The Series (4/5)

    Osamu Tezuka is a legend in the realm of manga and anime having created Kimba, the White Lion and Astro Boy. His third most famous creation is the renegade doctor Black Jack, who will save lives at a cost. The series started in the 70's, but Tezuka was always reluctant to explore the origins of the character. In 2011 after Tezuka's death a manga series was created to explore his early days before his original adventures.  The series starts at a medical school long before Kuroo Hazam, takes on the pseudonym Black Jack, and shows how he is already rebelling against the system. While others are involving themselves in the counter culture of the day, he finds himself just wanting to get deeper and deeper into his chosen profession.

    The series doesn't exactly have a cohesive narrative, it tells individual stories, with a few multi episode arcs thrown in. One arc shows the man who will be Black Jack in Vietnam in 1968, another incident takes him to Civil Rights-era America. Because of that the show and episodes can take on an uneven tone, but it is always interesting, and of course , because of the era it can't help but take on some slight political subtext whether intentional or not.  Unfortunately, while I was familiar enough with the character to be entertained throughout, I couldn't help but feel this show would probably only be of interest to fans of Black Jack, and not a broad range of fans. However, those fans should check this one out if they haven't already.

Audio/Video (4/5)

   Sentai Filmworks presents Young Black Jack in a 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the OAR of the series. The Blu-ray looks and sounds sharp. Colors pop, line detail is excellent, and I couldn't find anything to complain about.

    Audio is presented with a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track in Japanese. Everything comes through crisp and clear with no issues.

Extras (1/5)

    Sentai provides trailers for other releases and a clean opening and closing.

Overall

    An interesting prequel series that shows us the origin of Black Jack as a character. The Blu-ray looks and sounds quite excellent. The extras are limited as expected though. RECOMMENDED.