Black Jack

Having decided to watch this anime out of pure boredom, I didn't know what to expect. God, what a beautiful discovery. Black Jack turned out to be a fantastic surprise, a dark and dark series full of melancholy with an incredible protagonist. The plot of the episodes varies from episode to episode, as the latter are self-contained.

The story features Black Jack as the protagonist, a disbarred and unlicensed doctor who wanders the world in search of patients ready to spend crazy amounts of money to be treated. A fairly simple plot that develops with self-contained episodes. All different but with the common thread of our ... protagonist. The stories told in the episodes are all very interesting and well told, except for a couple, namely the first which I found a little too messed up and the eighth, definitely too strange. The rest of the episodes are iconic.

The characters are excellent: Black Jack is an exceptional protagonist. The recurring secondary characters are few but those are good too. The protagonist characters, however, of the individual episodes are all very interesting with different stories each time and which touch on very different and profound themes, such as mental illnesses or love.

I found the animation very enjoyable, despite the year of production. The art style and atmosphere are spot on with dark tones and episodes, especially the ones where Jack is alone, really dark. The soundtrack is very successful, with an excellent theme song and the right songs always at the right time.

Truly recommended, even for those who understand nothing about medicine like me because, although there is attention from that point of view, the episodes focus more on the plot itself rather than on the "medical" scenes. The episodes that flow quickly despite the 50 minute duration. Excellent anime.

The entire series is very entertaining to someone who knows very little about medicine, but if you know a lot about science and doctor stuff, then you may think it's ridiculous since there are a lot of supernatural diseases and made up cures, but still, I believe you can enjoy it.
If you're unfamiliar with blackjack, this OVA is a good introduction.

It has a very serious, dark art style.
Each episode left me feeling something, and I don't think I was bored at all.

Personally, I had a great time watching this OVA series of Black Jack. This may be the best so far.

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story
Watched OVA series after the newer TV series, nevertheless I found the story more boring. Had too much war mumbo jumbo, a really far-fetched cases, supernatural cases. Found at times story quite dull and boring. It wasn't bad, but probably story rating is affected by watching TV series beforehand (which had more earth-bound and medical cases)

✦Art & Sound
Absolutely beautiful art, animation and artistic side. Casually naked breast, that didn't feel fanservice'ly, but more of natural occurrence. Surgeries also felt really well presented. But, It loses perfect score ... with those smiles. Smiles that character provided were straight-on ugly and disturbing.

Music and OST was fine for the most part, did like some tracks, while some had no presence. But in the end I found music and OST quite good.

✦Character
The usual, genius kind doctor, that built himself as greedy, evil blackmailing doctor. And a really, really annoying sidekick brat.
Rest characters are case-specific and sidekicks. Most were build up fair enough. Some were intriguing, some I hated, some I liked. In short, characters were good enough.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
As mentioned before. I liked TV series more as the cases were more medical and interesting. Whilst OVA had too much of war, supernatural and far-fetched cases. The earth-bound ones I liked, but in the end I still enjoyed overall newer series more, whilst this had beautiful Art & Animation.