Osamu Tezuka’s massive body of work is sometimes overshadowed by the success of Astro Boy, to the point where I’m only able to tell certain people who Osamu Tezuka is by bringing up Astro Boy to them. However, one of the most important series that Osamu Tezuka ever created has, itself, grown into quite a respectable franchise, one that easily attains greater critical reception than that of Astro Boy and is also commercially successful, being Osamu Tezuka’s second bestselling manga behind Astro Boy itself. Therefore, I thought it worth providing an overview of this fascinating franchise, Black Jack.
The Black Jack manga ran from 1973-83 in Weekly Shonen Champion and proved to be so successful that it’s often referred to as having rejuvenated Osamu Tezuka’s career. The manga follows the titular Black Jack, a genius surgeon who is unlicensed, as he encounters all sorts of unusual cases, patients and situations alongside his assistant/adopted daughter Pinoko. The series itself is told episodically with a few chapters fleshing out the background of its main cast but the quality of these stories proves remarkable and, in my personal opinion, is much more consistent than Astro Boy. It is also one of the best-selling manga series of all time with an estimated 50 million copies being sold in Japan!