Customer Reviews

Black Jack, Volume 9 (Black Jack (Vertical))

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This set of Black Jack stories is heavy. Heavy on the morality tales, and heavy subjects. Black Jack gets shot, he fails in several operations, he gets robbed, he gets shipwrecked. Even Pinoko narrowly escapes death. Maybe Tezuka was going through a rough patch in his life. It shows here, as he puts Black Jack through the wringer. There are none of Pinoko's cute little antics, and for the first set of books that I can remember, it seems as if Black Jack's bank account goes backward in this volume.

However, the stories are still glorious, exciting and fresh. Even after 9 volumes of 14 stories each (that's over 100 stories), every story still feels new and original. It's amazing what this creative genius can do. He needs to lend some of his skills to today's professional writers at DC and Marvel, that's for sure. Many of the endings are "twists upon twists." Even as an "experienced" Black Jack reader, I am often surprised by the ending. Tezuka is indeed the "god of Manga."

Read the entire series in order to experience the gradual development of Black Jack and Pinoko. This is still a great volume, but for new readers to the series, I would strongly recommend starting at Volume One, the beginning, because there is some gradual character development that takes place.

I purchased this volume & the previous one at the same time & I'm glad that I did. It's much more fun to read Black Jack straight through. (Plus it gives me a bigger dose so I can get a better fix before I start jonesing for more Tekuza again!)Staring at the number of the volume, it made me realize that we're already about halfway through the series. (There's about 17 volumes in the series.)

This volume continues the series & as with previous volumes, you can read this one without having read the previous stories. (Such is the case with the entire series with a few exceptions.) The stories in this volume range from Pinoko getting a horrible disease to a story about a bombing. The stories are all a little on the strange side, but that's what you can expect from Tekuza.

I've really enjoyed the series so far & I'll be sad to see it end. I don't normally collect long series like this because at some point the plot lines get so horribly drawn out that I lose patience & interest in the series. Perhaps it's the standalone format paired with the genius of Tekuza (ok, I'll admit it I'm a fangirl) that makes this series so great. Whatever your personal reasons are for following the series this far, this is another "must buy" manga for me.

I got a bad case of loving you!

Okay, okay, enough ya say, I'll stop singing and squealing pathetically! I understand, I'm terribly, flinchingly off key. I've been on a black jack binge these past few days, strangely enough, having just ran through vol. 8 yesterday. I have to say, accurate you are not, Black Jack, but who am I to resist you even when you fill my mind with competely impossible things like cancer riding surgeries, and the amazing discussion of cryptogenic freezing in the 70's or 80's. (Did your contemporaries even know about that then, or did Tezuka really just see that far ahead?!)Anwway, I am unable to resist your charms, and your smug surgical prowess.

Here, we see a whole bunch of different cases, ranging from a nail biting case of leukemia inflicted on Ponokio, the drama between a pupil and profesor, leading to tradgedy, and a priestess that claims a boy's strange "frog skin" is caused by a curse. Weird, weird stuff! But I couldn't stop reading. My favorite case was "Three Legged Race." Remember, life is a three legged race. Oh gosh, just read it, I was kind of mehhh on it until I read the end and then it broke my heart. Snifffle. You'll understand why life is never a two legged race when you get there. Urgh, now I'm depressed again.

High recommendations! Off to vol. 10!

This is tezuka at his best showing why he has earned the nickname the godfather of manga.