Tezuka in English

The following list summarizes (briefly) all Black Jack issues. It used to be hosted on the English Language version of the Japanese language Tezuka web page, and was written by their authors. It is hosted here temporarily until their new English language web site is put up. For information on which issue appears in which volume, see our Black Jack issue-by-issue concordance which shows the issue order of all collections. The new Vertical English collection matches the 'fat little Akita bunkoban' which is also the same as the French Asuka edition.

1) "I need a doctor!," appeared November 19, 1973

The only son of world-class businessman Nikura, the delinquent Akudo, is seriously wounded in a traffic accident. Black Jack (BJ) tells him that he needs a body from which to take organs for transplant. Nikura orders the death of a young man with no relation to him so that his body can be used. Nikura boasts that anything is possible with enough money. Then, BJ ...

See also Vertical's Official Black Jack Page.

Beginning in late September 2008, Vertical inc. is finally releasing a full edition of Black Jack in English. This 17 volume set will duplicate the Akita Bunkoban edition (same as the French Asuka edition) which is the deluxe collection Tezuka himself arranged and edited.

See also the Publisher's Weekly article announcing the release

The full Vertical release is softcover, but three special hardcover alternate versions of vols. 1-3 are being released as exclusives. These volumes have different covers, and each contain one special issue not included in the standard Asuka release. These three special issues are ones that Tezuka himself removed from the collection, but Tezuka Productions has kindly let Vertical have them.

To access the table, click here.

The table linked above lists all issues of the Black Jack manga, in their original publication order, with publication dates. Since the collected versions do not preserve this issue order, the table also gives the position of each issue in each edition. The editions covered are the Viz English, the Shounen Champion collection, printed in Italian and Japanese, the Asuka/Akita new collection, printed in French and Japanese, the short Gilet French/Spanish edition which corresponds to the first six volumes of the Asuka, and gives notes about the Kodansha edition, which is only in print in Japanese.

ANIMATION: This table also indicates the issues used for TV series, OAVs, online Flash animation, "Four Miracles of Life" specials, TWO DARK DOCTORS movie and 3 live action episodes. The Flash animation episodes, new TV series and "Four Miracles of Life" specials are each based on one manga issue, with the exception of the extra-long TV episode 1 which covers three. The older OAV episodes generally combine two or more manga issues with original material. OAV episodes 2 and 6 are completely original, as is the first movie. The second and third live action episodes adapt specific issues, but the first live action episode is not titled after any issue, though it seems to be inspired by #43 "Wrong Diagnosis" and #151 "Hospital." Only a few episodes of the Black Jack 21 TV series are listed, because most have not yet aired.

In addition to the five 'sealed' and 'semi-sealed' issues, there are also twenty issues excluded in some Japanese editions, but not all. Unlike the sealed issues, these have been included in at least one Japanese edition or more, and many of them have been printed in French and/or Italian. Some of these issues were excluded for controversial, political reasons, but Tezuka himself was sensitive to even the slightest complaints regarding certain conditions/diseases from the patients or their family, and excluded many issues (or changed some of the dialogues) that had offended fans. Also, because of Tezuka’s fame, the Black Jack issues became increasingly vulnerable to criticism from various sources, the harshest being the medical community. He later confessed that the continuing complaints and criticism forced him to avoid specific names of medical conditions and had to make Black Jack more of a simple E.R surgeon, which was one of the reasons he chose to end the regular issues Black Jack at #229. Tezuka also chose to exclude issues that he personally didn’t like, often because he felt he had rushed on it and the story seemed incomplete. Most of these issues have been restored to the corpus in the western editions, and in the most recent Japanese edition, but they remain harder to find, and several do not have summaries on Tezuka World.

Comprehensive issue-by-issue index of Black Jack editions.

This 25 volume set was printed just after the manga’s initial serialization as the "Shonen Champion Shinshouban", and was the first collected version of Black Jack to see print in Japanese. It is the most complete set to date, since later editions excluded more issues as criticism of the series increased. It omits only eight stories out of the full 242 – a full list of the excluded issues is included at the bottom of this page. This set is out of print in Japan.

The Hazard publishing company reprinted this set almost exactly in Italian from 2002 to 2006. This is a fine edition, but is already going out of print in Italy. The complete contents of each Italian volume are given below. No confirmed differences have yet been found, may be minor differences between the Japanese and Italian versions - we hope to add notes soon. For information about the seven single issues of Black Jack published in a separate Italian volume in "Manga Cult" magazine in 1996, scroll to the bottom of the page.

Three single issues of the Black Jack manga are "sealed" and two "semi-sealed" – these are issues which were not collected with the rest, because their contents were considered too sensitive, or because complaints were filed by people suffering from the illnesses depicted in them.

The sealed issues, #28 "Finger", #41 "Vegetable," and #58 "Seat of Pleasure," have not been reprinted since the original serialization, not even in Japan, and are excluded from all collected editions; they cannot be obtained in any form except the original monthly Weekly Shonen Champion anthologies in which they first appeared. They are unlikely to appear in any upcoming western release.

The two semi-sealed issues have been reprinted only in very rare editions and are excluded from all collections. One, #209, "Falling Object," is included in this rare special issue. The other, #171, "The Wall," is printed as a special insert inside the Black Jack anthology special shown below, the rest of which contains fun Black Jack stories by recent manga artists inspired by Tezuka, but no original Black Jack; be careful when you shop for this volume, the paper quality is poor, the volume fragile, and it is frequently sold with the insert removed, since many more people want the insert than want the rest of the volume:

Comprehensive issue-by-issue index of all Black Jack editions.

The French/Spanish Glenat edition matches the Asuka edition perfectly through the end of Asyuka volume 6 (Glenat vol. 12) at which point the Glenat edition stops, but Asuka continues. The first seven single issues match the English Viz edition perfectly, but after this they diverge completely. The numbering of the Asuka edition bears no relation to the issue order in the Italian edition, nor to the original issue order.

The Asuka edition is numbered continuously, but contains frequent numbering errors, in which two consecutive issues are given the same number, for example there are two issues numbered 84. We will refer to them as 84a and 84b. Also, Asuka vol 10 and vol. 11 are both numbered 120-123. In addition, the later Asuka volumes list the original issue numbers in an index in the back, but their numbering system differs from Tezuka World’s, because they assign the number 114 to the Special issue "U-18 Knew," printed 3/10/1976, while Tezuka World does not give a number to that special issue, and assigns 114 to the following issue, "The Girl Cartoonist," 3/15/1976. This means all issues past #114 are numbered one higher in Asuka's list than Tezuka World's, so issue #118 on Tezuka World is #119 for Asuka. This page always follows the numbers from Tezuka World.

Available in French and Spanish. This is a partial release, now out of print.

Comprehensive issue-by-issue index of Black Jack editions.

Each Glenat volume corresponds to half of an Asuka (French/Japanese) edition, so Asuka vol. 1 contains Glenat volmes 1 and 2. The Glenat edition includes only about 85 issues total, out of 243 issues in the Black Jack corpus. The first seven single issues of Glenat match the English Viz edition, after which they diverge completely. The numbering of this edition bears no relation to the Italian Hazard edition, nor to the original issue order.

Vol. 1:
1 – Where’s the Doctor = issue #1, 11/19/1973
2 – The first storm of spring = issue #167, 4/11/1977
3 – The tetyrogenous cystoma = issue #12, 2/18/1974
4 – The Face Affliction = issue #52, 12/9/1974
5 – Sometimes like pearls = issue #29, 7/1/1974

Comprehensive issue-by-issue index of all Black Jack editions.

Two volumes of the Black Jack manga in English translation were printed by Viz, collecting the single issues they ran in Manga Vizion and in single-issue. No Viz anthologies or printed single issues of Black Jack are not contained in these two volumes.

These volumes are out of print, so are rarely in stock in book and manga shops, but they can still be ordered at Viz's online store.

Viz has revealed no plans to print further Black Jack in the near future, but this could change. Licensing for Tezuka manga is very difficult becuase nearly every individual issue is owned by a different Japanese copyright, which is why the issues appear out of order here (and in the Italian and French/Spanish), and also why it has been so difficult for companies to bring out more. We are fortunate that the two volumes they did bring out contain theree of the most important issues for Black Jack's characterisation and backstory (Enlish vol. 1 numbers 3, 4 and 6)

Black Jack does not, like most Tezuka characters, appear in a variety of incarnations in different works. Rather, he appears almost exclusively in his own series, and when he appears in others he generally does so as his usual Black Jack self making a cameo, rather than as a different character. In this way, he makes brief appearances in several Tezuka manga manga, generally appearing for only one or two panels, often to comic effect. Eight such cameos are reproduced, though not translated, in the artbook, All of Black Jack.

Here is a brief list of Black Jack's confirmed appearances in other manga (and other media), followed by details about those for which details are available. This list is not yet complete.

Astro Boy /Astro Boy II (1975, as the Minister of Science)
Boy Detective Zumbera (1975)
Horror Tales of Yotsuya (1976)
The Phoenix: Chapter of Nostalgia (1976-1978) - in BJ artbook
Don Dracula (1976) - in BJ artbook