I’ve been really getting into Osamu Tezuka‘s Phoenix as of late, but I was luckily enough to pick up a copy of Tezuka’s Black Jack, which is being distributed by Vertical, Inc.. If you want a short review… definitely buy and read Black Jack vol. 5, but my suggestion is to find at least Black Jack vol. 1 first. Black Jack vol. 5 goes on sale today! If you want a more elaborate review, continue after the jump.
If you have had no experience with Tezuka’s Black Jack, the silent man with a stitched face is an unlicensed doctor and surgeon who travels around Japan (and sometimes the world) to operate on the most difficult medical cases imaginable. Throughout his travels he establishes many friendships and encounters just as many if not more enemies.
Most manga follows a certain form: four-panel, short story, or long format; while the Black Jack manga is compiled into large volumes in Vertical’s release, short stories comprise the tale’s format. The comics magazine Weekly Champion serialized Tezuka’s set of short medical adventures for the length of a decade from 1973 to 1983. Originally, each serialization contained one of the stories, so the authentic experience of waiting X weeks before the next issue arrived is lost, but it’s not a bad consequence that English readers can read a number of stories in one go. Nonetheless, if you pick up a few of Vertical’s volumes and read them in one sitting, the narrative structure of each story may seem repetitive. However, Tezuka throws in surprises every few chapters, so it fails to ever become a boring read. In the long run of his manga production, Black Jack appears relatively late in Tezuka’s career, so the stories and art are respectively well developed.
Picking up the physical text, the reader might notice that Vertical’s paperback is no ordinary release. The colors, texture, and overall presentation of Black Jack’s fifth volume barely resembles the usual standard of manga out there on the market (flimsy pages and a shiny cover). Instead, Vertical provides an excellent physical book, with a rough cover that helps it stay in the reader’s hands (and doesn’t make your fingers sweat). The cover even flaunts a concrete indent that creates the allusion of the text’s “skin” being pulled back to reveal the bodily innards of the medical mysteries that await. The cover also shows off a few frames of the original Japanese manga (which with respect to the fifth volume is actually a spoiler!). Finally, the text reads right to left in a respectful, unflipped format to retain the original Japanese layout (which means, of course, that a humorous note in the “front” of the book notifies the reader of the design). In a way, it seems that Vertical attempts to create a sort of hipster manga that a reader can play off as a adult novel on the morning commute to work; but really, it’s basically a beautiful release.
In terms of the fifth volume in the set, Black Jack is entirely approachable by anyone, since the comic is comprised of individual stories. However, characters reappear in the fifth volume from earlier chapters, so I will reiterate my suggestion to pick up at least the first volume before reading the fifth. Actually, I would recommend reading Volume 1 through 4 at the outset if you can afford it. I did in fact read Volume 5 before Volume 1, which produced a very interesting surprise when I learned of the origins of Black Jack’s tiny assistant, Pinoko (illustrated above), which were explained in the earliest chapters of the first volume! Nevertheless, feel free to pick up Volume 5 before anything else, because the stories are just as good throughout.
In terms of the content of the fifth installment, Tezuka makes his stories as interesting as possible (or as unbelievable, given your preferences). Not only does Black Jack encounter a number of friends, rivals, and especially mentors from his past, but he also makes contact with aliens, ghosts, and even a popular idol of the times. And if you have been a fan of the first four volumes, the secret history of Black Jack’s medical equipment is finally revealed!
Overall, Tezuka’s Black Jack is one of his more popular works, but also one of his more mature texts. The maturity of his artwork particularly stands out in his panel layouts, which reflect both the inner consciences of his characters’ personalities and the unruly power of nature. His distorted and meandering panels resemble the surgical cuts of the scalpel that Tezuka abandoned when he left the medical profession to take up drawing comics. Alongside the intense, realistic depictions from the operating room, the feeling exuded from the stories are graphic yet true to life. Ultimately, the pictorial medicine of Black Jack is merely objective, as the real force behind Tezuka’s work lies in the personal connections to his characters. Sometimes “big eyes” of Japanese animation are still criticizes by young fans, but the profiles and facial expressions in Tezuka’s productions continue to tell the real story.
Are there any faults? With a academic background in English, I tend to notice typos right off the bat, but Vertical produces a streamlined piece of copy with no errors. A few references might go over the head of the reader, such as the opaque allusion (illustrated above) to Weekly Champion, the magazine which serialized Black Jack. However, if you have already read through Volume 1, a footnote in one of the initial chapters explains this reference, since it seems Tezuka likes to play frequently with the concept that a kid can learn to be a doctor by reading comics. My other complaint is a bit petulant. In the first chapter, a footnote explains a pun made in the original Japanese that plays off readings of kanji (one of the most common literary forms of humor in Japanese, Chinese, etc.). The problem for the reader is that the original kanji are not printed in the footnote, so unless he or she possesses a knowledge of Japanese, the joke cannot be reverse engineered. If the kanji were printed in the footnote (it would take about six extra characters, so it’s not difficult), it would provide readers unfamiliar with Japanese a method of understanding a subtle bit of humor that usually goes unnoticed.
Overall, Black Jack is an excellent story, and Vertical’s release of the fifth volume should capture any manga fan’s intrigue. As always, I recommend Tezuka’s work because he established so many foundations and trends in the manga universe. Black Jack Volume 5 is available at most book stores for US $16.95. But don’t go off the price; buy Black Jack because you will enjoy it!