Pinoko

Pinoko is a young girl who lives and works with Black Jack. Despite her appearance, Pinoko is a medical assistant who spent eighteen years as a teratoma cyst. She appears occasionally through the Osamu Tezuka Star System, but is mainly known for starring in the Black Jack manga series.

Origin
Pinoko originally debuted in 1974 via Black Jack chapter 12, "Teratoid Cystoma". In this story, Black Jack is called in to remove a teratoma growth from a teenage girl. He soon discovers the growth contains mostly-complete remains of a parasitic twin that merged with the girl in the womb. Something compels Black Jack to assemble and rehabilitate this twin, soon helping her look and act like a normal human girl, but the patient's family finds her abhorrent. Black Jack then adopts the twin, naming her Pinoko.

Pinoko's name is derived from Pinocchio, as they are both children who became "real" after a series of tribulations. In many ways, Pinoko parallels Black Jack in his own childhood. Both Pinoko and Black Jack had to undergo serious medical intervention and rehabilitation as young children, and both developed a strong admiration for their carers. In Black Jack's case, he wanted to become a doctor like Dr. Honma, and in Pinoko's case, she is convinced she is married to Black Jack. She works alongside Black Jack as his medical assistant and secretary, which often surprises their patients.

Personality
Pinoko is a boisterous little girl. She is very outspoken and headstrong, but also very stubborn. She hates being called a child, and will insist that she is much older. She is convinced that she is eighteen years old - the amount of years she spent as as a teratoma growth - and that she is now Black Jack's wife. Regardless, Black Jack treats her as his daughter.

Pinoko is fairly normal in appearance, but to an extent, she is physically challenged. Much of her body is prosthetic and she cannot grow much larger than she already is. At one point, she tries to take a high school entrance exam, but the amount of stress she experiences causes her to need immediate medical attention. Despite her insistence that she is mature, Pinoko acts and thinks like an normal young child. When surprised, Pinoko will put her hands on the sides of her face, cartoonishly squishing her face. Her catchphrase is "acchonburike", a nonsense word; it is often translated along the lines of "oh my gewdness".

Appearance
Due to Pinoko's time in a cyst, her growth is stunted, and she can never fully grow bigger than the size of a small child. She has bright brown eyes and short brown hair with bangs. Pinoko always wears four ribbon clips in her hair, and it is also her visual trademark. Most often, Pinoko wears pinafore dresses or overalls, over and plain colour shirts. She will often match the colour of her ribbons with the rest of her outfits.

1980 anime
In the 1980 Astro Boy series episode "The Time Machine", Black Jack and Pinoko appear as themselves, and are recruited by a hapless time traveller named Rock to operate on a wounded prince far in the past. Pinoko and Uran become friends and at one point explore a treasure room together, but the room suddenly floods and sweeps Pinoko away. Black Jack must rescue Pinoko from an evil wizard and save the prince in time.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor
Black Jack and Pinoko appear in Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the Game Boy Advance. Astro visits Black Jack's house, asking him to come to a moon base and perform life-saving surgery on a girl in cryogenic stasis. However, Astro must first rescue Pinoko from one of Hamegg's robots before they can bring Black Jack to the moon.

Other appearances
Pinoko appears very briefly in the 2003 series episode "Only a Machine". She is a passenger on an airship that Astro stops from crashing, and the two wave at each other through a porthole window. Pinoko is seated with a woman, implying she is being raised as a normal child by parents in this series.

Though she does not appear in the actual film, Pinoko has a cameo in the film's official comic adaptation. She is in Toby's homeroom class at the start of the story.