Yeah at my local anime convention in Montreal, there was a Black Jack cosplayer, I took a photo and I bumped into a Black Jack fan and inquired if he had met the cosplayer himself. The cosplayer informed him that only 3 people recognized him and knew who Black Jack is!! ( I work for the con and we estimated that we had 5000 - 9000 people roughly )
ANYWAYS makes me sad
But I convert people into reading it. I remember I started buying the French volumes and my boyfriend would inquire of what I was reading, he saw the drawings and scoffed at the childish nature of it. SO one day I was busy with homework and I told him to read some Black Jack because have to work.
After a few days he begged me to have more XD Then he started to read any black Jacks I purchased, then he went by himself and got MW , Dororo, Ode to Kirihito etc.
Another instance was a co worker and he was studying japanese and he made fun of Tezuka, I told him he should give it a chance because I did too. So I lent him Black Jack 1, the next day he rushed to my desk and wanted to read more! I have another co worker and she read a bit of Black Jack and now we have fun drawing fanart of Black Jack x Pinoko XD
Point being is, I think people judge the book by its cover. They see the style and they often go : Ew omg look at that, so childish!! I bet the stories are lame! " but they never actually READ it.
Now all the anime and mangas are all about big explosions, robots, super crazy action scenes and boobs,
not all but
most. The other thing is that people do not read Slice of life type of stuff or moral stuff , so that kinda rules out Black Jack a bit.
It's crazy how a lot of anime series are loosely based off or inspired by Tezuka's series. Like Dororo, I mean Blade of the Immortal has the same main characters ( Main Guy is strong, can't really die or has powers, has to do something to be able to finally become "one" again, has a sidekick who wants revenge, the same goes for Samurai Deeper Kyo. The other series I was surprised to find myself getting a vibe was Honey & Clover. I actually saw Chika Umino publishing BLACK JACK x Slam Dunk doujinshis.
Honey & Clover has a main girl, Hagu Chan, who is young and very small, has an amazing talent and is mature and her guardian is an art teacher who, in his duties, to support and take care of Hagu Chan but also in the end falls in love with her. Also, it has the same vibe with the "clover" giving a clover to the one you love, to give him luck and success in his life. Pinoko giving Black Jack a clover in her letter, and Hagu Chan giving a clover to her guardian Shūji Hanamoto and one in the end of the series, Takemoto Kun.
I'm probably just crazy, but I am sure more and more people will slowly start reading it again. I tend to think it is not as much popular because the mangas aren't uploaded anywhere online for fear of copyright infringement. I mean, there are SO many series hosted online but Black Jack isn't found anywhere and a lot of Manga fans are, kinda poor or don't want to buy manga and having them lying there ona bookshelf if they just read it once. So once the series is more available online via, probably the Manga project crunchyroll is doing, tezuka might be a bit better known, till then, fans gotta spread Tezuka Love around!
Sorry blocks of text haha!
