Black Jack/Characters
Characters from Black Jack:
The Main Duo
Kuro'o Hazama (alias Dr. Black Jack)
Akio Ohtsuka (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English)
A brilliant unlicensed surgeon, who charges huge fees and cultivates a (partly false) Dr. Jerk persona. When he was a child, he and his mother were severely injured by a landmine. While his mother later died, Black Jack's life was saved by Dr. Honma, who inspired Black Jack to become a doctor.
- Amazing Technicolor M.D.: The blue-tinted side of his face.
- Anti-Hero: Type III
- Awesomeness By Analysis
- Back-Alley Doctor
- Badass Bookworm
- Badass Longcoat: Wears a black trenchcoat draped over his shoulders, letting the sleeves dangle.
- Batman Gambit: Often pulls these to teach Aesops or favor his patients.
- Belated Backstory: It's not until much later in the manga (and several episodes in the anime) that we learn Black Jack's birth name, why he became a physician, why he's estranged from the medical establishment, or how he got those scars.
- Betty and Veronica: In the TV anime, he's the Veronica to Sharaku's Betty.
- Bunny Ears Lawyer
- Celibate Hero
- Chick Magnet
- Covered with Scars
- Crimefighting with Cash
- Dark Is Not Evil
- Deadpan Snarker
- Dr. Jerk
- Good Scars, Evil Scars
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: A pipe.
- Jerkass Facade: Actively strives to look like a bad guy, especially when it's for the patient's own good.
- Kirk Thornton
- Knight in Sour Armor
- Locked Into Strangeness / Skunk Stripe
- Man of Wealth and Taste
- Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate
- Not Good with People: Type II.
- Not So Stoic: The mere sight of Dr. Kiriko will lead Black Jack to drop whatever he's doing just to bitch at him. Kiriko seems to find this amusing.
- Oedipus Complex: Dr. Black Jack has some daddy issues. Serious daddy issues.
- Papa Wolf: Extremely protective of Pinoko, as well as any child patients.
- Peek-a-Bangs
- Scars Are Forever: Several of the scars (like the iconic facial one) are justified, in that he had an emotional attachment to the skin donor and doesn't mess with them despite obviously being skilled enough to do so.
- Shonen Hair
- Skunk Stripe
- Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes: If you accept Black Jack as an Anti-Hero, he slides back and forth the whole scale.
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: His real name is Kuro'o Hazama. As he explainsd himself once, "Kuro" means "black" while the second "o" can be short for "otoko", meaning "man". Thus "Black Jack" is a loose English translation of his actual name.
- Super Doc: Oh yeah.
- Tragic Keepsake: The half of his face with darker skin is his last memento of a close friend who was killed during an enviromental protest.
- The TV anime has a necklace that Black Jack's mother was wearing during the landmine incident. In the sequel series Black Jack 21, this becomes an Orphan's Plot Trinket when it's revealed that Black Jack's father hid a microchip in it detailing the purpose and methods of the Phoenix Project.
- Two-Faced
Pinoko Hazama
Yuko Mizutani, Utada Hikaru (Japanese); Julie Kliewer, Kim Mai Guest (English)
Black Jack's loyal assistant/surrogate daughter. She spent 18 years as a parasitic twin, using psychokinetic powers (don't ask) to fend off the doctors trying to remove her. After convincing her that she wouldn't be pitched out with the Medical Waste, Black Jack built a synthetic body to house her organs. The first thing she did once in her new body was violently call her twin sister out for trying to have her killed. This freaked out the sister, who got the hell out and left Pinoko with Black Jack.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Just how bratty depends on the writer.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Thinks of herself as Black Jack's wife, and pretty much resents any woman who comes within 10 feet of him.
- Hair Decorations
- Fiery Redhead
- Fun Personified: In the Darker and Edgier 90's anime.
- I Just Want to Look My Age: Hates the fact that she has a little girl's body.
- Kid Appeal Character: Reason for her expanded role in the TV anime.
- Older Than They Look / Younger Than They Look: Confused? She's 18-22 (depending on the timeline), her prosthetic body looks about 7, and she's only had that body for a <4 years.
- Plucky Girl
- Puni Plush: Bordering on chibi in the TV anime.
- Replacement Goldfish: Black Jack once gave her up for adoption by a loving couple...turns out they got her to replace their dead dog. Ouch.
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel
Recurring Characters
Dr. Jotaro Honma
Surgeon who saved Black Jack's life when the latter was a kid, and Black Jack's role model.
- My Greatest Failure: Confesses to Black Jack on his death bed that when first operating on him, he accidentally left a scalpel in his body, but adamantly refused to believe he could be so careless and therefore ignored it. When he discovered the calcium-sheathed tool in a follow-up operation, he was so disgusted with himself for putting a patient's life in jeopardy for the sake of pride that he immediately retired from practice.
- The Obi-Wan: To Black Jack. Also the man that saved Black Jack's life and pretty much raised him.
- Posthumous Character
Dr. Kiriko
Black Jack's rival, a euthanasia specialist and former military doctor. Since Black Jack is against euthanizing patients, whenever the two docs cross paths the result is never pretty.
- Deadpan Snarker: Manages to be even snarkier than Black Jack.
- Even Evil Has Standards: While Dr. Kiriko has no issues with ending a patient's life, seeing the U.S. government condemn men to death when they have a chance of recovery in "Terror Virus" sends him into a Tranquil Fury.
- Evil Counterpart: To Black Jack...sort of.
- Eyepatch of Power
- Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate
- Shadow Archetype: Also to Black Jack. A doctor who served in wartime, he believes in helping patients die painlessly when there is no chance for recovery. He's not evil, as such, but where Black Jack will do anything possible to make a patient live, Dr. Kiriko will choose euthanasia rather than prolong the patient's suffering. Naturally, the physicians clash at times but must cooperate at others. To his credit, if he discovers that the patient has a chance of recovery, guess who he turns to?
- Shell-Shocked Veteran
- White-Haired Pretty Boy: Well, the pretty part is debatable, but he is white-haired and morally ambiguous.