Unlicensed, Doctor Kuro Hazama, aka Black Jack, performs medical miracles outside the law (and medical ethics). One particularly persistent potential customer calls the good doctor repeatedly leaving on his answering machine only her phone number and the promise of a blank check for his services. Suspicious of her secrecy, Black Jack only agrees to the assignment when the woman kidnaps his adopted daughter Pinoko.

Two years prior, in the '96 Summer Olympics, formerly average athletes began demonstrating super-human abilities by shattering a wealth of world-records. This condition spread to people of all walks of life inspiring talk of an evolution of mankind into super-mankind. But what appeared to be a gift soon turned out to be a curse. Still unknown to the public, the so-called super-humans fell victim to Moira Syndrome, a rapid aging of all the major organs. It is this disease that the mystery woman is trying to cure.

Black Jack soon discovers that there is a pharmaceutical source to this unknown disease and that the mystery woman is not the caring scientist she pretends to be.

Drawn by the "God of comics," Osamu Tezuka, the "Black Jack" manga series leads the comic paperback market bestsellers with ten million copies in print. The faults in this film adaptation might very well stem from it reliance on its manga roots.

Very much like victims of Moira Syndrome, "Black Jack: The Movie" appears super-human, but quickly falls victim to a fatal disease. Its richly detailed animation is muddied by ceaseless freeze-to-mange and other cheesy dramatizing techniques best used in manga; its expressive voice cast stumbles on a weak translation; even Black Jack, though well represented and clearly the most interesting character, lacks the back story and the stakes necessary to intrinsically him to the story emotionally; by contrast, Jo Carol, the mystery woman, sounds her entire autobiography, but is then consumed by a melodramatic ending that undercuts the story's weightier themes. From amidst this pulp, director Osuma Dezaki contrives a moral that touches on environmental awareness.

Without rounded character arcs, the story defaults to uncovering the source of this degenerative disease, a detective feat that unfolds into a predictable, emotionally flat ending. But the underlying problem with the disease as a central story component rests in a shoddy translation. Moira Syndrome is described as both a virus and a fungus, a scientific impossibility. Also, the film explains that this virus/fungus causes the body to release ten times the amount of endorphins, giving its victims amazing abilities but eventually aging their major organs prematurely. Technically, endorphins are the brain's pain reliever; so an increased level of them would probably, in the worst case, cause the body to go numb. The script describes a reaction to increased levels of adrenaline. A foreign body on the Pituitary Gland, which is what the fungus/virus acts as, could very well cause the Pituitary to command the Adrenal Medulla to increases the level of adrenaline. Adrenaline would also explain why Nicholas Doris, after having his fungus/virus removed, acted like someone experiencing withdraw, because Adrenaline is addictive.

Though these inaccurate details don't necessarily derail the plot, the egregiously clumsy translation demonstrates the lack of care that went into bringing "Black Jack" to an English speaking audience and weakens the credibility for an anime that is fundamentally about a brilliant doctor.

The plot, written by Mori Eto and Dezaki Osamu, can derail itself all on its own. For example, Jo Carol believes that once they find a cure for Moria Syndrome, victims would keep their superhuman prowess. However, understanding that this is only a byproduct of a disease, a bright doctor like Carol should deduce that a cure would eliminate the entire effect.

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