Manga Doctor for 3G Phones
An unlicensed but brilliant surgeon — himself terribly scarred — prepares to take on another apparently hopeless case, this time right on the cell-phone screen. Black Jack, a series of immensely popular comics from Tetsuwan Atom’s (Astro Boy) creator Osamu Tezuka has decided to make the jump to wireless and is coming to KDDI 3G mobile phones. For 315 yen a month, readers can download Black Jack’s medical adventures twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. Stories of this anti-hero have been serialized for 30 years in Japan, continuing long after the death of Tezuka. Black Jack has had his own live TV drama, video animation and animated TV series, and now he’s going mobile.
Tezuka Productions’ endearingly retro style of animation has a huge following in this anime-obsessed culture.
KDDI is undoubtedly hoping to secure contracts to broadcast other Tezuka favorites through the EZ Bookland venue. The site will be powered by Japanese firm Primeworks Corp. in their ‘active’ manga style. Manga broadcast in this form are in color and have background music, visual and audio effects. The company works closely with KDDI on the EZ Bookland manga portal. Black Jack’s mobile series will start from 8 July.