Young Black Jack

Episode 12

It's the finale of Young Black Jack, and we're back to familiar territory: demonizing student protesters. In fact, they're the same student protesters that Hazama dealt with in episode 3. Perhaps this time they're more worthy of demonization, because they're resorting to actual violent revolt against the government, not just helping American Vietnam deserters out of the country. However, Hazama spots a familiar face in the crowd—familiar to him, but not to us.

He met Eri during the "first Haneda incident," a student protest in 1967 at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Students in Japan had protested against tuition hikes and other issues, but this particular protest was about the Vietnam War. They were upset at Japan's support for America's involvement and huddled at the airport in response to the Japanese prime minister's visits to South Vietnam and the U.S. to "discuss" the war. The protesters suspected that the PM just wanted to pledge further support for the war, so a revolt broke out. Young Black Jack doesn't explain why Hazama was there, but he found Eri bleeding and in need of stitches. He stitched her up and nursed her back to health, and they became friends. Over time, he apparently continued to help her and others as she requested.

Things are about to get much worse for Eri though. Her group has turned violent and much less tolerant of dissent. She's still turning to Hazama, but she's also more deeply involved in the movement, to the extent that her group is deemed treasonous enough to go into hiding in a mountain fortress. She still sends a signal for Hazama's help through a postcard that alerts him to her location with its postmark. Hazama has known a few girls throughout his stories. However, Eri is the first girl besides Maiko we've seen get close to him. I thought for sure Young Black Jack was setting her up as a love interest, because they both have a knack for seeking each other out, and Hazama is willing to march into certain danger for her sake by seeking out her mountain bunker. Of course, since the Black Jack of Tezuka's manga is a single man, it also has to mean some sad fate for Eri in this episode.

She's barely alive when he finds her. The protesters beat her up for refusing to "reeducate" the other girl in the group, who is having second thoughts about the violent turn their cause has taken. Hazama proceeds to give them a lecture about how violence isn't really what they want, and it's causing them to turn against each other. This is where the show goes into unbelievable territory: I'm no fan of militancy, but pretty much every activist who resorts to it has probably already considered the "why couldn't you just do it peacefully instead?" angle. Hazama's point does stick though, at least long enough for them to let him heal Eri. This temporary peace evaporates when the police find them, and the revolutionaries retaliate with gunfire. Even entirely covered in bandages, Eri runs out to stop them—and gets shot and killed by the police.

This leads to a tragic, sweet dying scene in Hazama's arms, furthering the romantic angle but never quite confirming it. The rest of the conflict just dies away with everyone getting arrested, but Hazama gets released when it's established that he had no real connection to the militants. The episode works emotionally as a stand-alone even if it falls into the same hole as previous Young Black Jack eps that "get political": oversimplification. The bigger problem is where it fits into the larger goals of the series.

The series defies the main point of a Black Jack student-years prequel: establishing why he doesn't get his license. It would have been better to show what in the medical community led him to believe it was corrupt enough to go his own way in the future. The "Gruesome Chronicle" storyline put some strong wind in those sails, appearing to build toward a finale that would reveal the straw that broke the camel's back. However, this finale went back to an old well, creating a story that fit better with the pre-Vietnam installments. It leaves Hazama's eventual fate as a sidenote, telling the audience—not showing—that he'd "one day" reject his name and become Black Jack. I would have liked to see how he got there.

Young Black Jack was a fairly entertaining historical/medical drama on its own. The problem is that with such strong source material, and given the historical events it used as a backdrop, it could have been much more. It consistently chose the simplest take on the events around it, and character cameos from the Osamu Tezuka catalogue aside, it failed to live up to the standards of the original manga. Ultimately, I'd have to recommend this more to people who are not familiar with Black Jack or with 1960s history. You'll like it best if you don't know what you might be missing.

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.