Young Black Jack

Episode 5

In last week's review, I hoped that this episode of Young Black Jack might finally give the show the complexity it's been lacking. Naturally, I was wrong: the South Vietnamese and Americans are still shown as wholly sympathetic, while the Viet Cong are sniveling, one-note bad guys. The exception comes from one member of the group who helps Phan, but as of episode 5, it's clear that complexity is beyond this show.

That's perfectly fine for a lot of anime. The medium is overflowing with simple good-vs-evil stories, with tenacious heroes defying evil bosses. Most anime is designed for escapism, and there's nothing wrong with that. Still, it's a problem when that overt simplicity is applied to the backdrop of a complex real-world conflict. It's not that the Viet Cong was a benign organization or that South Vietnamese people like Phan fleeing urban centers (the focus of the Tet Offensive) didn't have every right to feel under siege. Young Black Jack does better with the Viet Cong than it could have: they're given a chance to voice their issues with the American and South Vietnamese tactics, and one member does help Phan escape. Still, it never suggests that the American forces are anything but good guys. It has a more generous portrayal of American military forces in Vietnam than even American media of the time gave them.

Still, that's not the biggest issue with this episode. To recap: The Viet Cong capture Hazama and friends, as we saw at the end of the last episode. They're cuffed and have their feet bound with boards, so helpless they can't even get up to relieve themselves. One by one, everyone is taken out and beaten for information. We see two of these beating scenes: Hazama's and Phan's. That's where things get ugly—or not ugly enough in this case.

Hazama's captors are beating him senseless. As we find out later in the episode, this would cause serious injuries and other medical problems for him, limiting his ability to operate on the wounded American soldier, Steve. Still, the focus of the moment is how sexy he looks while he's being beaten. The camera constantly pans up and down his rugged chest and taught abs. It also zooms in on his face to emphasize his pain, as it also does with Phan. But since this show is aimed at (presumably) straight women, Hazama's scene is fanservicey (notably, Phan's is not). Sure, the show does this every time the character is shirtless, to an almost comical degree; later in the episode we see the characters faint one-by-one from exhaustion, but when Hazama faints, you also get a glimpse of his sweaty, glistening abs. In a torture scene, where even the characters say they're not being treated as POWs should be, shifting the moment to fanservice is appalling.

I've seen a lot of arguments about a "double standard" in how anime commentators treat fanservice. Why would the same person who condemns fanservice with female characters say it's okay with male characters? The simplest answer to this is that anime fanservice featuring men rarely sexualizes the men while they're being victimized (with the exception of some uke characters in yaoi, who function as the "stand-in" for a female reader and are basically framed as women with male bodies). Many female fanservice scenes, however, are filled with closeups of boobs and butts while the character is tortured or assaulted by some villain. In a rare case of true reversed equality, Hazama's fanservice scene is that same thing happening to a male character, sexualizing his helplessness and humiliation while he's in a compromised situation. It downplays the seriousness of the moment, turning it into a sick joke. It's creepy and detracts majorly from the series' handling of these events. If they can't even tell that torture isn't sexy, it's no surprise that they can't grant the torturers themselves any humanity in the first place.

The rest of the episode goes better. The characters escape thanks to one of the Viet Cong members assigned with torturing Phan. (This guy is also drawn much more like the main characters than the other Viet Cong. I almost expected him to be a Japanese defector or something.) A Japanese doctor—implied to be Yabu—saved him in the past, which makes him inclined to help Hazama and his allies. After the group wanders through the jungle, Yabu finds them unconscious. He made it to safety after all, and now he's ready to get out of Vietnam. Steve the American is still wounded though, and Hazama and Yabu lack the supplies to help him. So the U.S. Army parachutes in another doctor with supplies, who becomes a new rival for Hazama as he quickly takes over the medical tent.

It's good to see Yabu back, though it would be interesting to hear more about what happened to him apart from "he got over his fear of blood." Hopefully, we'll get more of that next week. I like the American doctor so far; he's funny and cocky, something the current cast needs. However, all I could think about during these parts is how much bait was being laid for shippers. Hazama and Yabu cry over their reunion and nearly embrace, and the American soldier has a nice moment with Hazama when he admits the medical student has talent and tenacity, deciding to share his water. I'm certainly not against ship-baiting in anime, but these escapist fantasy moments just seem tasteless against the backdrop of serious historical events. This is only emphasized by the series' clumsy handling of the era's political and social conflicts in the first place.

All that makes this episode sound much worse than it was. The series' handling of the actual Vietnam War is still better than its early dismissal of protesters and activists in Japan in past episodes. I expected Phan to be a damsel in distress based on the episode description, but so far she's been a competent and wise guide, doing more than even Hazama to keep everyone alive. Takayanagi isn't at all the character I thought he would be, and you could still say the Viet Cong are shown with more humanity than the bad guys in many other military-themed anime. Plus, a lot more happened than last week! None of it is outside standard war-movie fare, but at least it wasn't boring.

So if Young Black Jack were any other anime, I might give it a higher grade. But this isn't just any anime: this is an adaptation of Black Jack, an iconic character with a long and beloved history. This show not only doesn't do its predecessor justice, but it doesn't engage with its source at all beyond giving its protagonist a "gritty" backstory. It's five episodes in, and Young Black Jack still has little to offer fans of the original. That's pretty disappointing.

Rating: C

Young Black Jack is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose is a music Ph.D. student who loves overanalyzing anime soundtracks. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn.