A rogue genius doctor unafraid of the most difficult surgeries is lured into a medical mystery that baffles his peers and even himself. Experientially no different from Golgo 13, but what’s more is between Tezuka’s Prime Rose and this I sense a kindred spirit with Edgar Rice Burroughs: an artist endlessly creative and uncurious in equal measure. The stakes and characters, beyond their yesteryear designs, feel quaint, belonging to an era at least a generation older than the state of the art 90s. (I wonder what the average age of theater attendees was for this.) 

So it helps the film looks the way it does (stunning) with all the analogue coloring and fades to painted stills you could want. The naive story is self serious, but adorably so. You can practically hear the writers cracking open used medical textbooks to spice up the dialogue. And I’ll admit, every sweep of Blackjack’s cape had me grinning by the end.