Black Jack consists of hundreds of short, self-contained stories that are typically about 20 pages long.
[citation needed] Most of the stories involve Black Jack doing some good deed, for which he rarely gets recognition—often curing the poor and destitute for free, or teaching the arrogant a lesson in humility.
Pinoko is Black Jack's loyal assistant/adopted daughter, who was actually a Teratogenous Cystoma (a growth more commonly known as a teratoma).
She was a rare type of parasitic twin, living as part of a patients' body for eighteen years.
When the presence of the twin was evidenced from a grotesque distortion in the host's body, Black Jack was contracted to extract and dispose of the growth.
Using life support to maintain them, Black Jack encased the assembly in an artificially constructed exoskeleton sized and shaped in the form of a female human child (around 7 or 8 years).
Developing into a sentient though permanently child-sized life form, she was adopted by Black Jack as his informal ward.
When she started living with Black Jack, she could not cook, clean, or take care of the house; she could not even walk, let alone move.
Black Jack modeled her face after a cute girl he had seen in a medical journal who suffers from a lung ailment of unknown origin (from Volume 7 Chapter 4: "The Two Pinokos").
Pinoko's main form of comic relief is yelling アッチョンブリケ(Acchonburike)—a phrase that has no real meaning but taken as a rough equivalent to "Oh my goodness!"
(as translated when she appeared in an episode of the Astro Boy 80s series), in English—while pressing her cheeks together with her hands when something surprising happens.
The reason why Black Jack pursued a career in medicine is because of Dr. Honma, his mentor and life-saver, who acted as the young boy's father-figure.
As a child, Black Jack suffered from paralysis in all four limbs and spent many lonely years in a wheelchair until he regained the use of them.
Dr. Honma dies of old age in the episode four of Black Jack 4 Miracles of Life "Just like a Pearl" after a failed surgical attempt to revive him.
Later, she is revealed to have ovarian cancer, and is afraid to tell Black Jack because of her fear that having these parts removed will interfere with their relationship.
Nevertheless, the couple confesses their love before the operation while Megumi is "still a woman" (in reality, a hysterectomy or oophorectomy can affect sexual function, but the side effects associated with these procedures are not as extreme as those depicted in this story).
He is also the one who framed Jotaro Honma by using the medical community to accuse him of human experimentation and forced him to retire.
Afterwards, he used his partners as test subjects by improving their blood vessel by using the phoenix diseases in hopes of living for eternity.
In November 2023, a new 32-page manga co-produced by Tezuka Productions and AI was launched in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine, as a part of the "TEZUKA2023" project and to commemorate the Black Jack's 50th anniversary.
[5] The project's team selected the most suitable story and characters from a variety of options, which were generated by AI based on Tezuka's works.
Finally, a completely new story of the Black Jack manga, created collaboratively by both AI and humans, was published.
In this storyline, Black Jack performs a life-saving operation on a critically injured Princess Sapphire (from Ribbon no Kishi), while Astro and Uran fend off Gor, a malevolent magician bent on usurping the throne.
Characteristically, Roget/Black Jack refuses to operate until he is offered the key to the treasury vault, but later takes only one commemorative coin from the grateful court (which turns out to be worth $200,000,000 when he returns to Astro's time).
Black Jack also made a cameo appearance in the theatrical film Phoenix 2772 as an interstellar prison warden, and is one of the main characters of the TV movie One Million-Year Trip: Bandar Book, in which he plays the role of a space pirate, somehow similar in concept to Leiji Matsumoto's Captain Harlock.
[7] In 1992, Tezuka's protégé Osamu Dezaki directed a theatrical film and a ten OVA series which were released between 1993 and 2000.
From 11 October 2004, through to 6 March 2006, an original television series was aired called Black Jack, featuring 61 episodes.
The film describes Black Jack's attempts to prevent a group known as the Ghost of Icarus from starting a widespread, biological war which could wipe out humanity, while working alongside the infamous Dr. Kiriko.
A 7-minute short called Dr. Pinoko no Mori no Bōken was shown before Black Jack: The Two Doctors of Darkness.
Animoca Brands added Black Jack as well as Pinoko and Dr. Kiriko as playable characters to its game Crazy Defense Heroes in 2020.
It highlighted the leading ladies of Tezuka's comics, such as Sapphire of Princess Knight and Pinoko of Black Jack.