ブラック・ジャック

Black Jack is a manga written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in the 1970s, who was also the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba and many other famous Japanese manga. He was basically the Japanese version of Walt Disney…well not in term of style. I had been always a big fan of Osamu’s work, but for some reason I never like Black Jack that much when I was a child. I think I was scared by the strange look of the character when I first read it, and never had a chance to return to it ever since. Black Jack is considering the best character that Osamu had ever created by Osamu himself, and I can’t agree more.

It is more of manga for teen and adult, and there are many medical references that children will just never understand. Perhaps that’s one of the reason I never read Black Jack when I was little. The character is a unique hero type, which is always on the grey line of being a hero or a villain. As a black market doctor Black Jack mostly ask a crazy high amount of payment in return for his surgery, and that’s one of the biggest arguments that put him on the border of being a villain. He makes an argument against that by asking how much is worth of life. If you think your life is the most important thing then you shouldn’t worry about how much money you spend, and any price that can save a life is consider to be way too cheap. I personally totally agree with him, as it doesn’t matter how much money you have, as once you are dead it’s all over anyway.

Osamu used a stereotype characters in all of his manga, and basically draw the same type of people with one model and repeat them over and over again throughout all his mangas. This allow the reader easily understand the situation and can focus more on the story.

Black Jack had changed its style more and more toward children after the death of Osamu, and slowly become something that’s almost too childish for adult to read. However Black Jack had became an animated series…well two totally different styles of animated series. One is a realistic and dark Black Jack focusing on the realistic world and the darker side of the story, the other one is a cute and funny style focusing on the lesson that children should learn after watching it.