Fist of the North Star

This masterfully written and developed story is told by means of pain and tears. Crude, unfair and definitely sad, it uncovers the reasons behind the power quest.

Love is the key of the story and it is shown as the story unfolds, the main character Kenshiro goes through a journey and unnoticed by viewers he becomes spiritually deeper. The plot twists are unexpected and there is richness in the story and characters are developed in depth.

Several actors (japanese) reflect high stake through their voice as they transmit deep emotions. Must be said the last words of Souther are a great voice performance and can be overwhelming to the audience.

This is a story surrounded by hate, pain and violence but it must be seen as an allegory to human passions and the hidden truth of love beyond all that.

This series itself retains something of a cult following - not least because of its distinctive tone and setting, which packages pounding martial arts action, a deconstruction of the family, as well as interesting homo-erotic undertones - all set in a Mad Max style post-catastrophe landscape. After a devastating global war, we are told, life for mankind has turned into a nightmarish struggle, not only because of the barren environment but through the depredations of mentally deranged, mutated savages.

Ranged against them, and all evildoers, is Kenshiro, master of a particular fighting technique, Hokuto Shinken, a virtually unbeatable martial skill that works on manipulating the secret power points of opponent's bodies, destroying them from within. Ken was trained up with his evil half-brother Shin, the Fist of the South Star, and who represents a polar opposite from him. He practices Nanto Seiken, a martial art that destroys from without. But Shin stole Ken's beloved Julia, this after fighting our hero, marking his chest with the seven distinctive scars which echo the sign of the Big Dipper and leaving him for dead. The narrative of Fist Of The North Star primarily consists of Ken's attempts to regain Julia and overcoming various champions of Shin.

The series makes almost no concessions to reality - not least of which are the sheer number of Shin's followers, duly met and thrashed on each occasion by Ken (or come to that, the amount of thin T-shirts which the hero destroys, then replaces unseen, with each encounter). His opponents are generally the mutants, who as a group are unsympathetic, grotesque and brutish. Many viewers have commented on the surreal arrogance of these killers, their bodies often drawn ridiculously out of proportion, towering over hero Ken and the regular humans. But mutation is just as it suggests, although the animators feel free to add to the macho incongruity of it all by adding Mohican haircuts, outrageous outfits and snarling dialogue. In comparison Ken is a model of sobriety, often warning his opponents to cease their activities before he strikes.

On his travels Ken is accompanied by two youthful helpers, both acquired in the first few episodes. One is the orphan girl Lynn and her puppy. The other is Bart, Ken's self styled 'business manager' as he makes clear in an earlier episode always, ostensibly on the fighters behalf, always looking for the main chance to profit from Ken's unique skills. Together with a repeated emphasis on Ken's lost love Julia, this group makes up a peculiarly fractured family, with normal relationships distorted by the world in which they find themselves. From this point of view, Ken's repeated attempts to get his woman back, as well as his repeated rescuing of social groupings (the mutants never have kin), equates a drive for regular familial balance.

The twist is North Star's visual insistence at the same time on butch body display and the repeated physical contact between the vaguely camp males making up the greatest number of dominant characters each week. (My favourite is the handlebar-moustached and splendidly named Colonel Mad, who fights with his blades dipped in scorpion venom.) In fact Ken faces no villainesses at all, at least until well into the second DVD volume. This is a series where the exaggerated torsos of the combatants is a hallmark, only equalled by their swollen braggadocio, itself suggestive of sexual taunting. Blood in the show is never the common red; rather it assumes a weird milky colour, exploding into the air at the climax of each encounter, while Ken's characteristic chest scarring was symbolically produced by the slow penetration of his skin by Shin's powerful fingers - a moment echoed later in the series. The result of all this imagery is thematic psychosis, arguably as pronounced as that enjoyed by the mutants who populate the landscape of future Earth: heterosexual Ken has a lady love and two children in tow; 'other' Ken with his body builder physique, has an intense relationship with his half brother, wears tight T-shirts and sleeveless jackets, and spills all that uniquely coloured blood in one casual encounter after another...

The distinctive 1980s' animation style is an advantage when depicting such a barren landscape, the desolation of which also reflecting Ken's emotional emptiness, deprived of Julia's presumed humanising contact. Manga's box set offers generally excellent picture quality. Opinion has been divided over the relative merits of the two soundtracks on offer; the original Japanese suffers from its mono origins while the re-release English dub offers a more visceral techno musical score, which more easily conveys the urgent brutality of it all. However this reviewer, at least, prefers the original with its far more sympathetic voicing of Ken's young followers - his modern voice in particular makes of Bart an irritating brat - while the score, although less monolithic, has a contemporary charm. Most especially, each episode is interrupted for an on-screen announcement of the baroque martial technique Ken has selected for the current fight ('Spinning Wheel Explosive Punch', 'The Hundred Crack Fist', 'Mountain Splitting Wave', etc). The modern version does its best, but the original intonation makes such moments highlights in themselves.

Fist Of The North Star is full of such ritualistic moments: the repeated (and failed) attempts of Shin to woe Julia for instance, or the rending of Ken's red shirt; the various exploding heads, or the fighter's famous pronouncement over those opponents whom, it appears, he has just touched, and who continue their arrogance yet: "You are already dead." In addition, each of the episodes is named in vengeful, declamatory fashion: Villains! Ready Your One Way Ticket To Hell!; Stormy Times, Titanic Battles, Is Battle All That Awaits Me?; Sinners! Thy Name Is Fang! etc. It's a characteristic that seems bizarre to western eyes, but the self-awareness reveals something about the original, local deliberation behind the series. Seen today, despite - or because of - its extremes, and curious undertones, it remains strangely addictive.

Don't get me wrong, this manga production is seriously flawed in places. As most would point out, it is excessively gory. Heads pop and people explode, frequently. The plot, basically about a guy searching for his kidknapped girlfriend, in a post nuclear war ravaged planet, is kinda weak. The japanese humour may also annoy the less tolerant viewer but, and this is an important one- the excellency of this anime story is its perfect atmospherics and ambience. Forget the over-hyped Akira, (though it was much more stylish). FOTNS is a triumph for its desolate tone, and great portrayl of post-apocalyptic isolation.

"Hokuto no Ken" ("Fist of the North Star," 1984) took its cue from the Australian movies, MAD MAX (1979) and THE ROAD WARRIOR (aka MAD MAX 2, 1981), and pioneered a new style of violent animated action on Japanese television. It presented a more exaggerated version of the movies' post-apocalyptic landscape and its roving bands of savage bikers with Mohawk haircuts, spiked leather and bulging muscles who ravage the budding communities trying to rebuild society in a bleak and devastated terrain. Into the role of defender of the weak steps Ken, master of Hoto Shin Ken, or Fist of the North star, an intricate martial arts system that wreaks havoc on his opponents' nervous systems and causes all kinds of fatal disfigurements, usually an exploding decapitation. The stoic, deadpan Ken brooks no argument with those who offend him and spends most of the series ridding the landscape of these musclebound cretins. To balance out the constant violence with regular doses of sentiment, Ken's empathetic qualities are drawn out by the presence of two children, an adolescent harmonica-playing boy and a young girl saddled with a puppy, who become Ken's companions for much of the series.

While the violence is quite gruesome, the gore is muted by depicting the exploding heads in silhouette or shadow and having the spurting body fluids colored neutral hues. The carnage is, nevertheless, particularly satisfying because we get to watch dozens of murderous thugs get wasted, one by one, in colorful and imaginative ways. (The 1986 animated feature version of this series, also called FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, was much more explicit in its bloodshed.)

The first series lasted for 109 episodes, from 1984 to 1987, while a second series (1987-88) lasted 43 episodes. A number of episodes from the first season have been released in the U.S. and include the first story arc (22 episodes), which involves Ken's quest for vengeance against Shin, his one-time buddy and master of the Fist of the Southern Cross, who took Ken's girl away from him--by force--and left him with a seven-mark scar in the form of Ursa Major, the Big Dipper (or Great Bear) constellation. The second story arc gave Ken a new and equally formidable opponent in Raoh, master of Nanto Suichoken, a technique which literally slices opponents into pieces.

The animation does an expert job of recreating the stark imagery of the original manga (comic book), which was written by "Buronson" and drawn by Tetsuo Hara, capturing the near-desert landscape and spectacular urban ruins in evocative detail. The character design is equally well-etched, with great linework applied to even the most transient characters. Color is used well in both the parched quality of the arid landscape and the flamboyant nature of the rampaging biker gangs with their clown makeup and playing card gang motifs. There's a wash quality, suggesting water colors, in some of the background art. It should be pointed out that the hard-edged look and tone of the series is something traditional pen-and-ink animation could do so well but is much harder to achieve in the overly slick digital animation era in which anime finds itself today. A series like FIST is more to be valued because of the near impossibility of duplicating such an effort today.

It's with great pleasure that I be the first critic to write the review for "Fist Of The North Star".

After writing several number one reviews, I will write a great review for this incredible anime.

Fist of The North Star is based on the movie and manga which has been one of the top anime fan picks ever!!!

It's based on a post nuclear society in which their is no law. Only the strong shall survive.

Kenshiro , the hero of our story is part several brothers of the Hotushin school of Martial Arts.

His Brother Jagi, Toki and his friend Shin all were honest, fighters, but all their hearts became evil.

Jagi became jealous with envy after the leader of the school chose Kenshiro as the new leader of the school.

Jagi tries to kill his brother, but Kenshiro using several moves including his "North Star Death Fist" stops Jagi and leaves Jagi face disfigured and ugly.

But this is only the beginning as Kenshiro, remeniscent of the Clint Eastwood Western character, travels to place to place battling Evil and giving hope and entertainment to the people he meets.

I am laughing right now, because I have all the episodes on tape, and I keep getting amazed with every episode I see.

The series is hard to find, but through my best friend I've gotten it on tape.

I am sure they are people who would love to see this series, so email me if you want it.

Back to the series:

Fantastic action!!! Unbelievable moves and many groundbreaking animation scenes make "Fist Of The North Star" one of the greatest anime ever made.