Black Jack

Pinoko suddenly collapses and at the same time, Lady Yurie, head of the highly regarded Saionji family also collapses while rehearsing a traditional dance. Black Jack can find no cause for Pinoko's ailment, but is intrigued when called on to treat Lady Yurie from whom Jack removed a Teratoid Cystoma years ago. It is gradually revealed that the cyst was actually Lady Yurie's twin sister, growing within her body. Jack removed the small body parts which he later surgically reassembled to create Pinoko. Jack examines Lady Yurie and finds that she has had recurring malignant tumors, and her body is beginning to fail her. However, she insists on maintaining the family tradition of the head of the Saionji family performing the "Ascent of the White Heron" at the White Heron Temple every ten years. The temple's story tells of a heavenly maiden who took the form of a heron and descended to the land.

A street urchin attacks and damages luxury cars, and the case is handed to Takasugi in the Juvenile Division. Investigators find a match between the youth's fingerprints and a woman known as the Love Hotel Killer who has been killing her clients. Meanwhile, Jack is called to examine Koichiro Tsuzuki, the young head of the Tsuzuki corporation who has developed a large carbuncle-like tumor on his abdomen which resembles a human face. Some nights he mysteriously disappears for hours. Meanwhile, a beautiful woman calling herself Ryuko, seduces and kills men who cheat on their wives. Later, Jack encounters Mariko, a homeless teenager, who asks him to help her wounded friend Ryuko, whom he discovers has a carbuncle similar to that of Koichiro. When Jack returns to the Tsuzuki residence he finds Ryuko there and the carbuncle then changes her back into Koichiro. Jack determines that Koichiro suffers from a dissociative identity disorder and operates to remove the tumor, but during the operation, the personality of Jun, a street urchin surfaces and he escapes. Suddenly, the police arrive to arrest Koichiro Tsuzuki who has the same fingerprints as the urchin and serial killer on suspicion of the recent murders. Jun attacks the police and is shot, transforming back into Koichiro before dies.

Yasuhiko Shirabyoshi, the wealthy chief of surgery at the Tozai University is shocked when his fiancée, Catherine, asks for a six month postponement of their wedding, because she has volunteered to provide medical assistance for people affected by the civil war in Adentarl. Catherine encounters Jack on her way to a refugee camp, where he searches for a girl called Karen Aramis on behalf of her mother, Saranda and crime boss grandfather Patterson, because she has the hereditary heart ailment, Tetralogy of Fallot. Jack operates on her in a field hospital assisted by Catherine who travels back to New York by helicopter while Jack stays to treat the refugees. He refuses to work in the camp for free and demands one dollar per patient. Meanwhile, the immanent Dr. Stanfield calls together a panel of the International Medical Association (IMA). He proposes that Jack be granted an international medical licence, because he believes that medical ability is not a case of black or white, however Shirabyoshi objects. Jack arrives in New York, and while at a karaoke bar, Patterson is shot and rushed to hospital. Shirabyoshi refuses to allow Jack to operate without a licence and commences surgery to remove the bullets himself. However, Shirabyoshi lacks the practical experience, and he allows Jack to finish the surgery. A month later the IMA unanimously vote to grant jack a medical licence, but he is not present. Back at home, Jack receives a large package from Adentarl containing many IOUs for one dollar.

While on vacation, Black Jack comes across a young man called Leslie Harris on a train. Bullet wounds mysteriously appear on his body, bleed, but then disappear. Leslie has recurring dreams of seeing a woman with a child singing about the Owl of San Merida where he finds himself in a battle zone being shot. Black Jack examines him and finds barely visible signs of many earlier operations. They travel to the Republic of El Garnia, a country with over 25 years of civil war which ended 4 years earlier, and visit the village of San Merida. Leslie finds it familiar, and they meet Ernesto, the only survivor who tells the story of how he, an uncertified doctor, saved a baby by using the blood and body components of the dead woman Sanda, including her bullet-riddled skin. Suddenly the government troops arrive and arrest, then summarily shoot Ernesto for his part in the resistance. Jack is unable to save his life, leaving Leslie the only living survivor of San Merida.

The Federal Unites Air Force attacks the Ortega republic accusing its leader General Cruz of international criminal activities. Meanwhile, Black Jack is asked by a woman called Maria to operate on an unknown person. During transit, Ortega forces free Cruz, and Captain Maria Carnella is shot in the eye. She contacts Jack who says the patient is Cruz who is dying from cancer. On the perilous journey back to Ortega, Black Jack operates under moonlight to remove a cancerous lesion on Cruz's thyroid gland to prolong his life. Meanwhile, Federal Unites elite forces attack and the Ortega forces create a diversion, however they are defeated and Maria gives her life to save her father, General Cruz. Jack carries Cruz to the border, but he is killed under orders of Federal Unites President Kelly. Later, back home, Pinoko finds Maria Carnella's dog tags in a drawer.

Black Jack accepts a three million dollar fee from the young and beautiful Sayuri Crossword to treat Manabis Crossword (the Chairman of the Carosan Corporation and Sayuri's husband) on isolated windswept Raoski Island. Black Jack arrives to find a frail old man, wracked with painful spasms as all the water drains from his body leaving him weak from dehydration. Eighty doctors could find no cause, but Jack discovers that he has Kimaira, a disease endemic to the island and supposedly dormant for 150 years. However it actually surfaced 60 years earlier, infecting the Crossword family who were all killed by the villagers except the young Manabis. Manabis asks Black Jack to operate on him during a spasm to find the cause of the disease. Black Jack agrees and discovers that the Kimaira virus just as Manabis dies enabling a cure to be developed.