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| Overall | Art | Animation | Character Design | Music | Series Story | Episode Story | Reviewer | |
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| Watch | 8 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
 Ggultra2764
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[series:3115#1552] |
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Young Black Jack makes an attempt to cover the origins of Kuro Hazama, a medical student who eventually becomes the famous unlicensed surgeon Black Jack. The results of this exploration are a bit mixed. On the one hand, the series is historically accurate to the time period for the most part as Kuroo does find himself venturing into the darker elements of the 1960s that include student protests, the Vietnam war, and American life in transition following the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It also depicts some shady elements to the medical profession that would convincingly have Hazama become mistrustful of it such as its use for government experiments and corruption within facilities. Still, the major issue that comes into play with trying to portray this backstory for Black Jack comes down to the execution. It attempts to make use of angst and melodrama to push Hazama's transformation into his later persona as Black Jack, but this lacks the dramatic impact it would have had to make a connection with Hazama's plight and some of the events that play out with the developments can come off feeling a bit over-the-top. While a decent effort to try fleshing out Black Jack's past and what led him to be an unlicensed surgeon, Young Black Jack's direction left much to be desired in what it tries to deliver in exploring Osamu Tezuka's famous surgeon character.
Last updated Friday, March 16 2018. Created Friday, March 16 2018. | ||||||||
| Unevaluated |
 Stretch
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[series:3115#628] | ||||||
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(Six episodes watched): I guess the assumption was that anybody watching Young Black Jack would already be familiar with the well known original Black Jack anime, and therefore explanations of things like why Kuroo is riddled with scars would be unnecessary. For example, the revelation in the synopsis above was news to me, because episode one does not include it. I, for one, knew little about the original series, and as a newcomer couldn't help wondering why this show wasn't explaining it's premise more thoroughly. Why does Kuroo apparently need large sums of money, for one thing? About the only thing I could be certain of was that this show wasn't matching the preconceptions I had about the original. I thought that seeing as Black Jack is a fairly famous anime there would have to be something that was positively shocking, even supernatural, about the premise of a surgeon who is a genius yet goes unrecognized; but I was somewhat underwhelmed by the lack of such an element in episode one. Unusual touches included the show being set back in 1968 when widespread rioting was underway in Japan. Character designs range from the highly realistic to the silly sort that might have been found in old Tezuka animations. Episode two was fairly entertaining, as a bizarre but not impossible situation is pitched to us: one of a group of people who owe a lot of money to a loan shark must donate his heart for an illicit transplant to a rich but evil man (and this is 1967, the year the first heart transplant was conducted). It kind of feels as if this story was indeed written back then, when a heart transplant seemed incredible, and has been dusted off for this 21st century series. Somehow the level of melodrama in YBJ reminds me of what was typical (I think) of anime forty or fifty years ago; it also reminds me of Golgo 13. The problem with episode two was the thoroughly preposterous trick that Hazama uses to solve the problem--he basically does something which isn't even possible today (If I understood it correctly). The disconnect when this impossible solution is revealed to us is such that I thought I had missed a scene somehow. In episode three Kuroo becomes entangled with a plot to help deserters from the Vietnam-era US Marine Corps. The situation is not as simple as it seems, however. It sometimes amuses me to see how people outside the US think the US government is some insidious group which is watching everyone and has a finger in every situation all over the world, even in the 'sixties. In episode four Hazama travels to Vietnam itself, and gets captured by the Viet Cong. At this point all of the groups who make fansubs which can be converted into DVD format apparently gave up on this show for awhile, and it isn't good enough to be worth watching in an uncomfortable situation at my computer. The plot of this fourth episode seemed simplistic to someone like me who knows a good deal about the history of that war. There didn't seem to be any lesson, other than that this was a particularly nasty and brutal war, which I already knew. In general, Kuroo pulls off remarkable--sometimes so remarkable as to verge on absurd--feats of surgery in trying situations, but other than that there isn't much of a plot. I did sort of like the historical setting; these demand that some effort be made to recreate an at least slightly different setting than the present-day one, which is basically a free handout. I appreciate that. Episode five is part two of Jack's adventure in war-torn Vietnam. It was interesting that in the narrator's brief explanation of how the war came about, the US wasn't mentioned. It is seen as basically a civil war between the North and South, which is correct but not what an American would expect to hear. This arc didn't particularly excite me; Jack and some friends make a strangely easy escape from the Viet Cong, and he meets a rival as the best surgeon in the world, but there seemed to be little message to the story and little excitement either. It was dull, basically. Some episodes of this series are better than others, but I think that the dull ones are too much of a drag to make waiting for the good ones worthwhile. At this point I quit YBJ. Last updated Tuesday, March 22 2016. Created Tuesday, October 20 2015. | ||||||||
