Black Jack Volume 2 by Osamu Tezuka

BlackJack is the world's most accomplished surgeon, but he's unlicensed, so that other doctors disparage him and try to bring him down while those looking for miracles go to him as their last place to turn. He charges huge amounts for his time and effort, but once he's paid, he won't rest until he has found the source of the problem and defeated it.

This volume contains 14 stories, each a different case that BlackJack has worked on.

In the first, "Needle", BlackJack's surgical expertise is strained when a needle he is giving the patient breaks off inside his vein. The broken needle will end up in the heart unless BlackJack can stop it, but despite his great expertise, he will have to learn that sometimes, there is nothing the doctor can do.

In "Granny", BlackJack meets an old woman who has struggled her whole life to pay off a debt to a doctor who saved her son's life. But when she is the one who needs medical help, will her son repay the love and care she has given him all her life?

In "The Ballad of the Killer Whale", BlackJack meets an injured Killer whale whom he doctors, then demands payment of as a joke. He's surprised that the whale actually begins to bring him pearls as payment for his services. But as time goes on, and the whale begins to be hunted by the humans for his burglary of fish from the waters, BlackJack knows he will lose his friend. But will his refusal to help cause the Killer Whale's death?

In "To Each His Own", a young man is about to take his life after failing an exam. But he is saved by a rough worker who lives from day to day. When the worker is injured in a Gas explosion, watching BlackJack work on him reminds the student of what is the most important thing in life.

In "Emergency Shelter", BlackJack is there to demand payment from a businessman whose life he saved with an operation. Now the man is refusing to pay, and spent most of his money on a new skyscraper, with an Emergency Shelter that is supposed to be first rate. But when he is trapped with a bunch of businessmen the first man is showing off to, will his actions shame the businessman into finally paying up?

In "Dirt Jacked", BlackJack is trapped along with an entire bus full of schoolkids and a teacher when a tunnel collapses in an Earthquake. With some of the children too hurt to move, can BlackJack ensure the injured kids get help, or will they all die together?

In "Where Art Thou, Friend?" BlackJack remembers an operation that saved his life as a child, and a dark-skinned friend who provided the skin graft. But when he decides to finally go in search of his friend after many years apart, is it already too late?

In "Kidnapping", BlackJack is brought to a foreign country to operate on the President, bringing his ward. Pinoko, with him. But when she is kidnapped by rebels who want the President to die, they threaten to Kill Pinoko unless he lets the President die on the operating table. Who will he save? Or is there a way to save both?

In "Assembly Line Care", BlackJack must show a conceited Hospital Director that care on an assembly line is wrong when it comes to patients in hospitals. But the director won't be convinced... until his child is injured in an accident. Will the director turn his daughter over to the assembly line? Or will the emergency show him how wrong he is?

In "Helping Each Other", BlackJack is saved from dying for a crime he didn't commit by another Japanese man he met in a bar. In thanks, BlackJack offers to be his surgeon if the man ever needs him. But when the director of the company he works for requires the salaryman to really die for his company, BlackJack's appearance screws up the director's plans. But can BlackJack really save the man if his company director wants him dead?

In "Stradivarius", a Plane carrying BlackJack goes down in the frozen north. On the plane is a famous violinist. But when the passengers must leave everything behind to get to safety, will the Violinist's quest for the Strad prove to be the final act of his life?

In "Pinoko's Challenge", Pinoko wants to go to college to learn to be a doctor and help BlackJack out. But will the challenge of going to college, as she wants to do, be too much for her and her artificial body?

In "Hospital Jack", Blackjack must save a man on the operating table when the hospital is taken over by crooks and the lights are cut out. Can BlackJack save a man by operating in the dark? Or will the challenge prove to be too much for him?

In "The Blind Acupuncturist", BlackJack suffers a difference of opinion with a blind acupuncturist whi disdains surgery for his own needles. He claims he can cure anything with a few punctures, but when he starts messing around with Black Jack's patients, who will come out ahead?

This book is definitely a blast from the past, as Osamu Tezuka is definitely of the old school style when it comes to Manga. But he's a genius, as this collection of short stories shows. He can put in just a few panels what it takes other manga artists entire books to do, and each story is complete, self-contained, and absolutely amazing.

While Pinoko gets very tiresome after a while (with her too-kawaii speech patterns and her insistence that BlackJack is her husband. Oh, and her jealousy of anyone BlackJack is interested in is *beyond* old at this point.), but BlackJack, while prone to rages occasionally, humors her.

Despite the age of these stories, they are still good reading. While the art style is more cartoonish than modern-day manga, the stories of Osamu Tezuka still have much to teach modern manga-ka. Highly recommended.