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Young Black Jack
Episode 9

by Rose Bridges,

How would you rate episode 9 of
Young Black Jack ?
Community score: 4.2

Across these reviews, I've often criticized the Young Black Jack creators for not understanding the original Black Jack manga. They took a character who was humble and helped the last fortunate in a weirdly conservative direction, making him showier and sometimes fighting in favor of the status quo. Luckily, this last crop of episodes has showed improvement. This week, we had a story that definitively proves that the creators are up on their Tezuka.

The main characters in this saga have been airlifted in from another of Tezuka's manga, Dororo. It's a samurai story set during the Warring States Period, focusing on a traveling swordsman named Hyakkimaru who lost his limbs to demons. They were replaced with prosthetics by the miracle doctor who raised him (equated here to the guy who operated on Hazama) and now Hyakkimaru goes in search of his lost limbs with the title character, an orphaned bandit. (Roro shows up at the end of this episode too, as the little boy with one prosthetic limb.) Young Black Jack transfers these characters to the world of surgery in the 1960s. Here, Hyakkimaru is "Dr. Hyakki Marou," a genius surgeon.

At least, he was until he lost his limbs in a tragic accident. Now the world only sees the metal hooks at the end of his hands, not the brilliant surgical mind behind them. That's why he's lecturing at Hazama's lesser university, rather than the prestigious one where he'd previously taught. Hyakki acknowledges that this is partially because he can't wield a scalpel with his hooks, so he hopes that he can get them replaced with more advanced prosthetics. When one of his former colleagues refuses to do the surgery, Hazama naturally steps up the plate. Because of their earlier connection, Hyakki trusts him.

Naturally, Hazama succeeds in the surgery despite its supposed riskiness, impresses the heck out of Hyakki, and builds him some fancy new limbs. He can switch between the hooks and an actual scalpel for a hand, allowing him to perform surgery with ease. He demonstrates this during an autopsy done for the class at Hazama's university. Now, his body can keep up with the brain behind it. Unfortunately, his former colleagues are less understanding, and they connive a way to deny him the surgical experiment that would re-admit him to Teiko University. They show the patient pictures of Hyakki operating with his prosthetics, which causes the patient to refuse surgery from him. At least, that's what they say.

In many respects, this story is the Ableism One in the same way that the last series of episodes were set up to be the Racism One. Of course, Johnny's story ended up not being about racism at all, so I won't be surprised if Young Black Jack throws us a curveball later. Hyakki's colleagues are framed in an extremely sinister way, like they are acting on ulterior motives. Either way, it's a solid demonstration of how the world demeans and distrusts those with disabilities, no matter how capable you are despite them. What better way to tell this story than through one of manga's more iconic disabled badasses?

Like the Johnny arc, not a lot happened in this first week. Young Black Jack is good at squeezing melodrama out of every spare moment, to the point where you realize an episode is thin on actual plot. We had a side story with Mio, Hyakki's girlfriend, wanting to marry him, but Hyakki was reluctant, unsure that he could actually support her as her equal. This is what spurs him on to push for the surgery so he can get his job back, but it's clear that the issue has bothered him for a long time. Mio is just a catalyst.

So with so many characters being flown in from another manga, it's worth discussing how the anime has translated Tezuka's visual style throughout. It's always tricky when adapting an older manga, deciding how much to keep to an older and possibly outdated style, versus how much to freshen it up for new audiences. Sometimes you get lucky, with a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure where the art always looked like nothing else out there, so there's no point in not making it stand out. On the other hand, you could have Sailor Moon Crystal, which attempted to both update and preserve the manga's visual style and only combined the worst of both worlds. Luckily, I think Young Black Jack gets the balance right. It focuses on the more memorable parts of Tezuka's style while toning it down enough that it won't look strange as a modern anime.

The effect is weirdly revealing, especially with the ED that contrasts characters' original appearances and how they look here. You see how much things have changed artistically in anime and how much they haven't. Handsome bishonen characters like Hazama and Hyakki still have the ridiculously spiky or long swooping hair. Updates are more striking on random audience members or older characters, especially if they retain Tezuka's other trademark facial features. Anime still loves its large eyes, but not in quite the same shape as it once did.

These similarities also bring out how much this Black Jack is unlike the original. He's grown a lot throughout the series, but it's still hard to see how he'll become the classic character. He's still too cocky and too aloof, which leaves me wondering what will shake him into the person he eventually becomes. If not Vietnam, if not Johnny and the experiments placed on him, then what? With Hyakki, we might have our answer. If this brilliant surgeon gets blacklisted from the medical community just for his disability, or because his colleagues dislike him and are using his disability as an excuse, that might just push Hazama into his decision not to become a licensed doctor.

Still, this Hazama feels so well-connected and comfortable that he might need several incidents like this to push him in that direction. It's an interesting idea to involve a character from one of Tezuka's other manga, especially one with strong similarities to Black Jack. I hope the show can execute this story successfully, and recent episodes have given me greater confidence that it can.

Rating: B+

Young Black Jack is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose is a music Ph.D. student who loves overanalyzing anime soundtracks. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn, and on Twitter.


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