Black Jack – Bác Sĩ Quái Dị (Black Jack, #1)

I initially picked up Black Jack because I liked the art and I thought the concept was interesting. I’ve also never read an “adult manga” before, so I was really interested to see how it would differ from regular manga. For the first five stories, I was kind of enjoying it, but when I got to the sixth story, “Confluence,” I began to have some issues with this book.

In the “Confluence” chapter, Black Jack goes to see an old friend. He tells his assistant, Pinoko, that he needs to bring his friend

I initially picked up Black Jack because I liked the art and I thought the concept was interesting. I’ve also never read an “adult manga” before, so I was really interested to see how it would differ from regular manga. For the first five stories, I was kind of enjoying it, but when I got to the sixth story, “Confluence,” I began to have some issues with this book.

In the “Confluence” chapter, Black Jack goes to see an old friend. He tells his assistant, Pinoko, that he needs to bring his friend an old photo album, which holds pictures of Black Jack and a mysterious woman. The jealous Pinoko gets Black Jack to confess that he used to be in love with this woman (though Black Jack implies she is as good as dead on page 118) and that she is “the sister of the man [Black Jack is] going to see” (page 117). Pinoko eventually gets this man, Kisaragi, to tell her what happened to his sister, and the story goes something like this. Kisaragi’s sister, Megumi, and Black Jack went to medical school together, and fell in love. Then Megumi found out she had uterine cancer. Black Jack insisted on operating on her to remove her reproductive system and hopefully save her life. This is when it starts to get problematic. Here are a few quotes from Black Jack in this scene:

“To have [the uterus and ovaries] removed is to quit being a woman. You won’t be able to bear children, of course, and you’ll become unfeminine.” (page 129)

“I’ll say this while you’re still a woman. Megumi. I love you.” (page 131)

This one is from Megumi herself: “When the surgery’s over, this feeling must be gone, too . . .” (page 131).

At the end of the story, it is revealed that Black Jack’s old friend, Kisaragi, is actually the woman Black Jack fell in love with, Megumi.

This story is incredibly transphobic and also completely inaccurate. Just because Megumi no longer has a uterus or ovaries – which are just organs – it doesn’t mean she is no longer a woman. By that reasoning, trans women aren’t “real women” because they are born without a womb. Being a woman, or not, is determined by how you feel inside. And even if, somehow, she “turned into a man,” why wouldn’t Black Jack still love her? If he truly loved her then he shouldn’t care what gender she was presenting as. The real Megumi was still unchanged. But no, just because she is now “a man,” it’s impossible for either of them to have feelings for each other. What would that make them? Gay? Oh no. Additionally, Megumi’s feelings wouldn’t disappear just because her womb was being removed.

This book was originally published in 1987, so I suppose this level of transphobia is not too surprising. The edition I am reading was published in 2008, and I’d like to argue that the publishers could have left this chapter out or at least changed it to be a little more politically correct. After all, when Sailor Moon was first published in the U.S., editors got rid of the same-sex relationship. Couldn’t that censorship go the other way as well? Anyway, I won’t be finishing this book, and I won’t continue reading this series. There are plenty of other books to read that are not ignorant and so pitifully incorrect. I’ll give this book two stars, just because the other stories were okay and the artwork is good. But I would not recommend this book, especially if you think such blatant transphobia would upset you.

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