Kiriko

Also known as キリコ (Kiriko)

Status: Secondary Star (★★)

Dr. Kiriko is Black Jack’s nemesis, antagonist, rival and dark reflection. Black Jack and Kiriko worked together as army doctors during the second world war, and amidst the horrors they experienced there, arrived at opposite conclusion about death, Black Jack believing that one must always fight to live on no matter how grave the situation, while Kiriko believes that in certain circumstances death is a better option than life in suffering. Kiriko now works as an underground doctor performing euthanasia, mercy killings, charging sums comparable to Black Jack’s huge fees for the service of helping patience to a calm and painless death. The two come into occasional conflict over patients, and since they are both so intelligent and so similar yet disagree so fundamentally about basic ethical questions, they both tend to become uncharacteristically rude, competitive and callous when dealing with one another.

Hello, My Name (in English) is…

Coming Soon!

Distinguishing Features

Dr. Kiriko’s character design is interesting in his having shadowed cheeks rendered with gray tone – it is very rare for any of Tezuka’s standard character designs to contain gray.  Kiriko’s character design is unusual for Tezuka’s characters in that he has gray shading on his cheeks – Tezuka rarely uses gray tone in his character designs. The images we see of young Kiriko bear a striking resemblance to Jiro Tenge from Ayako, which was written from 1972-1973, shortly before Dr. Kiriko’s first appearance in Black Jack in October 1974.

Manga Appearances

If you spot an appearance not already listed, please let us know in the comments section below!