ANI-MOVIES, *Black Jack: The Movie

Osamu Tezuka, the Walt Disney of Anime, has created numerous titles released in English such as Astro Boy and Kimba The White Lion, one of his most enduring manga titles, Black Jack hadn't seen much exposure in the Western Hemisphere. The story of a scarred rogue doctor has been transferred to several TV shows, OVAs, ONAs, and a least one prior live-action film, Black Jack: The Movie was the first of three feature length animated motion pictures to highlight the bizarre world that the enigmatic surgeon saves life in.

During the 1996 Olympics in "Atlantis", several American athletes begin breaking records, which leads everyone to believe this is a new breed of superhuman with increased physical and mental capacities. The unlicensed medical genius known as Black Jack is called into investigate a former patient suffering from some of these superhumans who are now becoming burned out and dying. Black Jack's mission leads him to working for the evil conglomorate Brane Industries, lead by the CEO's mad genius daughter who actually created the extraordinary medical condition which is now a full blown disease. The story strays a little saying it all leads to a special fungus in the Afrcan desert, from which a cure is eventually found, but at the cost of mankind needing to clean up its act as far as the enviroment is concerned.

This was a phenomenally visual production, with stunning animation, but the main fault takes the premise for what should have been a single episode into a full length feature. The characters can appear to be pointlessly mysterious, and gives the viewer frustrated as to what their prime motivations are. The first OVA series and original TV anime of Black Jack are available for American otaku to view, and are a better representation of Tezuka's crossover characters.