Black Jack is a mysterious, intelligent, unlicensed doctor who can cure anything, even if it's technically humanly impossible. His patients often have crazy demands—replacing a damaged body with a freshly murdered one, or getting an injection needle of a dying person's bloodstream. He'll work for anyone as long as they pay up, whether they're corrupt politicians or yakuza. But he's a good guy—and we know that because he only rips off rich selfish people, and he doesn't discriminate (his best friends are a killer whale and a teratoid cystoma). Black Jack's demeanor is slow and dark, yet he mysteriously arrives at places faster than an airplane could take him, and his hands are quicker than a sushi chef's.

Black Jack has a sidekick, Pinoko, a tumor/parasitic twin-turned-living breathing doe-eyed plastic doll that he uncovered from a patient's body. The bizarre combo of her sassy manga cuteness and the blood-and-guts that spill out throughout the pages of the book somehow makes perfect sense in the strange landscape created by Tezuka. (In Japan, cute and grotesque often go together. Tezuka recognized this decades before high school girls started matching chalky white lipstick with their Hello Kitty cell phone straps.)

I put together a list of four fun episodes from the new English volumes for you to preview:

Episode: Dirtjacked
The problem: A school bus full of elementary school kids gets trapped in a tunnel. Some of the kids get their heads chopped off by rubble; others are in critical condition and are about to die.
Black Jack's solution: He takes the richest kid in the class hostage and makes him climb through a tiny crevice to get medical supplies. He saves the rest of the surviving kids, but the teacher accidentally burns to a crisp.
Cost: Black Jack plans on getting a hefty reward from the rich kid's dad.

Episode: U18 Knew
The problem: U18, a massive supercomputer that single-handedly operates a 1000-patient strong cybernetics medical center in South Dakota, claims he's sick. After a few minor errors—some temperature changes in the wards, a half-second response lapse in the oscillograph—it completely shuts down and threatens to destroy the facility within 45 hours.
Black Jack's solution: He performs surgery on the Brain using tweezers and his surgical expertise.
Cost: $3 million

Episode: The Face Sore
The problem: A mystery man shows up with a gnarly mucus-filled face sore covered with carbuncles and subcutaneous fat. The face sore possesses him, too, and occasionally mouths off for no particular reason.
Black Jack's solution: After determining that the face sore is a psychological side effect, he shoots the patient in the shoulder to "kill" the other personality. It's "almost like third stage syphilis," Black Jack says as he tears through the guy's face with a scalpel.
Cost: $5-30 million

Episode: The First Storm of Spring
The problem: After a corneal transplant, a pretty young girl sees a handsome man standing in front of her every time she closes her eyes.
Black Jack's solution: In addition to having performed the eye mystery, he ends up saving her life from a brutal rapist/murderer.
Cost: A month's worth of free drinks from the girl's dad, who runs a bar

Black Jack was first serialized in a manga weekly back in 1973. Since then, it has inspired an anime, a TV series, and even traditional Japanese theater. The kyogen version of The Disowned Son, one of the episodes from the original manga, will debut at a Takarazuka theater in Hyogo prefecture on December 19. (Kyogen is a comedic form of traditional Japanese theater—similar to kabuki, but a lot less intense.) Black Jack Vol. 1 came out in September; Vol. 2 comes out mid-November, followed by Vol. 3 in January and the rest of the 17 volumes over the course of the next year or two. Don't miss it!

Astro Boy
Birth year: 1963
Who he is: A doe-eyed robot with jet engine feet, eyes that double as searchlights, and a nuclear reactor heart, created by manga godfather Osamu Tezuka.
Lessons learned: 1. Robots are smart and good. (Astro Boy had decision-making skills and a heroic conscience built into his circuitry.) 2. International politics: nuclear power is only dangerous if used maliciously, or if there's an accident. 3. Optimism goes a long way even when your world is being ravaged by war.

Doraemon
Birth year: 1969
Who he is: A blue robotic cat from the future that appeared out of accident-prone schoolboy Nobita's desk drawer. Doraemon has a treasure trove of secret weapons in his four-dimensional built-in fanny pack—everything from candy that makes you tell the truth to an ATM machine that recycles used goods for cash. In March, Doraemon was chosen to be the Anime Ambassador of Japan by the Foreign Ministry.
Lessons learned: 1. Don't be afraid of bullies. 2. Travel as much as you can—whether it's through a teleportation door, with propellers on your head, or on a time machine. 3. Just because you look different doesn't mean you can't be best friends.

Arale Norimaki
Birth year: 1980
Who she is: A purple-haired, near-sighted girl robot built by a kooky professor named Norimaki Senbei (seaweed-wrapped rice cracker) to resemble a real 13 year old human girl. She was created by Akira Toriyama, the same genius manga artist who wrote the Dragon Ball series.
Lessons learned: 1. To be fun and spontaneous. 2. To be honest about your compulsions. 3. That you can be female + completely non-sexual + still be the most powerful humanoid in the entire world. 4. How to launch pumpkin cannons and split the earth in half with one punch. 5. The art of the Japanese poop joke. (Even today, my favorite way to pick up my dog's poop is by poking it with a stick and then chucking it into the bushes or a trash can.)

Gundam
Birth year: 1979
Who he is: A cockpit-operated "mobile suit" from a world called UC (Universal Century). Some would argue that Gundam is technically not a robot, but it wouldn't be fair to exclude him from this list because of his importance in global humanoid machine history.
Lessons learned: 1. War is inevitable. 2. Bigger is sometimes better. 3. There are other universes out there, and one day we will all live in outer space.