Tezuka In English Discussion Forums

Hello,

I started to read Black Jack Volume One from Vertical. I also watched the first episode from the 2004 TV anime series in which we see in the opening, a bomb incident in which "Black Jack" as a kid got seriously wounded with his mother. It seems like all started from there. Is this incident mentioned in the manga and where/when?

Second question: is there any time-line in the Black Jack series or is it possible to read the episodes in any order?

Thank you very much

As far as I know, they didn't really explain in the manga, why Black Jack's body is full of scars. I think they invented the bomb story for the anime series.

A Tezuka specialist told me just today that Tezuka rearranged the different stories in the manga, so there is no real chronology.
I guess you can read the mangas in any order you desire, should you be missing some volumes. ^^

Thank you very much for taking your time to answer.

Tezuka also rearranged the order of the Astro Boy series when releasing them together, but I'd still rather read them in publication order. New characters popping out of nowhere that are then introduced in later stories isn't too fun. And I like seeing the art style evolve gradually throughout the years.

The Black Jack basics on this site site, much like the one on Astro Boy, has the real order of the stories and what volume they can be found in.

Actually the bomb incident was mentioned in the manga. It was mentioned in volume 7. The chapter is titled "Unexploded Bomb" in Vertical's release. It may also be called "Dud Bomb" in other releases.

More info on his past can be found here:

(Vertcal releases)

Vol. 1 Sometimes Like Pearls
Vol. 1 The Legs of an Ant
Vol. 10 The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

I have been keeping track of the change in the sequence & titles of the BJ stories, & it does seem that in this particular release, which I assume is a translation of a Japanese release (version) & there is no relation to the order of stories from one (that is the T@W 'Subtitle' list) & the other.

It seems that there were numerous different versions:

The 1st having 25 volumes, the latter, 16.

I know! There are so many. It keeps me busy collecting them all. I've composed lists of all the chapters for each set and am just waiting for my last volume of ACTW to arrive so I can complete that one. These are the ones I have documented so far:

Akita Shonen Champion (25 volumes)
Kodansha 1st edition (22 volumes)
Kodansha (DX) 2nd edition (22 volumes)
Akita Deluxe Hardcover (17 volumes + extra color volume)
Akita Bunko Soft Cover (17 volumes)
Akita ATC (26 volumes)
Akita ATCW (16 volumes)
Akita Shinsouban (17 volumes)
GP Museum Soft E-Comics (4 volumes, everything that's in Akita Shinsouban and in the same order)
Mini Kodansha (18 volumes)

There's a brand new ACTW set that just started up this last month. They are twice as big as the others, closer to the size of the Midnight ones.

I chose to use the volumes numbers from Vertical so they'd be easier to look up. I also updates the wikipedia page a while back so it would be easy to keep up with the chapters (but there's also a bigger and more extensive page for that on Tezuka in English):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bl ... k_chapters