Night Time Tale in the Snow

Series: Black Jack

Season: Season 1

Episode Number: 6

Air Date: 05/21/1996

Duration: 51 min

Black Jack receives a large box of old Japanese currency from Saburo Taneda with an urgent request to treat his dying wife, however it was sent two years ago. Jack and Pinoko travel to Yashaga Mountain, through a snow storm, but become bogged and fall asleep. Jack awakes and sees a temple so he leaves Pinoko with a monk, Lady Kaoru, and continues by foot. He is caught in an ancient battle between the samurai Saburo Taneda and his enemies. Jack meets Princess Ikehata who ate the poisonous gamakazura fruit four years earlier rather than marry Lord Rokuyoji against her will and since then she has suffered seizures and violent fits. Abumaru, a messenger from Lady Kaoru the spurned wife of Lord Rokuyoji, visits Saburo and demands that he surrender Ikehata. Jack operates on the princes to repair an irregular heartbeat, which releases a giant snake. Saburo kills the snake which also causes the death of Lady Kaoru. Following the operation Saburo and Ikehata flee together, but are killed by Rokuyoji's troops. Meanwhile, Abumaru kills Rokuyoji in revenge for his poor treatment of Kaoru. The storm clears and Jack awakes, realizing that he has had a dream, and he is taken by Saburo to see his sick wife. Jack diagnoses that she has mesothelioma and prepares to take her to the hospital, but surprisingly finds that Saburo died two years earlier, and his wife was cared for by neighbors who resemble Kaoru and Abumaru.