Black Jack

(Full Credit of this wonderful art of Black Jack goes to Karmi-Sempai of deviantArt.)

The dream of what kind of doctor Tezuka Osamu, legendary manga artist and also a licensed doctor, wanted to be... Black Jack!

Black Jack consists of a rogue doctor, aliased Black Jack, who for private and safety reasons [since the time of losing his license to practice medicine] must practice medicine in the shadows. He lost his medical license when performing a surgery on a dying patient, which was against the head doctor's orders, thus having his license revoked. Since then, he had turned into a lone connoisseur of the medical field -- mainly surgery. That's right, most of the cases delivered to him require "cutting open" his patients and removing the cancerous, life-threatening, disgusting or simply something that you just wouldn't want in your own body.

Throughout Black Jack, heavily moral led themes are present, which runs fairly close to how a real-life situation would be. So it's not all hack and slash or action like many other animes but don't be waned! Black Jack is also a fighter, when needed that is but only to save a life of someone in danger or someone who might be seen to be heavily ill.

He may not be your average hero with super powers or control a large mecha that could save the entire world, no. But the reality of what it means to be a hero from a rogue doctor's point-of-view and also realizing that even from mastering your skills, not every life can be saved... Black Jack delivers and keeps on delivering.

With a stitched up face and a generally hideous yet handsome look, Black Jack is a lone hero that you do not want to miss out on. Tezuka Osamu's greatest work, Black Jack!

I love the idea of medical dramas, but I am always frustrated by the amount of interpersonal/relationship drama in them. Black Jack turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. Due to its episodic nature, there is little character development between episodes, and the focus of the episode is on a specific case. While some of the cases do edge over into clearly fictionalized/dramatized medicine, many of them do have a solid grounding in reality. My only complaint with this anime is that it is much lighter than the manga; very few patients die in the anime, which removes many of Black Jack's moments of challenging the unfairness of life and questioning why he is doing what he is doing.

I found this anime very cute, humorous, and generally entertaining in it's own way. However, the "action" (surgery) scenes seem kinda lacking, as does the story at times, but as this anime doesn't follow a overarching story as such, it doesn't not greatly negatively impact it.

I also would like to know his reasoning for charging so much (other than the cases where it's to "prove" themselves / show they will really work to get better)

First of all, I will comment and state that I watched the first 12 episodes and the 4 specials that came before it. I have read parts of the original comic and I have seen the older television shows.

I did not find this to be nearly as enjoyable as I was anticipating. While the opening credit's music is soaring and I really enjoyed it, this series so far is a giant let down. True, it keeps to the comic fairly reasonably (although there appears to be a lot less death in this series than there was in the manga), but the show is redundant.

Not just that, but I find Pinoko's character (the sidekick if you will) to be utterly annoying. Every episode, she can be heard saying the same 'Pinoko-ism' that no one really understands, with the same dumb expression. Her voice is grating and I don't think she provides good comic relief to the main character, Black Jack.

This is sad because many of the stories are very heartfelt and you can see yourself starting to get involved in them.. and then her character with the atrocious voice comes in and ruins the whole thing.

All in all, I just can't give this a good recommendation as far as shows I consider worth watching. And especially as a fan of the older shows, I can't recommend this remake to anyone.

Let me just start off by saying that I really love Black Jack. When I was younger, I watched and loved Black Jack 21. Later, I got into reading the original manga by Mister Tezuka. When I saw this series released on crunchyroll, I just about peed my pants with excitement!

This anime, in effect, is almost the manga word for word. Some characters and short stories have been added, as well as a few aspects changed to adapt it to this era. However, it still feels exactly like they animated the manga into life. The changes are too small and undramatic to really be noticed.

However, while some people really enjoy seeing their favorite manga animated, I feel that it's somewhat repetitive. There wasn't enough new content in the anime that wasn't in the manga to keep me coming back to watch new episodes.

I believe, if you're new to Black Jack or have only seen or read a few things with or about him, this would be an amazingly good series to start with! However, if you're an old expert looking for something new, this series isn't really going to blow your mind.