Biwamaru

琵琶丸

Biwamaru is a blind, itinerant acupuncture doctor who wanders throughout Japan, curing various ailments with miraculous speed. He appears extremely disheveled, dressed in rags and walking with a twisted stick as a cane, carrying a rough bundle on his back. Like Black Jack, Biwamaru is effectively an unlicensed doctor; the medical establishment considers his practices quackery, while Biwamaru views cutting open a patient to cure them as barbaric. Consequently, Biwamaru is another nemesis too similar to Black Jack for the two to forgive their differences, much like Dr. Kiriko. Biwamaru also appears in Tezuka's best-known samurai manga, Dororo.
When Biwamaru arrived in Black Jack's town in issue #126, "The Blind Doctor of Acupuncture" (6/7/1976), it was hatred at first sight, as each dismissed the other as a quack, though neither could deny the effectiveness of the other's treatments. To make matters worse, Biwamaru charges nothing for his services, in contrast to Black Jack's outrageous fees, leading to criticism of Black Jack by the local community. Their interaction here effectively degenerated into each repeatedly attempting to prove that the other was a quack, and generally failing, though teaching each other bitter lessons about the limitations of their methods.
The two met again not long afterwards in issue #141, "Death of Hyojisai" (The Master Forger, Two People at the Thermal Bath), when they met at a hot spring and discovered that both, out of dedication to their work, made regular pilgrimages to see the same world-famous master forger, who made scalpels for one and needles for the other. Upon discovering that the forger was sick, the two competed to cure him, while the forger, Hyojisai, used his own illness to teach the two that, skilled as they are, both are powerless in the face of fate. It is a bitter experience for both of them. The trailer for the upcoming Two Dark Doctors movie indicates that the film will include scenes from this issue.
Notably, Biwamaru also appeared in Dororo as a blind musician and master swordsman. The crippled samurai Hyakkumaru, widely acknowledged as a prototype of Black Jack, encountered Biwamaru here and became his student in swordfighting, an interesting reversal of his role in Black Jack.