Genre: Classic Medical Drama
Range: N/A (probably 16+ for heavy themes)
Price: 16.95 USD
 
After months of buzz and anticipation Osamu Tezuka's manga classic finally arrived on American shores. The first volume of Black Jack was met with open arms and, thankfully, well-deserved praise. But does Volume 2 measure up?
 
If you aren't familiar, Black Jack is a mysterious and unlicensed doctor who is often sought out in solving the most difficult and unusual of medical dilemmas. In the first volume he faced with a variety of situations, often ethically as well as medically intriguing. When the first volume starts we know almost nothing about the brooding MD, but snippets of what makes the doctor who his is are dispersed throughout the first volume, and this continues in the second.
 
Each episode in these big 300 page volumes is about 20 pages is a stand-alone story, but we see recurring characters (like Pinoko, who grated on my nerves a little until I understood her back story). To be honest the first two stories in Volume 2 did not inspire, and I initially worried that Black Jack might be a be a one-hit-wonder. But it was the third story, "The Ballad of the Killer Whale" that reassured me in not only Black Jack's longevity as a character but Tezuka's ability to make the reader be moved by such a dark and mysterious character.
 
Black Jack himself dances the line of moral ambiguity, and although he charges debilitating prices for his services to rich or poor, he loves ripping off the filthy rich and greedy. He does just that in "Emergency Shelter" and then things completely shift gears in the moving and disturbing school bus accident thriller "Dirtjacked". The following stories also satisfy, and end with the slightly strange "The Blind Acupuncturist". One senses we'll see this alternative medicine blind man again.
 
With a little bit of a shaky start, Black Jack Volume 2 quickly reverts to the mystery and originality that made Volume 1 such a fascinating read. The sprinklings of Black Jack's back story among the strictly stand-alone episodes makes the outlook for the long life of this series very good.
 
 

9.5