Pinoko

Pinoko is Black Jack's sidekick, a little girl who was actually a Teratogenous Cystoma (a growth more commonly known as a teratoma). As seen in "Teratogenous Cystoma", she was a rare type of parasitic twin, living in one of Black Jack's patients' bodies for eighteen years until Black Jack extracted her and gave her a real body. He constructed her from the mass of organs included in the growth and provided her a plastic exoskeleton that gives her the appearance of a human child. However, this exoskeleton limits some of her abilities, most notably halting her physical growth and not being able to swim for long durations. She speaks with a strong lisp which may be due to her exoskeletal skull. After being rejected by her twin sister, she started to live with Black Jack as a sort of daughter to him. She always helps the doctor by doing household chores and by even being his assistant in some of his operations. She often acts as comic relief in Black Jack, claiming to be a girl of eighteen and married with Black Jack, despite her child's appearance and personality. Her main value is companionship and source of affection for the ordinarily cold-natured doctor. Pinoko's main form of comic relief in the TV anime 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 80's series) , in English — while pressing her cheeks together with her hands when something surprising happens.