|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||
|
|
Reviewed by Park Cooper Well, it’s time to review two more Black Jacks. I feel like not going back and cribbing my own previous reviews, so here goes: From the old master, Osamu Tezuka, the guy who gave the world ASTROBOY, BUDDHA, and DORORO (see previous MangaLife reviews), Black Jack is the story of the world’s most brilliant and often-noble, sometimes-Chaotic-Good-Teach-You-A-Lesson-You-Won’t-Soon-Forget surgeon, Black Jack. Black Jack has a weird, semi-discolored, stitched-up face and multi-colored (some is white) hair, due to intense childhood medical trauma, that makes him extra weird and intimidating, although technically he’s still handsome. Those who aren’t intimidated by that are often put off by his reputation as an unlicensed surgeon who charges insanely mercenary fees (to those who can afford it, that is, but most people never hear about his generosity). Black Jack is good. Read it. It’s usually as good in its own way as the Old Master’s other works. But to give just a hint of a few of the stories in store for you: Vol 3: “Dingoes”: While in the Australian outback, Black Jack gets the same disease that’s starting to sweep the remote countryside... and he can’t get back to civilization! In his inflatable plastic bubble of an emergency sterile surgery space that he carries in his doctor’s bag, Black Jack must self-diagnose and operate on HIMSELF... by the side of a stretch of lonely road! Oh no... HERE COME THE DINGOES!!! (My wife Barbara: “I read that one while you were in New York! It was nuts! I was like “Black Jack is HARDCORE! Ya never see House do that! I’d still be watching if stuff like that went down!”) “Baby Blues”: A member of a bad girl gang gets a bus locker key that a member of her girl gang pickpocketed from a random secretary. But when they open it up, inside they find... a baby! In the early 70s, in a bizarre wave of baby-abandoning, Japanese girls and women did so in coin-lockers, and this story plays off that. All the other girls want to shut the door and run away—can this girl get Black Jack to believe her and save the baby before her parents catch her and send her off to boarding school like they’ve threatened? Vol 4: “The Sea Smells of Romance”: A young sailor with a really bad attitude has fallen in love, and he wants Black Jack to remove his tattoos, because he feels this step is necessary to telling his love that he loves her... Black Jack, typically, could care less. But the sailor has a letter of reference from the person he loves—the ship’s doctor who used to be Black Jack’s love, long ago! Can Black Jack get over his mixed emotions long enough to help the young sailor? And when the sailor’s life is in grave danger after helping save people from an oil tanker fire... will he be _forced_ to help? “Tetsu of the Yamanote Line”: Tetsu (who looks a LOT like Astroboy’s teacher Mr. Mustachio) is a pickpocket on the Yamanote subway line. He’s not really a bad sort, but he has a (secretly kinda sweet) rivalry with the local police inspector, who’s constantly trying to catch him in the act and put him away forever. But before he does, Tetsu picks a gangster’s pocket—and gets caught. Can Black Jack help the police inspector someday fulfill his dream of catching a pickpocket who just had two of his fingers cut off? That ought’a give you an idea of the thrills you’re missing... Now, these are 16.95 each, but they’re very nicely done, a bit larger than average, and they’re each over 300 pages—so for your dollar, you’re really not paying all THAT much more, and by the pound or kilogram, you’re really only paying a LITTLE bit more, if anything. So if you have the dosh, please help out America’s economic recovery via Vertical, Inc. and redistribute some Osamu Tezuka from the bookstore (or Amazon or whatever) into your home. Interested in writing for MangaLife? We're always looking for talented reviewers and columnists, so drop us a line! Charles Webb Editor-in-Chief, MangaLife.com |
1 September 2010
|
||||
 |
| home | reviews | news | features | about us | advertise | privacy policy | contact us |
