About this title

Synopsis

Black Jack is an "unregistered" doctor with a clouded, mysterious past. He works with his little assistant Pinoko (who has a massive crush on the doctor), dealing with medical cases not very well known, which can be strange, dangerous, or not known at all. But he is a genius, and can save almost any of his patients' lives (as long as they have the money for it, that is), and is known to many around the world, especially to those of medicine and science. He's a man of science himself, and does not believe much until he has seen it, yet it is many times he is surprised by love and nature often overpowering the science he bases his life in. (Source: ANN)

Publication notes

Black Jack won the first Kodansha Manga Award for the Shounen category in 1977. The series was first published in English by VIZ Media, who released select chapters in their manga anthology magazine Manga Vizion, and later released those chapters in two volumes in 1999. Vertical Inc. published the entire series in English from September 23, 2008, to November 29, 2011.

Published

Nov 19, 1973 to Oct 14, 1983

Authors

Tezuka, Osamu

External links

MyAnimeList page KodanshaKodansha USA Official Site Wikipedia

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Main characters

Kuroo Hazama1185 fan favorites
External profile
Black Jack is a medical mercenary, selling his skills to the highest bidder. He is a shadowy figure, with a black cloak, eerie black-and-white hair, a scar across his face and partially black skin. Black Jack cures patients indiscriminately, from common folk to presidents and yakuza leaders. To his VIP patients, he charges absurd sums. All this has given him a reputation for callousness and greed which he gleefully cultivates. However, to the reader it is clear that Black Jack actually is a good man: he is anti-wealth and anti-prestige, and believes he is actually doing rich people a favor by removing their material wealth. The opposition to wealth and power is a common theme in Tezuka's work: powerful men are almost always portrayed in a negative light.
Pinoko64 fan favorites
External profile
Pinoko is Black Jack's sidekick, a little girl constructed by him who is actually a Teratogenous Cystoma, a sort of tumor also known as a teratoma. As seen in Teratogenous Cystoma, she was a rare type of Siamese twin, living in one of Black Jack's patients' bodies for eighteen years until Black Jack extracted her and gave her a real body, a plastic exo-skeleton. After being rejected by her twin sister, she started to live with him in his house. She always helps the doctor by doing house-chores and even acting as an assistant to some of his operations. She often acts as comic relief in Black Jack, physically and in many ways mentally appearing to be around the age of five years, but claiming to be a girl of eighteen and engaged to him, despite that he only treats her as a daughter.