Give My Regards to Black Jack · review
This is a story about a young, intern doctor, fresh out of medical school, who goes from one medical department to the next, driven by a passionate sense of moral responsibility, meets patient after patient who needs his help to survive. In contrast, the Japanese medical system gets in his way, and his senior attendings, who once had that Don Quixote naivety as well, put him down. And yet he still fights, again and again, to help his patients each time, with probably much more success than what would be accurate. The last department he interns in is psychiatry, which focuses on the patient’s stories,and you get the feeling psychology is what the author really wanted to explore this whole time, but I think it would have been more interesting if he also explored, more realistically, a story of our main character having his saviour complex broken down, like thousands of real doctors before him. With that said, this manga is full of stories of patients that take a deeper look into the psychology of what it's like to go through health problems such as cancer, premature birth, and schizophrenia, that are well written, and if you’ve had any similar experiences, this could hit you hard. In some panels, the emotion drawn on the characters’ faces is so well done, you are there with them, you truly, without trying, feel that specific, distinct feeling in their soul, that could probably not be translated as well in any other genre. It was pretty good in all, and if our main character were written with as much depth as some of the patients, I think this could have been an 8/10, especially if you are interested in medicine, I would highly suggest this one.