Since first writing my post on Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack, I have obtained and read a book collecting the history of his works, and I feel there is much more that needs to be said both on Black Jack, and Tezuka himself.
Black Jack was one of Tezuka's most important, and personal, characters. As he was closely tied to Tezuka's medical background, Tezuka saw a lot of himself in the character, to the point where he insisted on animating all of Black Jack's character animation for a TV special by himself.
A fundamental piece of Tezuka's work is the concept of a Star System, or in layman's terms, "fake actors." Tezuka grew up very closely tied to the Takarazuka Revue, a famous all-female theater group whose actresses decided the best roles for themselves, rather than executives. Tezuka became very fond of the idea of specific actors and actresses playing different roles, and worked that into his comics, regularly reusing character designs (given names like Rock, Hamegg, and Shunsuke Ban) and playing with audience expectation by placing well-known "actors" in startling roles. It speaks to how personal Black Jack was to Tezuka that he only EVER appeared as himself, never "playing" another character (whereas his partner Pinoko would rarely be used to play other "young girl" characters).
The medical accuracy involved in the series was simply another testament to how important it was to Tezuka, a fusion of the two great passions in his life, medicine and cartooning. The decision to take up the pen instead of the scalpel was reportedly the hardest one Tezuka ever made, and in a way, it can be seen that Black Jack as a whole was his own way of making things up to the doctor in himself.
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