Black Jack is a pretty dope manga. Written & illustrated by the one & only Osamu Tezuka, it ran from 1973 to 1983 & was one of his most successful works as it was running & then became one of his most recognizable overtime. I really don’t know where else to take this intro so I guess we’ll get started. Probably gonna be some spoilers, just a heads up.

Story:

Black Jack doesn’t really have any sort of narrative. It’s an episodic series with self contained stories that don’t really reference each other too much. While I don’t think Black Jack does anything at all to maybe convince non-believers or the episodic format or people who just don’t like episodic stuff in general that they’d like it given that the stories really don’t connect to one another aside from maybe a few callbacks. I never the less believe Black Jack’s individual stories are really strong. The main schtick of Black Jack is that the Kuroo Hazama is a black market doctor who goes around charging people (usually shady ones) obscene amounts of money in return for his services. In spite of being unlicensed & infamous for his schtick, Kuroo is actually one of, if not the best surgeon in Black Jack so people would have very good reasoning as to why they would want his services. This set-up isn’t necessarily the most original or creative set-up that could lead to interesting ideas however with stories such as Kuroo treating a whale, the origin story of how he created his technically daughter Pinoko, Kuroo’s origin story on why he became a doctor, etc. Black Jack more than makes up for its premise with some interesting (if at times frustratingly truncated) narratives, memorable characters, & somewhat reasonable pacing of these narratives. I can’t necessarily call every story in Black Jack great or even good, but seeing as we have 243 stories to tell (if you read scans of the official Vertical Comics release like I did) & the vast majority of them are good to great that’s forgivable. Before we move on, I do also need to mention that Black Jack may have some dated aspects or creepily disturbing or to some disgusting stories. There’s one story where this school announcer girl is on the verge of losing her voice so Black Jack treats her but then proceeds to say she can’t use her voice for a year or else the treatment won’t work. This is fine however there’s a scene where this girl who can’t talk almost gets raped by this group of guys. There’s another story that’s about this guy trying to cope with the loss of his girlfriend (or wife, one of those two) & one of his solutions is to then give his dog his GF’s voice to make it seem as if she’s still alive. This then leads to a scene of a little thing called beastiality near the end of the story, youch. Then there’s the way Tezuka presents Black people which, can definitely be seen as uncool to put it lightly. I personally didn’t take much issue with a lot of these topics I’ve just brought up, & in defense of Tezuka I don’t believe he intended for the drawings of the black people to look as stereotypically racist as they can look (at least I hope that was the case). However, I do feel it necessary to warn any potential readers of these aspects as I know some people probably wouldn’t have the level of tolerance towards these aspects that I had while reading the series


Characters:

The characters in Black Jack are pretty good I’d say. They aren’t exactly depp or layered characters necessarily (aside from Kuroo) but they are fun & memorable. Kuroo isn’t just my favorite character in Black Jack, he’s one of my favorite characters overall. I love his design & personality, he has a very cynical outlook on the world, a dark sense of humor, but underneath it all a heart of gold. Kuroo despite charging obscene amounts of money usually ends up treating some of his patients for completely free, rather that be because he gets screwed over or he believes the patient in question he’s treating is a good person true to what they believe in (as cheesy as that may sound). I can also appreciate how he refuses to become a licensed surgeon due to his outlook on hospitals & how money is seemingly more valuable to them than the life of a patient. If I had to bring up one thing I didn’t like about Black Jack, it’s Pinoko. Not that I think Pinoko is a bad character per-say but her speaking mannerisms can be grating because in general when I’m reading a manga, my brain always wants to say what the correct word is supposed to be (ex. Please instead of Pwease). In fairness there is an in universe explanation in the fact that Pinoko is only one & her speech hasn’t fully developed yet, but for an already unrealistic series that can get out there why’d that have to be realistic? Oh well. Anyhow we got characters such as the Whale Kuroo treats. Dr Kiriko, Black Jack’s nemesis who believes in peacefully killing his patients on their death bed rather than try to heal them back up. Joutarou Honma, the doctor who saved Kuroo’s life when he was a child & is there-fore the reason Kuroo became a doctor. Despite having a large cast of characters who largely only show up once I think Black Jack has some highly memorable characters.

Art:

Tezuka’s art style may be an acquired taste for some but if you read my Phoenix review or looked at my favorites list, you can guess that I not only love his art-style, but love Black Jack’s art as well. Black Jack is fairly typical of Tezuka’s art but it’s still really good. You can expect to see some great detailed background art. Creative uses of paneling that create a good sense of flow. Classic disney-esque character art with some really cool character designs that look good on the pages. You can expect some good ol’ Tezuka art out Black Jack like you would get out of Phoenix or any of his other manga. The text to art ratio is pretty good I’d say, Black Jack is still a text heavy series, it on average takes me an hour to an hour & a half to read a volume of Black Jack but Tezuka did a good job balancing it to where there’s just enough text that’s needed for the set-up & good character interactions, but not too much where it becomes a chore to read. If I had to bring another piece of criticism towards Black Jack, it would be the 4th wall breaks. Tezuka loves doing this in his other manga & I’ve never really been the hugest fan of it in any of his manga that I’ve read. Sometimes they can be cute & clever but a lot of the times they can be unnecessary & in some cases take away from the tone of the scene. I don’t think that happens too often in Black Jack to get on my nerves but I was never a fan of it when it did happen. I also need to bring up that if you’re squeamish towards human anatomy or how the inside of the human body looks I guess. You may want to proceed with caution because Tezuka can draw some pretty detailed depictions of human anatomy. I surprisingly didn’t find myself getting that sick actually so I guess it’s not too bad but again, proceed with caution.

Overall

So that’s Black Jack & it’s a pretty cool series I’ve gotta say. From its characters, its art, its passion, the enjoyment I get from reading it. It’s definitely a series I would call a favorite & one I would call a pretty good introduction to the world of Osamu Tezuka. I’m feeling a 9.5 for this one.