Black Jack Kuroi Ishi, by Kenji Yamamoto


Black Jack Kuroi Ishi (Black Jack Dark Surgeon) was published in 2005 and 2006. It is a direct remake of the original Black Jack manga, with original Tezuka stories rewritten and redrawn in a more modern manga style by Kenji Yamamoto. It was published in Shounen Champion, the same magazine which hosted Black Jack Alive and Black Jack Neo. It is three volumes (20 issues) in length, and ended serialization Feb. 9th 2006.

Kenji Yamamoto has also worked on animation for the Akira movie and Mojako TV series.

The cast and plot of Black Jack Kuroi Ishi are completely identical to the original and the endings of the stories are not changed, though Kenji Yamamoto has added an extra secondary character, a young kung-fu-savy nurse who works for Dr. Kiriko, giving him a sidekick to match Pinoko. Kenji Yamamoto tends to select issues which have particularly interesting secondary characters, or are otherwise particularly popular or fun to draw. Notably, unlike the recent Astro Boy manga remake which copies the changes made in the new TV adaptation, these stories show no influence from the new Black Jack TV series, and in the frequent cases where the TV series changed the ending of a story to make it happier (as in Nadare the Deer) this remake retains Tezuka's original darker endings.

The art style, like that in the recent Astro Boy manga remake, is a bit softer and more playful and cute than Tezuka's, with more shading, but still much closer to Tezuka's than to standard manga art, and certainly more Tezuka like than Black Jack Neo or any of the issues of Black Jack Alive or Black Jack M. Thus, it would be fair to call this the most faithful of the recent adaptations.

The manga has not been licensed for release in English. A French release is underway but we cannot yet confirm its dates of publication.

Contents of volume 1:

  • 1 - Nadare the Deer (original issue #11)
  • 2 - Black Mirror Image (original issue #56)
  • 3 - Captain Devil (original issue #95)
  • 4 - Shozo and his Cats (original issue #62)
  • 5 - Dingo (original issue #123)
  • 6 - Water Almost Transparent (original issue #146)

Contents of volume 2:

  • 7 - Operating on a Man from Space (original issue #211)
  • 8 - A Killer Visits (original issue #129)
  • 9 - Visited Memories (original issue #165) - important Pinoko issue excluded from Kodansha
  • 10 - Man Bird (original issue #5)
  • 11 - The Blind Doctor of Acupuncture (original issue #126)
  • 12 - Save the Baby! (original issue #21)
  • 13 - Fame, aka. Reputation in Jeopardy (original issue #53)

Contents of volume 3:

  • 14 - The Cursed Operation (original issue #65)
  • 15 - The Gray Mansion (original issue #17)
  • 16 - One Hour Before Death (original issue #177)
  • 17 - Dud Bomb (original issue #115)
  • 18 - The Bear (original issue #108)
  • 19 - The Second Person (original issue #195)
  • 20 - Revenge (original issue #88)