is a fictional character created by Osamu Tezuka, introduced in Weekly Shōnen Champion on November 19, 1973. He is the main character in the Black Jack manga franchise.
His odd appearance comes from a childhood incident, in which both he and his mother were terribly injured in an explosion. Although Kurō's mother died from her injuries, and Kurō's own body was nearly torn to shreds, he was rescued, thanks to a miraculous operation by Dr. Honma. Although Kurō survived, part of his hair turned white due to stress and shock. The skin covering the left side of Kurō's face is noticeably darker due to getting a skin graft from his best friend, who is half African. Kurō refused to have plastic surgery to match the skin color as a sign of respect for his friend. Marked by this experience, Kurō decided to become a surgeon himself, taking the name of Black Jack.
Despite his medical genius, Black Jack has chosen not to obtain a surgical license, choosing instead to operate from the shadows, free from rules and the corrupt bureaucratic establishment. Although he usually treats those he meets in chance encounters who have heard of his legendary skills, he occasionally travels to hospitals around the world to covertly assist terminally ill patients.
Name Black Jack's real name is . In chapter 68, "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" (published April 14, 1975), Black Jack explains the meaning behind both of his names: "Kurō" is written with the Japanese characters for "black" and "man;" as "Jack" is a common name for a man, he translates his name as "Black Jack." His name in the manga is spelled "Kuro'o". In Volume 10 Chapter 2: "The Mask Chosen," he explains to Pinoko that in Japanese, means black and the second represents a jack in a deck of cards.
Character Black Jack presents himself as a medical mercenary, selling his skills to whoever will pay his price. He is a shadowy figure, with a black cape, eerie black-and-white hair, and surgical scars snaking all over his body, the most prominent of which being across his face. His appearance and strange, anti-social mannerisms frighten many away from him, but his friends and acquaintances overlook his appearance and idiosyncrasies, knowing him to be principled, skilled, and above all, completely dedicated to the highest ideals of the medical profession.
Although his age is not explicitly stated, he is in his late 20s or 30s. He performs some surgeries at home where he has his own operating room, but he more typically travels the world to meet his patients. (He is able to speak multiple languages, including Spanish and English.) He is often seen driving his black car, matching his usual costume, although he also takes public transportation where he is called upon in the event of an on-board emergency.
Black Jack cures patients indiscriminately, from common folk, to presidents, to yakuza leaders, and even to supernatural beings, from the very poor to the very rich. However, he charges all of his patients shockingly large sums (from 10 million to billions of yen), sometimes even causing them to jump out of their clothes in surprise (in the manga). A colleague even names a disease after him, because of the outrageous fee he charges for the surgery.Volume 14, Chapter 13: "Black Jack Disease" Even for those who beg for mercy, Black Jack (at least initially) refuses to lower his price. This has given him a reputation for callousness and greed, an image which he cultivates with care.
Contrary to external appearances however, Black Jack possesses a complex personal code. He will cure a patient for free if they move him with the story of their suffering; however, he always establishes a patient's willingness to pay beforehand. If Black Jack cannot discover a redeeming story behind a patient, his fee stands. He also makes exceptions in exigent circumstances, and may change his mind if proven incorrect in his assumptions. He also always ensures that his patients recover completely.
Black Jack gives much of the money he earns to charity, paying for other doctors' surgeries as well as his own, and buying up land to protect nature from commercial development. When his patient is wealthy, he usually increases his fee substantially, and often will attach non-quantifiable conditions to his services, such as an agreement to leave erstwhile victims alone, or to protect the environment. Although he gives back most of his earnings to the community, Black Jack occasionally faces robbers seeking the money they believe he hoards.
Surgical skills Black Jack is a highly skilled doctor, able to handle scalpels and other medical tools quickly and precisely. He frequently reattaches and transplants limbs, performs near-perfect cosmetic surgery, and takes on cases that other surgeons have abandoned, even when the other surgeons are widely recognized experts in their field.
Black Jack is also known to use his tools for self-defense, showing himself to be capable of clogging the barrel of a gun with a scalpel from some distance. He is also shown to be a ruthless combatant, once even strangling an attacker with surgical tubing.
Aside from his speed, precision and ingenuity, Black Jack also has extraordinary fortitude and stamina. In several chapters and episodes, he performs surgeries on himself, Volume 3 Chapter 3: "Dingoes" Volume 10 Chapter 8: "Fresh and Blood" Volume 14 Chapter 2: "The Third Call" and on occasion performs solo operations for 24 consecutive hours. In one instance, he operates on 40 patients simultaneously.
Lack of medical license While some doctors openly praise Black Jack's for his surgical abilities, others disdain him for not having a license. The manga explains that he lost his medical license when he went against his superiors orders and performed a surgery on his lover who had late stage ovarian cancer. His superiors had said that her illness was too far along to even bother with surgery, but he proceeded anyway and saved her life. For his insubordination and out of pure jealousy toward Black Jack for outshining them and potentially taking away their positions in the future, his superiors took away his medical license. However, since they exiled Black Jack from the medical association he has been able to excel in his medical studies and abilities thus avoiding the restrictions that other doctors must abide in.Volume 6 Chapter 5: "Lion-Face Disease" Later, when Black Jack is featured in a film, the World Medical Association objects to him being the star, and so his surgical skills are edited out of the final cut.Volume 14 Chapter 10: "There were Two Films"
Veterinary surgery There are many instances where Black Jack operates on animals. Before he completed medical school, he practiced making sutures on his own with meat from the local market and even with live fish. He ate them when he was done.Young Black Jack, Episode 3: "Deserters." 3:20-4:57. Following is a partial list of animal surgeries after his finishing medical school:
a killer whale in Volume 2 Chapter 3: "The Ballad of the Killer Whale" (Status: Dead) a deer in Volume 6 Chapter 11: "Nadare" (Status: Dead) a gorilla in Volume 7 Chapter 8: "Goribei of Senjogahara" (Status: Dead) a bear in Volume 7 Chapter 11: "A Hill for One" (Status: Alive) an Iriomote cat in Volume 9 Chapter 7: "A Question of Priorities" (Status: Alive) a dolphin in Volume 10 Chapter 5: "Strangers at Sea" (Status: Dead) a poodle in Volume 11 Chapter 5: "The Whispers of a Dog" (Status: Alive) a horse in Volume 17 Chapter 5: "Avatar" (Brain Status: Alive) (Body Status: Dead) a lion cub in the 2004 anime, Episode 7: "White Lion" (Status: Alive)
Supernatural encounters Although Black Jack claims not to believe in supernatural phenomena in medicine, he has nevertheless brushed with the paranormal many times:
Spirits of a plane crash (?) and a spirit hosting the boy in Volume 12 Chapter 11: "Operation of the Spirit". A mummy in Volume 13 Chapter 5: "The Cursed Operation". A female alien in Volume 13 Chapter 10: "A Challenge of the Third Kind". He turns a girl into a bird in Volume 17 Chapter 2: "A Girl Who Became a Bird".
Early youth and appearance Black Jack has a large patch of white hair on the right half of his head and black on the rest. His body is lined with stitches, including a particularly long one on his face. The left side of this scar on his face is a darker color than the right. He is possibly in his late 20s or 30s throughout the main story, and is often seen wearing a black overcoat.
When Black Jack was eight years old, he and his mother and father lived in an abandoned military base. Although most of the mines were removed properly, some were left behind. While passing through the minefield, he and his mother triggered a forgotten mine, which suddenly detonated with tragic results. His mother lost all of her limbs and her voice, falling into a coma before dying. Black Jack himself was all but dead, blasted into 18 different pieces, but he survived with the surgical skills and devotion of Dr. Jōtarō Honma. During this ordeal, Black Jack's friend Takashi (who is half-African) donated some of his skin for a dermal graft, resulting in him having different skin tones for half of his face, which Black Jack later refused to have color-matched out of respect for his friend.Volume 2 Chapter 7: "Where Art Thou, Friend?" Out of worry for his mother, part of his hair turned prematurely white. Unable to handle the situation, his father ran away with a lover.
From that time onward, Black Jack stopped laughing. Wanting revenge, he sought the five people who ruined his mother's life. Among these were IchigaharaVolume 7 Chapter 5: "Unexploded Bomb" and Takuzo Ubamoto.Volume 12 Chapter 7: "The Second One"
The explosion caused damage to young Black Jack's lungs, giving him pneumothorax. For a long time afterwards, when meeting a patient with similar pulmonary damage, Black Jack would involuntarily feel sympathetic agony, which developed into an acute phobia. Dr. Yamadano helps cure Black Jack of this fear.Volume 11 Chapter 1: "Spasm"
Romantic interests While still in medical school, Black Jack becomes friends with the dedicated medical intern Maiko Okamoto. They meet when the rest of the school is embroiled in a protest and strike over intern wages, and a three-way accident between a bicycle, bus and train catches the school's hospital understaffed. Although about to pass over the young Black Jack for his strange personality (she finds him sitting on a bench with his eyes closed, muttering and practicing surgery in thin air), she approaches him for help anyway out of desperation. Admiring his skill in action, she remarks to herself, "Patches [Black Jack] isn't half bad!"Young Black Jack. Episode 1: "Where's the Doctor?" From there, their relationship deepens as she finds out more about his past and reinforces his emotional development with more compassion and warmth.Young Black Jack. Episode 3: "Deserters"