Black Jack Volume 16

Okay, so anyone who has not yet read Black Jack should TAKE A LOOK. Yes, and accentuate it, too. Volume Sixteen contains one of the best Black Jack chapters, A Passed Moment, which was adapted into an OVA by Osamu Dezaki, pioneer of the Dramatic Anime Freezframe. Aside from that, it also contains a chapter with our hero IN THE BATH, not only once, but TWICE.....am I right, fangirls and fanboys...? So, quell your desire to witness nude grown men, and buy a copy of Black Jack vol. 16 today!

good job.

Even here in th penultimate volume, Tezuka's stories about a morally imbalanced surgeon still come with quality (and this time, quantity). "Anaphylaxis" is a story about Lt. Dan's family being torn over th loss of their son's life, but not on th battlefield where they wanted it. An especially good ending action sequence leaves BJ in a smoky swamp dropping great one-liners. "Miyuki and Ben," which follows it, is another stand-out in this volume, showcasing a thug with a heart of gold who gives as much as he wanted, while giving more than he ever thought he could for someone not himself. "Gleamy Eyes" is especially Umezu-ish in its character presentation and execution, using horror to scare sympathy from a particularly cruel bully. "Bath of the Floating World" has a bath-house regular trying to woo Pinoko (?!) through the bath's dividing wall, lulled into puppy love through hearing only her voice. The story "Bad Stunt" tries to rectify all the racist imagery Tezuka had (sorta accidentally) used thru th years, giving us a story of a poor black boy (properly drawn and characterized this time) who is on the receiving end of a trick used to get BJ to shoot a surgery scene for a movie. And finally, "A Passed Moment" shines the brightest. A 100 page story this time, and one that tells of memory erasure, Italian civil war, spiritual enhan(d)cement, eviscerated baby corpses and BJ's quest to find the one surgeon that could out-do even him! I think this is the story that they made into an anime. It covers all the feelings Tezuka has spread over other works, some ten times longer than this. If they had stopped here it would've felt like a proper finale as this is one of the best BJ stories Tezuka wrote. Amen.