Burakku Jakku (Black Jack)
(Comic Version)
“Burakku Jakku [Black Jack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Jack_(manga)]” is a medical drama written by Tezuka Osamu(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka), author of “Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy).” The original manga version was published serially in Shukan Shonen Champion (Weekly Boys’ Champion) in 1783 and ended in 1983. Nobody expected this medical “fantasy” – the genius surgeon called “Black Jack” performs the surgery without a medical license – to last this long at first. But Tezuka finally established a new genre in manga world with this totally unique character. “Black Jack” became so popular in Japan that it developed into a franchise.
(Theatrical Version)
(Poster)
(TV Version)
Interestingly Tezuka himself had a doctor’s license (NOT a surgeon’s license). As a result, “Black Jack” was sometimes Tezuka’s personification, which worked really well in most of the episodes. According to the author, he wrote this manga to deal with doctors’ dilemma in reality, such as “Is it a doctor’s mission to go for life support?,” or “Will life support make patients happy?”, instead of “introduction of frontier medicine.”
In those days, Tezuka had to go through bankruptcy, which was helped by successful “Black Jack” – A genius surgeon whose name is “Black Jack” fixed its author’s financial problem! What a coincidence!
