I normally don’t make posts like this but sometimes I like to put pieces of work by others which have inspired me or art I find interesting and rather unique.
Young Black Jack is a prequel to the god of manga Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack series. Originally I didn’t like the idea of making a prequel to Black Jack because I loved the original so much so I didn’t want someone completely ruining the story. For those of you who don’t know, Black Jack is a manga about a famous underground surgeon who can perform any surgery but at a hugely inflated price, plus he only takes on cases which interest him. The original run was, I believe, from 1973 to 1978 so it’s a very old manga. Young Black Jack is about Black Jack’s past and is on-going since 2011. The story is still keeping to Tezuka’s original plot but the art is adapted by Yoshiaki Tabata. Yet despite the original creator being long since deceased, I think Young Black Jack looks pretty promising.
I really like the art style in Young Black Jack. Although I admit it’s not 100% anatomically correct, I have to give the artist credit for doing it well. For some reason I find it really captivating and dramatic; for the first picture it’s because you can recognise Black Jack because of his black and white hair and scar but if you take that away, he’s just a person. He has no identity, let alone being a world-renowned surgeon. A lot of mangas out there aren’t as detailed as this one so I was drawn in by the contrast and detailed contours. That, and the use of vibrant colours and the ‘shock’ factor, creates a lasting impact. It just looks so different from conventional mainstream manga. It’s seinen (manga for adult men) but there’s clearly an element of bishonen (appeal to women and girls) in there as well. I’m wondering what kind of story the manga has because the art makes it look very dark and almost sadistic. Despite the nature of the original series, Black Jack was very cheerful and with Pinoko as one of the recurring characters, it is also really cute and naive. Young Black Jack doesn’t have any of that appeal, and with the target audience of adult males, that’s hardly surprising.
Osamu Tezuka’s love for science and medicine inspired him to create Black Jack, who was the idyllic surgeon Tezuka dreamed of becoming. Before becoming a cartoonist, Tezuka trained to become a doctor and even received his medical license but instead wanted to pursue his career in comics. It’ll be interesting to see what another artist’s take on Black Jack will be from Tezuka’s personal ideals and creation. I may upload some scans when I receive my copies.
I do really like collecting Japanese mangas since a lot of them aren’t translated into English. I don’t read them though since I can’t, I just look at the imagery. If you want to know where I buy them, I get mine from either YesAsia or CDJapan. Other alternatives are Amazon Japan or just waiting for an English release.
Visions and Dreams 