The penultimate Black Jack collection still sports some of the same hit-or-miss flavor of all the volumes since #11 or so, but the standouts this time around are as good as anything ever created for the series. Most striking is...
[There's more! See the original entry here]

The worst sort of crime, it could be argued, is that which is committed thoughtlessly. It’s intent that makes a true criminal, which is why we have both manslaughter and murder. Such is the theory anyway, but I imagine those...
[There's more! See the original entry here]

The closet-cleaning for the Black Jack series continues, since everything after volume 11 has been bonus material. But this being Black Jack and this also being Osamu Tezuka, it’s a fascinating closet...
[There's more! See the original entry here]

Vertical’s continued English translation of Black Jack (we’re now at volume 13) is proof of two things. One: even when Osamu Tezuka was doing comparatively minor work, he was still beating the pants off his manga-creating contemporaries. Two: Even when featured in said comparatively minor work, renegade surgeon Black Jack was and still is one of ( Read more... )

I once read that there were two François Truffauts-one being a filmmaker of life, light and laughter (Day for Night, Love on the Run, etc.) and the other a director fascinated with death and stark emotional horror (The Bride Wore...
[There's more! See the original entry here]

Bits and pieces from this week's AICN Anime, including a couple of shout-outs to yours truly (thank you, Mr. Green).

Somerset, New Jersey's AnimeNext will host Kenji Kamiyama, director of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex and the to be released by FUNimation Eden of the East ... Black Lagoon creator Rei Hiroe (also known as doujinshi artist ( Read more... )

There are two ways to talk about Astro-Boy, both of them a little incomplete, so I must speak of both. Way #1 is as an Osamu Tezuka fan, seeing his work adapted for the big screen for a primarily English-speaking...
[There's more! See the original entry here]

The timing of this book could not be more, well, timely. I spent most of last week, from the Sunday of the 7th through the following Sunday, nursemaiding my missus and her broken ankle. Despite that, she was determined to...
[There's more! See the original entry here]

So why, you might ask, am I now reviewing volume 8 of Black Jack when I was only just reviewing volume 9? Happenstance, mostly. Somehow I ended up missing volume 7 in a mail mix-up, although when that comes in...
[There's more! See the original entry here]

I’ll put this part behind me right away. As Black Jacks go, volume 9 is only fair. That makes it an okay part of a great whole-but that doesn’t dilute the quality of the whole...
[There's more! See the original entry here]