This Week in Retro: Fist of the North Star [2005] (Patreon)

December 6, 2005: Sega and Arc System Works Declare: "You Are Already Dead"

by Diamond Feit

Grab a seat, kids: It’s time to tell the tale of Post-Apocalyptic Martial Arts Jesus.

The year is 1983, the place is Japan, and the two names you need to know are Tetsuo Hara and Buronson. Okay, technically that second one is a pseudonym (derived from Charles Bronson, whom he allegedly resembles). What matters is that these two men are the creators of Hokuto no Ken, a new manga series in Weekly Shōnen Jump.

Hokuto no Ken is set in the far-off future of "199X," where our planet has been devastated by nuclear war and society is in ruins. Yet humanity survives, albeit in a savage state where food is scarce and life is cheap. The protagonist, Kenshiro, is a quiet man in a leather jacket who walks the Earth on a quest to protect the helpless, now that violence rules the world.

Kenshiro's secret weapon: His mastery of an ancient martial art known as "Hokuto Shinken," a fighting style that is capable of manipulating the body's pressure points in such a way that a single touch can render a human numb, increase their sensitivity to pain, or even rupture their body with explosive force. Moreover, Kenshiro can strike an unsuspecting person and tell them he has delivered a fatal blow which will kill them in seconds, leading to his famous catchphrase, "Omae wa mō shindeiru." ("You are already dead.")

Kenshiro has a distinct set of seven scars on his chest in the shape of the Big Dipper, a constellation known in Japan as Hokuto Shichisei—hence the title of the series. Ken means "fist," but since "Big Dipper's Fist" would intimidate exactly no one, the eventual English title would be Fist of the North Star.

Hokuto no Ken wears its influences on its torn-off sleeves. Kenshiro is an amalgam of the late Bruce Lee and 1980s superstars Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson. Gibson, of course, became famous thanks to his work in Mad Max and The Road Warrior, two post-apocalyptic films which also directly inspired the setting of the manga, as well as Kenshiro's distinct fashion choices. When the manga Hokuto no Ken proved to be an instant success in Japan, a prime-time television anime adaptation debuted just one year later. This in turn was followed by a theatrical animated feature two years after that. That film would eventually be included in the earliest wave of Japanese anime localized for the United States by Carl Macek and Streamline Pictures, back when I was in high school and Disney animated musicals were all the rage; the New York Times called Fist of the North Star "a 100-minute orgy of blood and martial-arts violence," so you can imagine how quickly every frame of the film permanently imprinted itself upon my brain.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. 1983 was the year Hokuto no Ken debuted. It was also the year Nintendo and Sega released their Famicom and SG-1000 consoles in Japan, and if ever there was a manga series that demanded a video game adaptation, it was the one starring a guy who doesn't talk much but punches goon after goon until they explode. Hokuto no Ken would see 12 different video game releases in a span of less than 10 years, though precious few of these would appear outside Japan—and of those that did, most were stripped of their license and left as generic beat-em-ups. Ever wonder what was up with that oddly intense Sega Genesis launch title Last Battle? In Japan, it was Sega's second attempt at a Hokuto no Ken game (the first also being released abroad, without a license, as Black Belt).

Sadly, even those games that retained the license weren't much better: The lone Game Boy Hokuto no Ken game appeared in the U.S. in 1990 as Fist of the North Star: 10 Big Brawls for the King of the Universe; in his video on the subject, Retronauts' Jeremy Parish says "it sucks."

It would take time, but eventually the seven stars would align and a publisher would get it right—or two publishers, even: On December 6, 2005, Sega collaborated with Arc System Works to release an original Hokuto no Ken fighting game in arcades. It was not the first time the franchise had waded into coin-op waters, but it would be the first straight-up fighting game in the series to leave Japan since that aforementioned Game Boy game. This one, however, does not suck.

Called simply Hokuto no Ken in Japan and Fist of the North Star abroad, this 2005 game leans hard into the series' animated legacy. Despite a 21-year gap, the game features the original theme song from the 1984 Fuji TV animation, and most of the actors return to voice the same iconic characters they previously played. It's also loaded with fanservice, the kind that enhances a licensed property rather than bog it down with lore.

The fighters are huge and colorful, and are all capable of closing in on an opponent in seconds. Their moves are taken directly from the original series, right down to having the names of the moves shouted aloud as they are performed. Kenshiro can't punch a fool 100 times without having the words Hokuto Hyakuretsuken appear on the screen! Jagy even has a special attack that triggers dialogue boxes for his opponent to choose how to respond to his taunts.

The game's biggest innovation is the meter beneath a character's life bar shaped like the Big Dipper. During the match, certain super moves or situations will remove a star (or two, or three) from your opponent's meter. Once their foe’s meter has been emptied, a player may attempt a "Fatal K.O." move that scores an instant win if it connects, regardless of how full the opponent's life bar may be. Not only are these the flashiest moves in the game, some recreate entire scenes from the source material. There's even a unique option for Shin, Kenshiro's rival in combat as well as in love, to commit suicide when his meter is empty in order to deny his foe the satisfaction of killing him—just like he did during his dramatic confrontation with Kenshiro in the manga/TV show.

What really makes Fist of the North Star such a memorable arcade game, however, is its utter lack of fair play. Fighting games have always struggled to maintain a balance between playable characters, and patches or re-releases fine tune the inner workings and squash bugs to ensure that no character is too powerful. But over time, players discovered that in Fist of the North Star, every character in the game is capable of performing infinitely-long combo attacks under the right conditions. Look up footage from any tournament and you'll see players bouncing their opponents from the sky to the ground and back again, as if they were a basketball made of leather and bone. Despite this discovery, the game was never "fixed," so to this day it remains just as "broken" as it was 15 years ago, because that's what players have come to love about it.

For a 2005 arcade release, Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star was given a surprisingly raw deal. The game was ported to the PS2—not PS3—in 2007, and it was never released outside Japan, even though the arcade game had an English translation. Whether this was due to licensing rights or the fact that 2D fighting games were in the doldrums in the late 2000s, we shall never know. However, fans have stepped in where corporations dare not tread: As of November 2020, the arcade original has been ported to the Sega Dreamcast.

As Hokuto no Ken approaches its 40th year, the property remains beloved in Japan. Video game adaptations continue to be produced at varying levels of quality, with the past decade seeing Kenshiro and company being grafted onto other franchises. Koei Tecmo made a pair of Dynasty Warriors spinoffs called Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage, which were panned, but two years ago a Yakuza spinoff called Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise was a critical and financial hit.

Meanwhile, despite its grandfatherly status among anime properties in the United States, you're not going to find a lot of Americans willing to say that Fist of the North Star is their "favorite." Akira is beloved, Ranma ½ is beloved, but Fist of the North Star is just kind of there, casting a long, muscular shadow over dozens of similar properties that followed in its bloody wake. Even I can't say it's my go-to anime—I have a soft spot for the 1986 film, but each time I try to sit through the series, I can't quite make it past the Shin saga. However, that original 1984 theme song is certainly my go-to karaoke jam, and in the year 202X, once this pandemic has passed, I know I'll be belting out "You wa SHOCK" at the top of my lungs for anyone who will listen.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan and is an active Twitter user.