Black Jack: Film Review

Title: Black Jack

Original Idea: Osamu Tezuka
Director: Osamu Dezaki
Year: 1996

Black Jack is a long-awaited revisit for me, as I caught the film years ago on glorious VHS, after forcing my father to tape it from Sci-Fi. The channel used to be a bastion of good anime, though I’m not sure whether it still airs anime late at night, or whether the airing of late night anime has withered with the passage of time.

The first time round I found that I had a rocky relationship with Black Jack, it contained things that fit awkwardly with my teenage desires, i.e. too much dialogue and a notable lack of nudity, but luckily now I am, at least attempting to look, dignified and cultured and these things are no longer held against it.

The film opens with clips of Olympic athletes breaking world records, specifically a 15 year old Polish girl breaking both male and female 100m sprint records, and a past-his-prime American breaking the pole vault record. We are treated to visuals that will delight ardent fans of thermal imaging, as thermal imaging is recreated to emphasize just how hard these athletes are working. A whole host of records being broken sparks suggestions that this is the next stage of human evolution, and the athletes are labelled superhumans, and though the Japanese phrase is "cho-jin", the ‘evolution’ is far from the sense used in Urotsukidoji. Thank Cruijff.

It transpires that these changes may not be quite the ‘evolution’ that the media had been promoting, as a number of the ‘superhumans’ begin suffering from strange systems.

Enter Black Jack. When newly-developing, mysterious illnesses are the game, then the two-tone-haired maverick-genius freelance doctor is the only player worth calling. Aided by his borderline-annoying child-assistant Pinoko, Black Jack is shanghaied into the case by suspicious femme fatale Jo Carol, whose motives are ambiguous.

Even since 1996 the anime has aged strangely, and though the ‘superhuman’ times they give for the world records haven’t been surpassed in reality, some of the technology is humorously outdated. *Warning: it is now necessary to turn your innuendo-aids off* At one point Black Jack is passed a floppy disc (though it is possible that it is a mini-disc), which he inserts into a computer and watches a video from I’m not certain whether the Japanese were using super-powered floppy discs in 1996, or whether SPFD is actually the name of a band I would listen to, but the floppies I remember were incapable of holding a picture, let alone a video file. Of course today the device would be a USB stick or a Blu-ray, and in another 13 years these would look equally as technologically redundant. In the future they will plug aerials into computers that link wirelessly to your brain and transmit .esp video files directly into your imagination. That is my prediction at least.

The voice acting is particularly tasteful, where even the saccharine trilling of Pinoko is apt and adds to proceedings, rather than unduly detracting from the seriousness of situations. Pinoko is utilised well as she humanises Black Jack (do I call him Jack, Jackie, BJ?) who is often clinical and cold, and without her presence may come across as an overly heartless and compassionless fellow. Our main man, The Poppa BJ, is voiced magnificently, with one particular explosion of “kotowaru!” (I refuse!) being a genuinely impressive breath-catching boom.

There was one amusing mistranslation in the visuals of Black Jack, in a scene where a giant Olympic banner is being held by the crowd at the event. In reality, the 1996 Olympics were held in Atlanta, though according to the makers of Black Jack, it was held in Atlantis. This probably would have made for a more interesting Olympics, certainly more water-based at the very least. I would like to imagine that the mistranslation was purposeful, an example of the sneaky humour of one of the artists who worked on the film.

There is a sharp shock curve in Black Jack, which is for the large part encouraging the viewer to think and is driven by dialogue, but occasionally abrupt viciousness with explode into proceedings. One example of this from early on in the film is where a furtive discussion regarding patients is interrupted by a physically and mentally unstable sprinter literally sprinting headfirst into a wall, with a very bloody and final outcome.

The film revolves wholly around medical practises, specifically medial ethics, with Black Jack staunchly treating patients with utmost care and single-mindedly dedicating himself to saving them, where others have a far more distanced and dangerous relationship with the lives of their patients. Despite this, the topic isn’t explicitly discussed in any real depth, and the clear goodie/baddie divide that exists in parts of the film is repeatedly blurred, which ensures that the film doesn’t become preaching propaganda. The film is, in my opinion rightly, warning of the dangers of playing silly buggers with your patients, although it is able to portray the human and nuanced side of issues.

An amount of medical jargon exists in the film, though considering the main characters are all doctors this is to be expected. The jargon isn’t rampant, however, and I feel there is a healthy balance, where enough terminology is being bandied to create a credible medical atmosphere, without excluding any who are plebs in the way of medicine. A plebe such as I.

There are more moustaches than are usually present in anime. I was pleased.

On occasion there is a particularly unsettling sequence where Black Jack is involved in self-diagnosis, which takes the form of a monologue. The monologue is particularly cold and scientific, as he is working through his symptoms, which transforms it into a chilling and haunting soliloquy.

The film holds up much better now that I am not a presumptuous young oik looking for nudity and violence.