News
Masaki Okada to Play Young Black Jack in TV Special
posted on by Egan Loo
Actor Masaki Okada (Hana Zakari no Kimi-tachi e, Boku no Hatsukoi o Kimi ni Sasagu, Mahō Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto) will star as Young Black Jack in a live-action television special adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack medical manga on Saturday, April 23 at 9:00 p.m. The story will tell the secret origins of Tezuka's unlicensed genius doctor character when he was a medical student. Kentaro Otani (live-action NANA films) is directing.
Tezuka launched the manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine in 1973. Since then, Jō Shishito played the classic manga character on film, while Yūzō Kayama, Daisuke Ryū, and Masahiro Motoki (with Yukihiko Tsutsumi) have all taken on the role of Black Jack on television and video.
In the story, the title character received major injuries in an accidental explosion when he was 9, and his mother was put in an artificially induced coma. The new special will depict how the Black Jack character became an unlicensed doctor and how his destined rivalry with Dr. Kiriko came to be.
Naho Toda (Romance of Three Kingdoms, Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror) will play Black Jack's mother, and Riisa Naka (anime and live-action The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) will play a fellow medical student. Yukiyoshi Azawa and Masachika Ichimura will also co-star.
Source: Oricon
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