto Tezuka) and two films. In 1977, it won the first Kodansha Manga Award for the shōnen category. It has since then became one of Tezuka's best selling manga with over 47.66 million copies sold in Japan. Osamu Dezaki's anime film adaptation, Black Jack: The Movie, won Best Animation Film at the 1996 Mainichi Film Awards.

Plot

Most of the stories involve Black Jack doing some good deed, for which he rarely gets recognition—often curing the poor and destitute for free, or teaching the arrogant a lesson in humility. They sometimes end with a good, humane person enduring hardship, often unavoidable death, to save others.

Characters

Main characters

Pinoko is Black Jack's loyal assistant/adopted daughter, who was actually a Teratogenous Cystoma (a growth more commonly known as a teratoma). She was a rare type of parasitic twin, living as part of a patients' body for eighteen years. When the presence of the twin was evidenced from a grotesque distortion in the host's body, Black Jack was contracted to extract and dispose of the growth. In the end, he found the cystoma, although a collection of uncontained organs and muscles, was complete in design if not form. Using life support to maintain them, Black Jack encased the assembly in an artificially constructed exoskeleton sized and shaped in the form of a female human child (around 7 or 8 years). Miraculously, the homunculus survived with all sensory reception intact. Developing into a sentient though permanently child-sized life form, she was adopted by Black Jack as his informal ward. Pinoko always helps the doctor by doing household chores and by being his assistant in some of his operations. She often acts as comic relief in Black Jack, claiming to be a girl of eighteen years of age and married to Black Jack, despite her childlike appearance and personality. Her main value is companionship and source of affection for the ordinarily cold-natured doctor. When she started living with Black Jack, she could not cook, clean, or take care of the house; she could not even walk, let alone move. Eventually, she learned through hard effort. Being still a child, she occasionally makes accidental errors, such as using salt instead of sugar while preparing meals. Black Jack thinks of her as his daughter while she thinks of herself as his wife. Black Jack modeled her face after a cute girl he had seen in a medical journal who suffers from a lung ailment of unknown origin (from Volume 7 Chapter 4: "The Two Pinokos"). Pinoko's life has been put in danger a few times; she was kidnapped (Volume 2 Chapter 8: "Kidnapping", Volume 14 Chapter 2: "The Third Call", Volume 15 Chapter 1: "Treasure Island"), swallowed a potassium cyanide pill (Volume 4 Chapter 12: "Gas"), hit by a bullet (Volume 7 Chapter 10: "Black and White"), crashed a car (Volume 8 Chapter 8: "A Visit from a Killer"), and caught an aggressive form of leukemia (Volume 9 Chapter 2: "Pinoko Lives"). Pinoko says she is 18 years old because that is how long she was in her sister's body, but Black Jack says she is 0-years-old when he built her. Because of that, she sometimes acts like an adult while other times as a 7-year-old. She cries when she is injured or throws things when she is mad. She is sometimes seen drawing pictures, playing games, or reading children's stories. Throughout the whole manga series, she is never seen going to school, but has school-aged friends such as Hosuke Sharaku. She aspires to go to school like others her size, and thought about taking the high school entrance exam. Black Jack never tries to give Pinoko an 18-year-old body even though she wants to be bigger. She almost received one when she nearly died in Volume 9 Chapter 2: "Pinoko Lives". She sometimes talks in third-person, using "Pinoko" instead of "I", "me", or "my". Before Black Jack extracted her from her twin, she temporarily had the ability to telepathically communicate; this characteristic saved her life in that Black Jack recognized her body was alive. As well, in Volume 13 Chapter 4: "Teratoid Cystoma, Part 2", she was able to talk to a teratoid cystoma in a patient in her sleep. Pinoko's main form of comic relief is yelling アッチョンブリケ(Acchonburike)—a phrase that has no real meaning but taken as a rough equivalent to "Oh my goodness!" (often spelled "Omigewdness" in fansubs) or "I don't believe it!" (as translated when she appeared in an episode of the Astro Boy 80s series), in English—while pressing her cheeks together with her hands when something surprising happens. In the 2004 English dub of the anime, she shouts "Allamoby!" Also, she says Aramanchu!, which has no real meaning, but can be roughly translated as "okey dokey!". Her name is derived from Pinocchio and the game pinochle.

Supporting characters

The twin sister of Pinoko, whose name is only revealed in the OVA. She does not like the fact that her teratoid cystoma is actually her twin sister. She would always look away and say that that thing is not her sister. Her face and background is never revealed until Volume 17 Chapter 10: "A Visiting Memory". Her second appearance is in Volume 9 Chapter 2: "Pinoko Lives" where she donates some of her blood to Pinoko. She expresses hope that this would be the last time she would have to be involved with her, as she is engaged to be married. Her third appearance is in Volume 17 Chapter 10: "A Visiting Memory" where her face and background are finally revealed. Dr. Crab tells Black Jack that she is actually the daughter of an important Buddhist line. She was constrained by pedigree and form. The family is always churning in drama, and she ended up deeply depressed. Then she tries to commit suicide by jumping from the third floor of her house. She survived and, with a huge amount of cash and amnesia, ended up at Black Jack's house. Pinoko and her had a sisterly bond despite neither knowing the identity of the other. When she saw Dr. Crab, her memories returned and she quickly departed, having remembered the nature of her relationship to Pinoko. Pinoko did not know who she really was; Black Jack did. The reason why Black Jack pursued a career in medicine is because of Dr. Honma, his mentor and life-saver, who acted as the young boy's father-figure. Kagemitsu Hazama, Black Jack's real father, left his wife and son to live in Macau with his new wife Renka. As a child, Black Jack suffered from paralysis in all four limbs and spent many lonely years in a wheelchair until he regained the use of them. Dr. Honma wrote a book about this miracle, as depicted in Volume 1 Chapter 11: "The Legs of an Ant". The medical community accused him of conducting a live experiment on a patient with a rare "Honma's Hematoma" and killed the patient. He was then forced to retire. When he died, Black Jack went through Dr. Honma's old files and found a letter addressed to him. Dr. Honma wanted Black Jack to find out the mystery of "Honma's Hematoma", but until he solve the mystery, to not operate on any patients who have it. Lumps of blood in the heart will form, even after many surgeries to get rid of them, they will come back. Because of that, many patients die of weak hearts. In Volume 13 Chapter 9: "Honma's Hematoma", Black Jack found the cure. The patient's heart will be replaced with an artificial heart. But it turns out that "Honma's Hematoma" is a disease caused by patients who already have artificial hearts. Dr. Honma dies of old age in the episode four of Black Jack 4 Miracles of Life "Just like a Pearl" after a failed surgical attempt to revive him. However, he plays an important role in Black Jack 21, since he had once worked at the "Noir Project". In the manga, he dies in Volume 1 Chapter 5: "Sometimes like Pearls." Megumi Kisaragi is Black Jack's tragic love, whom he met and courted during their internship. Her first appearance was in Volume 1 Chapter 6: "Confluence" in the manga. She stayed up late at work and cared more about the patients than everyone else. She discovered that Kuroo Hazama had been the one looking after her whenever she walked alone at night. Later, she is revealed to have ovarian cancer, and is afraid to tell Black Jack because of her fear that having these parts removed will interfere with their relationship. Nevertheless, the couple confesses their love before the operation while Megumi is "still a woman" (in reality, a hysterectomy or oophorectomy can affect sexual function, but the side effects associated with these procedures are not as extreme as those depicted in this story). Zen Mantoku is a character not seen in the manga. The true main antagonist in the Black Jack 21 series as he is the one who caused the beach explosion that injured Black Jack and his mother. He is also the one who framed Jotaro Honma by using the medical community to accuse him of human experimentation and forced him to retire. Afterwards, he used his partners as test subjects by improving their blood vessel by using the phoenix diseases in hopes of living for eternity. However, it all failed and they died one by one following by the story. He is the one, who separated the Renka older daughter for the sake to train her to become one of the most deadly assassin. Eventually, he is caused by the phoenix diseases throughout the world for the benefit of his organization around the globe. In the end, his final fate ended up by Renka shot him in his head and died.

Media

Manga

The manga series was first serialized in Akita Shoten's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Champion from 1973 to 1983. Each of the 25 published tankōbon volumes were divided into 12 to 15 chapters; each chapter is about 20-some pages long. The first episode was called "I Need a Doctor!", and the last episode was called "A Question of Priority". Most of the manga series had never been directly adapted into anime form until a Black Jack Special was aired in 2003, thus initiating the Black Jack anime series in 2004, and the Black Jack 21 series in 2006. Vertical Inc. has released translated volumes of the series in the United States, starting with Vol. 1 in September 2008 and finishing with Vol. 17 in November 2011. These collected volumes include a dozen or so stories each in the original unflipped format, and the stories will be published in the same order as the Japanese Black Jack collections. Vertical has also released limited editions of the first three volumes that include bonus stories not printed in any other edition. Two translated volumes had been previously published by Viz Communications, but those editions are now out of print. There is also a series called Black Jack ALIVE which was published in 2005, this series was created from numerous artists adding stories onto the original series. A chapter from this series was published in the last volume of "Magetsukan Kitan". In 2013, he is celebrating his 40 anniversary since his first appearance, along with Princess Knight's 60th, and Astro boy's 50th. A manga called Say Hello to Black Jack by Shūhō Satō has no connection with the Black Jack series, along with its sequel Shin Black Jack ni Yoroshiku. A 2005 remake of the series was titled Black Jack – Kuroi Ishi. Another manga called Black Jack NEO was published by a different author. It may be another remake. Not much information is known. Young Black Jack is another manga, written by Yoshiaki Tabata and illustrated by Yūgo Ōkumaby, featuring Tezuka characters, that started in 2011 in the seinen manga magazine Young Champion and ended in 2019. The story follows Black Jack as a medical student in the 1960s. In November 2023, a new 32-page manga co-produced by Tezuka Productions and AI was launched in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine, as a part of the "TEZUKA2023" project and to commemorate the Black Jack's 50th anniversary. The project's team selected the most suitable story and characters from a variety of options, which were generated by AI based on Tezuka's works. Finally, a completely new story of the Black Jack manga, created collaboratively by both AI and humans, was published.

Anime

The first televised appearance of Black Jack was in the 1980 remake of Tetsuwan Atom. Episode 27 of Astro Boy brought together three separate Tezuka creations, as Astro, Uran, Doctor Roget (Black Jack) and Penny (Pinoko) travel back through time to 15th Century Molavia (Silverland). In this storyline, Black Jack performs a life-saving operation on a critically injured Princess Sapphire (from Ribbon no Kishi), while Astro and Uran fend off Gor, a malevolent magician bent on usurping the throne. Characteristically, Roget/Black Jack refuses to operate until he is offered the key to the treasury vault, but later takes only one commemorative coin from the grateful court (which turns out to be worth $200,000,000 when he returns to Astro's time). Black Jack also made a cameo appearance in the theatrical film Phoenix 2772 as an interstellar prison warden, and is one of the main characters of the TV movie One Million-Year Trip: Bandar Book, in which he plays the role of a space pirate, somehow similar in concept to Leiji Matsumoto's Captain Harlock.

Original video animation

In 1992, Tezuka's protégé Osamu Dezaki directed a theatrical film and a ten OVA series which were released between 1993 and 2000. Six OVAs, along with the film, were originally only available in dub-only VHS form in North America, but the ten OVAs have since been released on bilingual Region 1 DVD. Wizard selected the series as their "Anime Pick of the Month" for August 1997, calling it "one of the darkest and hardest-hitting made-for-video series of recent years." A further two OVAs were released in 2011 and were referred to as Black Jack Final. In Black Jack Final Osamu Dezaki was posthumously credited as honorary director.

TV series

In 2003, a four-episode TV promotional special aired called Black Jack Special: The 4 Miracles of Life. From 11 October 2004, through to 6 March 2006, an original television series was aired called Black Jack, featuring 61 episodes. The series is an adaptation of Tezuka's original manga. The TV show can currently be viewed for free on Viki (website) and Crunchyroll. Anime Sols has successfully crowd-funded the first 26 episodes of it for DVD release, starting from Episode 0. Right Stuf and Crunchyroll are currently selling extra copies of the first boxset through their website. From 10 April 2006, through to 4 September of the same year, a sequel series of seventeen episodes was aired, called Black Jack 21 (Black Jack for the 21st century). Adapted from standalone manga chapters, Black Jack 21 features an all-new overarching story line involving Jack's father and a powerful mysterious organization who try to assassinate Jack. Though the Black Jack 21 series has never been licensed in the U.S., there are several subtitled versions available on the internet. The previous two anime, Black Jack and Black Jack 21, depart somewhat from the manga by changing the setting to the early 2000s, allowing for flat-screen LCD computer displays and other items not present in the 1973–83 manga. The episodes are based on chapters from the Black Jack manga, either in part or full, sometimes combining two stories in one episode, and also slightly modified to lighten stories' serious issues and overtones. Background and supporting characters such as Largo the dog, Wato, Sharaku and Hige were added and used for comic relief or to support Pinoko when the doctor was not present. On 1 October 2015, a twelve episode anime entitled Young Black Jack began to air, about Black Jack's adventures as a medical student. It is based on the spin-off manga of the same title written by Yoshiaki Tabata and illustrated by Yūgo Ōkuma. More closely following the timeline of the original 1973–83 manga by Osamu Tezuka, the new anime is however somewhat discontinuous with the 2004 anime. While Young Black Jack is set in the late 1960s against the backdrop of activism against the Vietnam War, the 2004 anime is set in the early 2000s, representing nearly a 40-year time difference, even though Black Jack appears to have aged less than 10 years between them.

Original net animation

An original net animation (ONA) adaptation comprising 12 episodes, also known as Black Jack Internet or Black Jack Flash, was released in 2001–2002 and only available via a subscription online download. The series was created using Flash animation which had the unique "Zapping system" and "Action system". The "Zapping system" allowed gave the viewer an option to change the camera viewpoint and the "Action system" was used mostly for comical effect.

Films

In 1996, two films of the series were made: the first Black Jack: The Movie, a full-length feature, and the second Black Jack: Capital Transfer To Heian, a special 10-minute short. In December 2005, a third film entitled Black Jack: The Two Doctors of Darkness was released. The film describes Black Jack's attempts to prevent a group known as the Ghost of Icarus from starting a widespread, biological war which could wipe out humanity, while working alongside the infamous Dr. Kiriko.

Shorts

A 7-minute short called Dr. Pinoko no Mori no Bōken was shown before Black Jack: The Two Doctors of Darkness.

Live-action

Appearances in other media

An anime version of the character was seen in an ad teaming up with Dr. House from House for the promotion of the latter in Japan. Black Jack also appears as a playable character in the 2019 puzzle game Crystal Crisis. Animoca Brands added Black Jack as well as Pinoko and Dr. Kiriko as playable characters to its game Crazy Defense Heroes in 2020.

Reception and legacy

Black Jack is considered one of the greatest manga of all time, and among Tezuka's best manga, alongside Astro Boy and Phoenix. In 2006, the Japan Media Arts Festival held an 'experts' ranking for the 'Greatest Manga of All Time'. Black Jack ranked 5th, behind Phoenix and just ahead of Astro Boy. In 2009, the Asahi Shimbun held a poll for the 'Greatest Shōwa Manga'. Black Jack ranked 9th on the list, behind Astro Boy and just ahead of Phoenix. In addition, Black Jack ushered in Weekly Shōnen Champion 's most successful period ever, an era when Champion was the best-selling manga magazine, as well as marking Tezuka's resurgence, which had taken a hit from the rise of gekiga. It consistently ranks among the most popular manga of all time, and ranked 18th in a 2021 popularity poll conducted by TV Asahi, the highest ranked Champion manga, and the highest ranked Tezuka manga. In addition, it ranked 1st in a 2020 poll asking for the 'Greatest Champion Manga of All Time'. The character of Black Jack is also one of the most iconic manga characters ever, and has acted as a mascot for Japan's marrow donation service, and even for a 'Partner Agent' service. It is also one of three manga that are most frequently found in Japanese schools, due to being deemed to have educational value, alongside Barefoot Gen, and the manga adaptation of The Tale of Genji. Black Jack has also influenced numerous real doctors to enter the practice. About.com's Deb Aoki listed Black Jack as the best "re-issue of previously released material" of 2008.

Museum

Between 3 March – 27 June 2016, the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum located in Takarazuka City, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, sponsored an art exhibit focused on the "Heroines of Osamu Tezuka". It highlighted the leading ladies of Tezuka's comics, such as Sapphire of Princess Knight and Pinoko of Black Jack.