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Fist of the North Star Manga Cover

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"In the year 199X, the world was engulfed in nuclear flames. The seas dried up and the earth was split. Virtually all forms of life were rendered extinct. However, humanity survived... The people waited for a savior who could bring light back to the desolate century's end."
Narrator, Chapter/Episode 1
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The time of retribution... DECIDE THE DESTINY!

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Hokuto no Ken (北斗の拳), known to English-speakers as Fist of the North Star, is the quintessential "guy who looks and sounds like Bruce Lee wandering the post-apocalyptic wasteland makes people explode with his fists and cries lots of Manly Tears" manga. Essentially Mad Max meets a Bruce Lee film, Hokuto no Ken became a classic of 80s Shonen Demographic manga, and subject to many parodies, seen in sources such as Seto no Hanayome, Excel Saga, and School Rumble (but none so much so as Bobobobo Bobobo). The manga, written by Yoshiyuki "Buronson" Okamura and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara, lasted nearly six years in Weekly Shonen Jump with 27 collected volumes.

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic future, after a nuclear war sometime during the 1990s has levelled civilization. The world is now covered with bands of mohawked ruffians who prey on the weak. Enter our hero Kenshiro alias Ken, a young man who wanders from town to town, searching for his kidnapped girlfriend Yuria, vowing revenge on his rival Shin (her kidnapper), and helping those who cannot help themselves. Fortunately for Kenshiro, he is the rightful successor to the Hokuto Shinken ("North Star God Fist") style, a legendary assassination art that utilizes the keiraku hiko pressure points of the body to make enemies explode.

After the conclusion of the Shin arc, the story gradually shifts its main focus to Kenshiro's battle against Raoh, the eldest of his adoptive brothers, a would-be world conqueror who was also trained in the ways of Hokuto Shinken by their mutual master. Since the law of Hokuto Shinken only allows the style to be passed on from one master to a single pupil, it becomes Kenshiro's duty to stop his brother Raoh from using the style to fulfill his own ambitions.

The latter half of the manga, set several years after Raoh's defeat, has Kenshiro rejoining his former sidekicks Bat and Lin, now the grown-up leaders of the Hokuto Army, as they fight off the Celestial Emperor's army led by the corrupt Viceroy Jakoh. While Ken and his friends are successful in defeating Jakoh and his forces, not long afterward, Lin is kidnapped and taken to the Kingdom of Shura, catapulting Ken into a war with the three warlords of Shura, who are all masters of Hokuto Ryuken ("North Star Lapis Lazuli Fist"), a martial art which branched off from the same clan that developed Hokuto Shinken.

While the anime series ends with Kenshiro's final fight against Kaioh, the manga continues with a few additional story arcs involving Kenshiro's adventures into new frontiers with a young boy named Ryu (Raoh's orphaned son from an unknown woman), as well as a true resolution to the love triangle between Ken, Lin and Bat.

Body counts are often in the dozens per chapter and any major fight is usually followed immediately by Kenshiro shedding Manly Tears for the fallen, having discovered that his opponent was noble all along, but just misguided. Even if he had been, for example, kidnapping children and laboring them to death in order to build himself a giant pyramid.

Despite the manga's popularity in Japan, the manga was only partially translated in English twice before both attempts were canceled (first by Viz Media during the 80s and 90s in a series of monthly comics, and later by Coamix's short-lived American subsidiary of Gutsoon Entertainment in the early 2000s as a series of colorized graphic novels), until 2021 when a full translation effort, once again by Viz, began to tackle the rest of the series in hardcover, monochrome format.

In addition to the original manga, there have also been various anime adaptations and spin-offs:

  • Fist of the North Star: The Animated Series - Weekly anime adaptation by Toei Animation that aired from 1984 to 1988. The series follows the manga's storyline closely for the most part, with plenty of Filler material added to prevent it from overtaking the source material. In Japan, the anime actually aired under two titles: the original Hokuto no Ken (109 episodes, covering the first four parts of the manga all the way up to Kenshiro's final battle with Raoh) and Hokuto no Ken 2 (43 episodes covering the Celestial Emperor and Kaioh Sagas). The first 36 episodes were dubbed during the late 90s by Manga Entertainment and shown on Showtime Beyond and Sci-Fi Channel UK. The remainder of the series were released subbed-only via various video streaming sites and is currently available on DVD by Discotek.
  • Fist of the North Star: The Movie - A 1986 anime film by Toei that loosely follows the manga's storyline from Kenshiro's origin story on how he got his seven scars to his first battle with Raoh. Many English-speaking anime fans were first exposed to the franchise in the form of its English dub by Streamline Pictures released during the early 1990s.
  • New Fist of the North Star (Shin Hokuto no Ken) - A three-part OVA series released between 2003 and 2004 set years after the end of the original manga. The story is actually an adaptation of a Hokuto no Ken novel known as The Cursed City which Buronson and Hara published in 1995. Released by ADV Films during the mid 2000s.
  • Legends of the True Savior (Shin Kyuseishu Densetsu) - A five-part movie/OVA series produced between 2006 and 2008 that serves as remakes and side-stories of the original manga.
    • Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Martyred Love (2006 movie)
    • Legend of Yuria (2007 OVA)
    • Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Fierce Fighting (2007 movie)
    • Legend of Toki (2008 OVA)
    • Legend of Kenshiro (2008 movie, serves as a prequel to the series)
  • An upcoming 40th anniversary TV Anime remake, announced by the manga's authors on September 13, 2023.

There's also been spin-offs centering around certain popular side-characters from the original series, enough to create a sizable Expanded Universe:

  • Souten no Ken/Fist of the Blue Sky - 22-volume prequel series starring Kenshiro's uncle and namesake, Kenshiro Kasumi. (named after the pilot's version of Kenshiro) Adapted into a short-lived anime series.
    • Fist of the Blue Sky: RE-Genesis: Direct sequel to Fist of the Blue Sky.
  • Hokuto Gaiden: Overarching label for several series and one-shots based aroubd the side stories of other characters in the franchise.
    • Ten no Haoh/Legends of the Dark King - 5-volume spinoff starring Raoh, which was adapted into an anime series and then a video game.
    • Soukoku no Garou/Bloody Wolf's Darkness Blue - 6-volume spinoff starring Rei.
      • Rei Gaiden - Kareinaru Fukushusha - Two one-shots also starring Rei.
    • Shirogane no Seija/Silvery Savior - 6-volume spinoff starring Toki.
    • Jibo no Hoshi/Merciful Mother Star - 1-volume spinoff starring Yuria.
    • Gokuaku no Hana/Flower of Carnage - 2-volume spinoff starring Jagi.
    • Houkou no Kumo /Way of the Clouds - 2-volume spinoff starring Juza the Cloud.
    • Hokuto no Ken Ryuken Gaiden -THE JUDGEMENT DAY-/Ryuken's Story: The Judgement Day - One-shot prequel chapter starring Ryuken, centered around how he chose the Hokuto Shinken successor and the events related to it.
    • Kin'yoku no Garuda - 1-volume spinoff introducing Canon Foreigner Garuda, who would also apear in a pachislot game.
  • DD Fist of the North Star - A chibi-styled spinoff clearly not set in the main universe of the series putting the cast in the modern day.
  • Fist of the North Star: Strawberry Flavor: A What If storyline where Souther earnestly tries to befriend Kenshiro, as Hilarity Ensues. Additionally, the series contains one-shot chapters covering further expansion of the main universe.
    • Heart of Meet - One-shot prequel chapter starring Mr. Heart.
    • Nanto of Meet - One-Shot prequel chapter starring Souther.
    • RedBlue - One-shot prequel chapter starring Huey and Shuren.
    • Scrap Mountain - One-shot prequel chapter starring Fudo.
    • Ultimate Desire One-shot prequel chapter starring Yuda.
    • Right on King - One-shot prequel chapter starring Shin.

There have also been countless video games, most notably;

  • Fist of the North Star 4 - Beyond Hokuto Shinken: An NES RPG with a story serving as a sequel to the series starring a new cast, even featuring supporting characters like Ryu. The events are surprisingly compatible with The Cursed City/New Fist of the North Star
  • Fist of the North Star 5: SNES RPG set in an Alternate Universe allowing all the heroes to fight together.
  • Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise: Wide Open Sandbox featuring a new storyline.

All this, as well as an Americanized Live Action Adaptation, plus two unofficial ones: one made in Korea and another in Taiwan.

A massive Character Sheet of the cast is currently under construction.

For Wild Mass Guessing Just-For-Fun, go here.

Tropes used in Fist of the North Star include:
  • 108: The number of branches of Nanto Seiken.
  • Abduction Is Love: "I can't carry them all. Hey, the rest of you will walk!" …and they do. Juza rules.
  • Abnormal Ammo: Guns are relatively common in the wasteland, but apparently making bullets is a lost art, so they tend to shoot knives or other weird projectiles instead.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Rei has absurdly sharp fingers. His martial art style is based off of creating a cutting force right at the tips of his fingers or the edge of his hands, allowing him to slice men in half with a simple clawing motion that seems to miss them by about an inch.
  • Adaptation Distillation:
    • The Sega-produced, Arc System Works-developed Fighting Game is considered to be an exceptional capture of the spirit of the series. The high Shout-Out and Mythology Gag quotient helps. They even throw in very character-specific moments, such as Souther being immune to Ken's Hokuto Zankai Ken or Rei's Defeat by Modesty of Mamiya.
    • From the reviews so far and the fact it already surpassed half a million sold copies as of April 9, 2010, Hokuto Musou (known as Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage in western markets) is an even MORE loyal and loving adaptation of the source material. Both Buronson and Hara were heavily involved in the creative process of the game, pushing the creative team to make a story that would work well in a game.
    • The 1986 movie rearranges a Kudzu Plot into a more streamlined narrative. The Legends of the True Saviour movies would count, too. Even the original anime manages to streamline the plot a bit by reducing a few minor villains to underlings of bigger threats.
  • Adaptation Dye Job: The original anime version by Toei changed the hair colors of some of the characters. Most of the later anime productions by North Star Pictures reverted back to their manga hair colors.
  • Adaptation Expansion:
    • The anime, although it toned down some of the violence and had quite a lot of filler, also actually develops many characters beyond what they were developed in the manga. Shin, in particular, is given a much more prominent role and exploration of his backstory and motivations, making him a much more sympathetic character. They also add in a lot of variations of the Nanto Seiken schools, many interesting mini-bosses and civilians (including several Badass Bystanders), new towns (and even naming random locations visited in the manga), and show more of the daily lifestyles and cultures that emerged after the nuclear war.
    • Part of Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's involvement in Hokuto Musou was to create new moves for every character so they'd have an expanded move-list. This actually means that not only are said moves canon, they also show what many characters that didn't get a chance to really showcase themselves were capable of. This is especially welcome with the Nanto Seiken characters, like Shin and Souther.
  • Adaptation Name Change: Shin's Nanto Gokuto Ken technique ("South Star Hell Butcher Fist"), which he uses to defeat Kenshiro in their first battle, became Nanto Gokusatsu Ken ("South Star Hell Slaughter Fist") in the anime in order to avoid offending the Buraku people (a historically ostracized ethnic minority in Japan known primarily for working in butcher shops). Other changes included the Golan organization becoming God's Army and Misumi (the elderly farmer killed by Mr. Spade in the second episode) becoming Smith.
  • After the End: The series takes place after a nuclear war, with a few characters being affected by radiation poisoning. The prequel, Fist Of The Blue Sky takes place in pre-World-War-II Japanese-occupied China.
  • Air Jousting: Ken and Shin engage in a splash panel's worth this in their first fight, and it became the most famous single panel of the series (which is saying a lot). Anime parodies of Fist of the North Star frequently refer to this panel, with Ken and Shin's legs crossed in midair. Also, Ken and Raoh jump straight up to do a little air jousting later. Usually, though, jumping attacks are carried out against opponents on the ground.
    • The anime adds the Hichō Kūzan Pa ("Flying Bird Air Slash Wave") and the Hokuto Kokū Zan ("North Star Void Slash") to Ken's arsenal.
  • All There in the Manual: The only time the name of Shin's Nanto branch (Nanto Koshū Ken) was ever revealed was in the 1986 special magazine Hokuto no Ken Special: All About the Man.
  • All Your Powers Combined: Another one of the effects of Musou Tensei[1] is to commune with the souls of dead friends and allies and harness their strength and skills.
  • Aloof Big Brother: Raoh, although this is eventually subverted.
  • And Knowing Is Half the Battle: During the Animated Adaptation of the Raoh Saga, Executive Meddling and Moral Guardians forced Toei Animation to put Kenshiro into contrived situations where he spares the lives of kids who are about to go down the wrong path, and deliver heavy-handed life lessons ("You may steal to stay alive, but keep doing it and you'll grow to like it and become real villains, then I will REALLY kill you") with the subtlety of a brick. Thankfully, this is not done to the detriment of the plot and the story's thematic soul, unlike the post-Shura storyline of the manga, which was left un-animated for this very reason.
  • And the Adventure Continues...: The manga ending. As the "credits" is shown, Kenshiro is again wandering the wasteland and making the world a better place, one exploding head at a time.
  • And This Is For: Kenshiro does this to Jagi in their rematch.
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Kenshiro: "This is for Shin! The fists you are about to feel... ARE FOR YURIA! This is for the two little boys you tortured! And this last one... this is for the man whose life you destroyed! This... is... MY RAGE!"

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  • Anime Theme Song: Ai Wo Torimodose, the theme song for the original anime series is one of the most well-known anime theme songs ever, and it is absolutely synonymous with the series. Any adaptation of the series in other media that uses ANY song from the anime will use Ai Wo Torimodose. It is also considered by many to be one of the most Hot-Blooded anime theme songs ever and, apart from that, if you go through the lyrics - you'll find yourself shedding Manly Tears.
  • Anyone Can Die: Right up there with Gundam and The Sopranos for riding this trope hard. Colorful, unique, intriguing characters are introduced only to die horribly soon (or not so soon) afterwards. A demoralizing borderline Mind Screw that pushes the setting's nihilism and terror right in your face. Of course, seeing how few in number the main protagonists are, this may not necessarily be true. Sometimes, this is taken to Kill'Em All levels. The only character still breathing by the end of the Kenshiro Den prequel movie is Kenshiro himself!
    • Basically, if you're a character whose name isn't Kenshiro, Bat, Lin, Mamiya, Airi, or Ryu, chances are you're going to die very soon.
  • The Apunkalypse: After the End, the punk lifestyle seems to be all the rage, as is Post Apunkalyptic Armor.
  • Arc Welding: As the manga went on, it was not uncommon to weave in earlier and seemingly unrelated story arcs into current ones. When Jagi was first introduced, it turns out he was the one who brainwashed Shin into betraying Ken. Likewise, Jagi is later revealed to have been a servant of Ken-oh along with Amiba. The anime did this even more; demoting the Colonel and Jackal to mere minions of Shin.
  • The Artifact:
    • The original theme song, Ai Wo Torimodose, is about Kenshiro's quest to rescue Yuria from Shin. It's still used as the anime's opening theme after the end of the Bloody Cross Saga until the switch to "Silent Survivor" in the Raoh Saga.
    • The theme of God's Army is still used throughout the series, even after Kenshiro destroys the organization. It most notably becomes the theme of Holy Emperor Souther and his army.
  • Artistic License Astronomy: The Southern Cross is closely associated with Nanto Seiken, to the point that it's even used as the crest for the school. In reality, the Nanto constellation is an unrelated Chinese constellation that's a rough equivalent to the South Dipper, which forms part of Sagittarius.
  • Artistic License Martial Arts: The martial arts featured are not exactly realistic, but they are certainly cool.
  • Ascended Extra: Some of the side characters from the manga are given more exposure in Toei's anime version than they had in the original manga. Most notably Shin, who was promoted from Token Motivational Nemesis to Big Bad of the first season.
  • Audience Surrogate: Bat and Lin, in the early chapters, mainly existed for Kenshiro to have someone to provide exposition to.
  • Awesome By Analysis: Amiba plans to become adept in the Hokuto Shinken style by experimenting with human guinea pigs to discover the pressure points that are quintessential to it.
  • Awesome Yet Practical: The narrator describes Nanto Suichoken as a very elegant but deadly killing technique.
  • Bad Powers, Good People:
    • Kenshiro is the successor to the deadly martial art known as Hokuto Shinken, which relies on hitting pressure points to kill your enemies in very gruesome ways (usually by making their heads explode). Ken also happens to be one of the kindest people in the entire Crapsack World he inhabits, and uses the pressure point techniques of the art to heal as well as kill.
    • This applies to his adoptive brother Toki as well, who uses the same assassin's art that Kenshiro does. He does so as a kindly, almost messianic doctor, using Hokuto Shinken to heal diseases and afflictions, even though he himself has terminal radiation sickness.
    • Shu, a benevolent blind warrior who looks after orphaned children, uses the Nanto Hakuroken style, which involves the ability to slice people to pieces by kicking them. In one instance, he performs a Hurricane Kick so potent that it cleanly decapitates everyone within a ten-foot radius.
  • Badass:
    • Kenshiro is one of anime's first and foremost examples. Of course, there's also Raoh and Rei. Shin, Souther and Kaioh get props for being the only fighters in the series to beat Kenshiro. Ken is so Badass his primary way to teach the bad guys an important lesson is to kill them.
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Ken: "You won't learn unless I kill you."

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    • The final test for the would-be successors to Hokuto Shinken was an encounter with a ferocious tiger. In the presence of Raoh, the tiger desperately lashed out and Raoh killed it, but in Kenshiro's case, the tiger had backed down through his sheer badassery - leading to Ryuken picking Kenshiro.
  • Badass Beard: Toki, what with being the spitting image of Jesus and all.
    • Kenshiro gets one in the 1986 film.
  • Badass Normal: Jackal. In a world of flesh-melting kung fu mega-powers, he becomes an important villain by using dynamite and concealed blades and remembering where Villainy Prison is.
    • Ein and Adult!Bat count as well.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Endemic amongst the main cast and villains, given all the superpowered martial arts going around. Anyone fighting with weapons is a mook, a Red Shirt, or some other kind of minor speed-bump for their unarmed opponents.
  • Bash Brothers:
    • Famously Ken and Rei, but at one point, Raoh and Toki (who actually are brothers) teamed up on their way to see Kenshiro's second confrontation of Souther.
    • Raiga and Fuga, the Sibling Team gatekeepers of Cassandra Prison, also qualify.
    • Buzz and Gill Harn, the Nanto Soyoken practitioners in the second series. Like Raiga and Fuga before them, they were a Sibling Team of twins who started out as somewhat antagonistic but eventually allied with Kenshiro. They manage to rip several of Falco's soldiers to pieces before dying in a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Battle Aura: Hokuto Shinken allows its practitioner to increase their strength by using an inner energy called "touki", which literally means "battle aura". Taken a step further with the art itself: A character's presence is directly reflected in the size they're drawn. This of course means that the noisy, reckless, and above all else, LOUD henchmen are rarely less than twice as large as any other character, with rare exceptions. As a side effect, characters' actual sizes are impossible to tell without reading some supplementary material.
  • Beard of Sorrow: In the 1986 film version, Ken grows one after losing to Shin, which makes him look totally like an 80s-era Chuck Norris. Its presence in the scene where he meets Bat and Lin by saving them from a gang of bandits makes him all the more badass.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness:
    • Attractive villains are treated with sympathy when they die, even if they aren't actually sympathetic (looking at you, Yuda and Souther). Ugly villains are killed with no remorse, often for comedy. On the other hand, the attractive/handsome villains are more likely to actually show remorse of their own in the first place... but also understanding of what they've done, even if they see themselves as irredeemable. The handful of exceptions to the trend can be counted on a single hand; these being Amiba (who is killed in a less than pleasing advanced form), Patra (anime-exclusive Monster of the Week, and it is implied her beautiful appearance is not her true form), and the Colonel (who is only plain-looking, rather than ugly).
    • In the second Raoh Den movie, Fudoh attacks Kenshiro, but the latter does not attack Fudoh's pressure points. When asked, Kenshiro replies that Fudoh has "the face of a good man".
  • Berserk Button:
    • Hurting innocent people (especially children) in front of Kenshiro is an automatic death sentence.
    • Mr. Heart flips out and attacks people indiscriminately if he sees his own blood. Joker uses this fact to his advantage when Heart fights Kenshiro in the anime's fourth episode.
    • Garekki, the leader of the Gold Wolf Army, takes his meal times dead seriously; if you try to convince him that it's a bad idea, he'll slice you in half with a sword.
  • BFS: Four mooks team up to swing one gigantic sword in order to kill Shu. They fail and get horribly killed for their trouble.
    • Arguably, Uighur's helmet whips are the whip equivalent of this.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Kenshiro.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The first series ends with Kenshiro defeating Raoh and riding off with Yuria... who is dying of radiation poisoning.
  • Bolivian Army Ending: The intro shows Ken about to deliver a flying kick to a giant mutant gorilla thing.
  • Black and Gray Morality: The thugs and warlords that populate the wasteland rape, pillage and murder to their heart's content, and any attempts to keep them in line tend to be marginally less brutal. Even Raoh looks good compared to them.
  • Black Blood: Being made before the days when violent anime is screened during midnight, desaturated, black or white blood was the only way that Fist of the North Star could air on television at all. Over the course of the first season, this appears to have gradually been phased out for normal red-coloured blood, with the black and white bursts of blood being used primarily for when bodily fluids erupt out of wounds.
    • There is still some genuine red blood in the anime TV series, most notably when Shin cripples Kenshiro in their first fight. You will never see it when Kenshiro makes a random mook's head violently explode, however.
    • In the 1986 film, red blood is present throughout - and plenty of gore and entrails to go with it.
  • Black Humor: Kenshiro's treatment of many villains oozes that, like when he killed a Mook with a Groin Attack so strong that sent him flying and beating the hammer throw record of the head mook and his assistant.
  • Blood Upgrade: Mr. Heart.
  • Born Lucky: Curiously enough, the Big Bad Raoh of the series. He should have been dead several times over before the end of the series, but survives long enough for his final battle with Kenshiro. Oh, what the hell, let's count all of the lucky breaks he got.
    • First of all, his improbable emigration from the Land of Shura.
    • A chance encounter with Juza the Cloud in his childhood, which gives him the Aesop he needs to avoid a fatal ass-kicking.
    • The second person who could stop him, his father Ryuken, suffers a fatal heart attack right before he stopped Raoh from assuming the mantle of Big Bad.
    • The third person who could stop him, Toki, suffered crippling radiation poisoning and was just shy of having enough strength of finishing Raoh off for good.
    • A trap meant as a last-ditch resort to finish off Raoh actually ends up allowing Raoh to escape and kidnap Yuria.
    • In terms of his reputation, he also "died lucky" in the sense that he's lionized for the rest of the manga after his death too, both in and out-of-universe (that is, both by characters' words and in the context of the manga's events).
  • Bowdlerise:
    • The violence from the manga was toned down considerably in the anime, with many of the violent deaths and blood being rendered in black and white and scenes involving children's deaths (such as Bat's adoptive brother Taki or the kid who ate poisoned bread in Shu's hideout) were rewritten to have Kenshiro save the child at the last moment. In spite of this, the show still attracted the negative attention of Moral Guardians in Japan.
    • Toei Animation attempted to avert this with the movie, which retained the manga's ultra-violent nature. Unfortunately, like above, it caught the attention of Moral Guardians and Toei was forced to censor most of the film's violence for future home video releases. However, the Italian VHS has most of the gore completely uncensored.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Bat is practically the ur-example of this.
  • Brown Note: Inverted when Fudoh the Mountain instantly experiences a Heel Face Turn after holding a warm puppy in his hands.
  • Bruce Lee Clone: Kenshiro, especially his battle cry.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Complete with the kanji for the attack name printed on screen, which is subject to lots of parodies. It is, however, an inversion of this trope: most of the time, they call their attacks after using them.
    • The fact that Ken's iconic Touch of Death has a delay also helps, since he can tell his victims the name of his attacks after it's too late for them to do anything about them.
  • Camp Gay: Yuda. Also very harshly subverted when we get into his backstory. There's also Mr. Heart.
  • Canon Immigrant: Filler character Saki, a servant of Yuria, appears in the Yuria Gaiden manga.
    • Movie characters Reina and Souga are main characters in the Ten no Haoh manga.
    • The character Sakuya was created for the anime Legends of the Dark King and was incorporated into two manga specials by the original manga's author.
  • Cash Cow Franchise: 28 YEARS after the first chapter was published, Hokuto No Ken is STILL churning out new (spin-off) manga, merchandise and video games by the year...
  • Cast Full of Pretty Boys: In the original series, only Rei and Jyuza were considered to be handsome, but of course, that was only in-universe and fans had more choices to pick and argue about; the spin-offs though, tends to scale up the cast's beauty by a notch, Yuria Gaiden in particular makes every single character a fine piece, if some were already pretty to begin with, they got even more handsome, even Jagi out of all people didn't look disgusting in this particular spin-off.
  • Catch Phrase:
    • "Omae wa mo shindeiru" ("You Are Already Dead"). Memetically mutated into a general statement of badassery. There's also the "Omae wa sude ni shindeiru" variation, which means the same thing. This one is almost forgotten by most fans, and some even believe that it doesn't exist, due to how rare it is. One example of its use is found in the episode "Villains! Say Your Prayers Before You Die!!" when Madame Patra's henchmen are at the receiving end of an attack that breaks their spines.
      • Made even more awesome by it continually being translated as the more defiant "You don't even know you're already dead".
    • Many of the villains Kenshiro kills have a tendency to utter an onomatopoeia such as "ABESHI!" and "TAWABA!" when they die. The most notable is "HIDEBU!", a corruption of "ite yo!" ("it hurts!") which was first uttered by Mr. Heart in the manga and was uttered very often in the anime adaptation (even by Zeed, who precedes Heart in the story).
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Even though being an Asian martial arts series somewhat obviates this trope (i.e., the genre demands it of everyone anyway), there's still Ein. This American-flag clad bounty hunter employs no fancy techniques, defeats enemies (and barriers) by simply punching them, and claims to know the vaguely named Kenka Kenpo ("brawling martial art"). One could argue that being so strong, despite a lack of formal martial art skills, puts him in this category in a setting where Chinese martial arts generally lead to superpowers.
  • The Chosen Many: Nanto Seiken, the rival school of Hokuto Shinken, has 108 branches.
  • Clothing Damage: Kenshiro lives in a world where you sometimes must literally give an arm and a leg for basic necessities like food and fresh water, and yet can still afford to shred his expensive jacket every single episode and get a good-as-new replacement the next episode. Episode 23 shows Ken repairing a shoe, though, so perhaps Ken uses what limited resources he can find to repair his outfit. Then again, most of the time they're seen not just ripping, but outright disintegrating.
  • Colonel Badass: The Colonel of God's Army. Heidern and Rolento took notes from him.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Jagi made a career out of doing this, and him using a gun arguably isn't even the worse thing he did.
  • Competitive Balance: The deadliest techniques from the series are downplayed to fair levels in many game adaptations:
    • Hokuto Zankai-Ken: The move where Kenshiro hits the pressure points in both sides of his foe's head with his thumbs, the given time before death is 3 seconds (7 in the anime). In games, it becomes 30 seconds or more, and can be interrupted, as seen in the Arcade Fighter game and Jump Super Stars.
    • Hokuto Hyakuretsu-Ken: The famous Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, it only reaches the titular one hundred cracking fists when the attack is a special or desperation move. If not, it barely reaches 20 hits.
    • Any Nanto Seiken Technique: Nanto Seiken practitioners are shown to dismember lesser mooks easily, literally a One-Hit Kill, it's only downgraded against other Nanto and Hokuto fighters, where the move just cuts instead of outright dismembering, although in games, the mookiest of the mooks can't be killed instantly by the Nanto attacks.
    • Musou Tensei: The ultimate Hokuto Shinken art, the user becomes immune to everything thrown against him, it also channels the Hokuto Shinken Mega Manning powers to its maximum and the user can use all the techniques from his fallen comrades and foes at any time; in games, it's just a temporary Super Mode that is not immune against everything and does not channel Hokuto and Nanto arts in one go. In certain cases, it's just a counter-attack, a great one but still, as seen in Jump Super Stars.
  • Completely Different Title: Hokuto no Ken is officially translated as Fist of the North Star in English when it really should be Fist of the Big Dipper. This is an artifact from when Viz translated the manga in 1989. Instead of explaining what the names Hokuto and Nanto meant (the Northern and Southern Dippers, two Chinese constellations roughly corresponding with the Great Bear and Sagittarius), they changed the names of the two main martial art schools to North Star and Southern Cross respectively. The North Star is still somewhat related to the Great Bear, as the Big Dipper is used to locate it, but Southern Cross barely has anything to with Nanto other than the fact that it happens to be the name of Shin's capital city. Later translations stick to the styles' original names, but the English title is pretty much stuck as Fist of the North Star for recognizability purposes. Toei originally proposed the name Ken the Great Bear Fist and almost used that title for the NES game until they went with Viz's chosen title.
    • Fist of the North Star can be considered more of a localization than a direct translation of the Japanese title. The North Star and Southern Cross have historically been used as navigation aids. Considering that one of the themes of the story is who will lead the ruined Earth, it is fitting that the martial art schools of the main warriors would be named after beacons of guidance.
    • In Italy and France, the title was localized as Ken il guerriero (Ken the Warrior) and Ken le survivant (Ken the Survivor) respectively.
  • Commuting on a Bus: Mamiya and Airi after Rei dies.
  • Compressed Adaptation: The 1986 movie roughly adapts the initial 72 chapters of the original manga (or the first 49 episodes of the TV series) into a 2-hour film. This was mainly done by rearranging the order of events and focusing the plot on the franchise's now-iconic rivalry between Kenshiro and his brother Raoh, reducing the role of every other villain to extended cameos (with only Shin and Jagi getting sufficient development due to their importance to the plot). However, Toki (the second of the four Hokuto Brothers) was left out completely with not even a hint of his existence, and while Rei still appears, his love interest Mamiya does not, and he dies without his final challenge to his nemesis Yuda.
  • Continuity Drift: The latter part of the manga revealed that Kenshiro, Toki and Raoh were originally refugees from the Kingdom of Shura, where Raoh and Toki's mother was also buried. However, the first half of the manga already showed the ruins of Raoh and Toki's hometown, as well as the graves of both of Raoh and Toki's parents. Some adaptations choose to stick with the first origin story for Raoh and Toki, while others go with the Shura origin.
  • Cool Horse: Raoh's horse (which later becomes Kenshiro's) Kokuoh, a black stallion the size of an elephant.
  • Courtly Love: In spite of not being an actual nobleman, this is the the honorable and gentlemanly way that Rei shows poor Mamiya his love: he never even gets to kiss her before his tragic death at the hands of Raoh.
  • Crapsack World: If you're anyone but the protagonist, your life will be one of miserable squalor and highly probable violent death. If you're the protagonist, even more miserable, but less death.
  • Crazy Prepared: Kenshiro's martial art is older than most of the nations of the Earth and appears to have a specific attack for every occasion. For example, the correct application of pressure points is exactly right for making someone garrote themselves - or behead themselves with razor wire in the manga.
    • Raging Flame Reverse Flow Punch: For that one occasion you might run into a fire-breathing Elite Mook!
    • Among the more bizarre examples, there's also a technique for dismantling a tank (developed 2000 years before mobile armor was even invented), as well as a technique which causes the victim to change skin color and get struck by lightning.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Most people get cut to ribbons or popped like blood-filled balloons, but two particularly nasty deaths stand out:
    • Rei gets hit with a technique that will cause all of his blood to haemorrhage out of his body in three days' time. Toki's intervention manages to give him one extra day, which he uses to finally exact his revenge on Yuda.
    • Shu is forced to carry the capstone of Souther's pyramid after having the muscles in his legs cut. He is then riddled with arrows and impaled with a spear, before ultimately being crushed to death by the capstone.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: The entire series is based on this. There is only rarely such a thing as an equal battle, even among the various martial artists (be it Kenshiro or anyone else), one side will invariably dominate the other heavily. Sometimes this is a setup for a fight-back, sometimes not. It actually becomes a plot twist when Kenshiro actually has to fight on equal ground with an opponent. Curiously enough, the first Big Bad of the series, Raoh, has the smallest ratio of participating in these kinds of battles of any kind of character. He was on pretty even footing with Toki (both occasions), Juza, Fudoh and Kenshiro in their second confrontation.
  • Cry for the Devil: Invoked frequently. Kaioh and Souther come foremost to mind.
  • Darker and Edgier: The newer adaptations are pretty much exclusively action and drama-oriented, with the humor from Toei's original anime nowhere to be found.
  • Dark Messiah: Raoh as the legendary Ken-Oh.
  • Deadly Upgrade: Hokuto Shinken knows a series of pressure points that will cause one's muscle power to increase greatly but irrevocably shortens one's lifespan. Interestingly, there's a variation where a different series of pressure points actually extends one's lifespan... but the pain is so great that one might die from it while it takes effect. Also, the entire Hokuto Ryuuken martial art is arguably a deadly upgrade from Hokuto Shinken, since it drives its users insane with evil.
  • Death by Adaptation:
    • Mitsu, the younger brother of Raiga and Fuga, doesn't survive his captivity in the anime and gets buried by his big brothers alongside Uighur's other victims, whereas in the manga, he lives long enough to see the twins sacrifice themselves to save Kenshiro and his friends.
    • The manga spares Gill, the younger Harn Brother, in one of the rare instances in which a major fighter lives, whereas in the anime, he joins his brother Buzz in his heroic sacrifice.
    • In the live-action movie, this happens to Bat of all characters.
  • Death Equals Redemption: Played with several villains, notably Shin, Souther and Raoh. There's also Kaioh, whose atrocities include murdering his sister, who doubles as his comrade's fiancée, and blaming it on Kenshiro - then turning on said comrade behind his back while he's occupied with Kenshiro. Kenshiro defeats him with a coup de grâce out of pity for his sad destiny, as this pretty much says. The final villain to get this is Baran.
  • Death Glare: This anime is notable for having some of the most evil death-glares from good guys.
  • Death Is Cheap: The series actually averts this for the most part, but there is one major exception in Yuria. While she actually survived her fall from Shin's palace thanks to the Nanto Goshasei, her eventual death from radiation sickness hangs over both Raoh (it's what finally teaches him sadness, allowing him to know/use Musou Tensei) and the opening of Kenshiro Den, which is essentially is an epilogue to the entire Raoh story arc. According to the manga, her passing greatly affects Kenshiro in the years afterward.
  • Deceptive Disciple: Inverted with Souther: his master tricked him into killing him in order to pass along the succession of Nanto Hooken. Souther went Ax Crazy with grief and decided to build a shrine to his fallen master in the form of a massive pyramid built by child slave laborers.
  • Defeat by Modesty: Of the Stay in the Kitchen type. Rei ripped off Mamiya's clothes to expose her body and "prove" that she had no place on the battlefield.
    • The point Rei was trying to make was that if Mamiya had fully renounced her femininity, she shouldn't feel the need to cover up. If that was going to stop her, she should just plain not go get herself killed.
  • Depraved Dwarf: Little people in this series are universally evil and subhuman, and are used by several warlords as spies and entertainment. King Fang's gaggle of 'children' are perhaps the most prominent examples.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: The Arcade Fighter by Arc System Works is full of Call Backs to the original series, specific quotes with some match-ups and FATAL K.O are prone to this:
    • The requisite to pull off a Fatal K.O in the first place. Depleting the seven stars meter below the victim's lifebar forms a small star next to it, forming the Star of Death. In the series, anyone who saw it was usually fated to die before the year is out.
    • Kenshiro's Hokuto Zankai Ken doesn't work on Souther. They even quote the scene word for word, complete with Souther counting down for kicks, laughing and Ken wondering what's going on.
    • Rei has three variations of his Hishou Hakurei Fatal K.O depending on whether it's performed on Yuda, Mamiya or anyone else:
      • With Yuda, it imitates his final moment where he catches Rei's hands, admits he's the more beautiful one and commits Suicide by Rei.
      • With Mamiya, the attack goes normally, only for Mamiya's clothes to be completely ripped off, referencing the scene wherein Rei did just that to confirm that she was a woman and thus was not suited for battle.
    • Jagi has a super where he forces the opponent to say his name. Of course, all the options are Jagi's own name.
    • Shin's suicide Fatal KO, which calls back to his death scene where he flings himself off his tower at Southern Cross, not wanting to die at the hands of a Hokuto Shinken fighter like Ken.
  • Dirty Coward: Very, very many, and very prominent due to the fact, that Kenshiro just loves to inflict slightly-delayed painful deaths on villains caught red-handed and then explain to them what he just did. Practically all minor villains breakdown and panic or plead for their life pathetically. On the other hand, most of the major antagonists face death with courage and dignity, because they are usually revealed to be tragic characters right after the death blow is struck. The most obvious AND unrepentant example though is Jagi.
  • Disability Superpower: Shu's loss of eyesight allowed him to "see" with his "heart", while Souther's heart is on the right side of his chest, and his pressure points are symmetrically mirrored.
    • Akashachi's eye, hand and leg have been replaced by weapons.
  • Do with Him as You Will: One of Jagi's worst lieutenants terrorized a village by burying a victim up to their neck in sand, then forcing someone else to either cut off the first's victim's head or die. After Kenshiro beats the lieutenant, Ken buries him in sand, then leaves him at the mercy of the villagers he wronged.
  • The Drifter: Ken and Toki. And Rei. And Juza. And... well, if you're not running a corrupt empire, you're wandering around looking for one to crush, basically.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: Preceding the serial, there was a two-chapter, rarely-republished "Pilot" done without Buronson's input. It took place in present-day (1980s) Japan and involved an evil Ancient Conspiracy known as the Taizanji Kenpō school. Kenshiro also has a Disposable Woman girlfriend who is not Yuria.
  • Earth Drift: Early installments clearly show Japanese money and Bat even says that Shin rules over the former Kanto region. Fist of the Blue Sky attempts to reconnect the series back to the real world.
  • Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: Yuda could count as a valid example: He's extremely effeminate and treats his harem as dolls.
  • Enemy Civil War: In episode 21 of the anime, General Balcom tries to overthrow Shin and is killed, and the remainder of Shin's army goes berserk and starts randomly burning down Southern Cross and murdering slaves as Shin's authority crumbles. This has nothing to do with Kenshiro; Shin's men are simply fed up with his obsession with Yuria.
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Devil's Rebirth was so fond of his mother that Jackal used this fact to manipulate him, while Kaioh's hatred for Kenshiro was caused as a result of his mother having died to save an infant Kenshiro.
  • Even Mooks Have Loved Ones: And that is why there are actually decent men amongst Souther's army of beating and killing children; they are free to refuse if they can accept The Holy Emperor tearing their children and wives to pieces for their disobedience...
  • Every Car Is a Pinto:
    • Somewhat justified considering cars in this universe are either cobbled together buggies or leftover pre-war tech. Even so, odds are if a car (other than Bat's) appears, it will explode at some point or other.
    • Even tanks and battleships aren't immune to this.
  • Everyone Went to School Together: With the exception of Rei and Yuda, it seems that the Hokuto Brothers met each of the Nanto Rokuseiken (Shin, Shu, Souther and Yuria) before the apocalypse. Likewise, Raoh was also acquainted with both Juza and Fudoh when he was a child.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies: Zaria, one of Shin's filler henchmen, uses a style known as Nanto Ansho Ken which hypnotizes the occupants of the village he rules over into zombies. Then again, seeing how one of them was brought back to normal when Kenshiro pressed her pressure point, they're technically not zombies in a way...
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
    • If Shin really knew and loved Yuria, he really shouldn't be surprised that she was Driven to Suicide by the cruelty and genocide committed in the name of earning her love. What an Idiot!
    • Ditto for Souther, who probably missed the point of Master Ogai's love...
    • After Jackal and his men murdered an old lady who was taking care of a bunch of orphaned children, Kenshiro swore that he would track down and kill every single one of them. Of course, he began to do just that. After finding a corpse of one of his comrades, a bandit said he didn't understand why Kenshiro was doing something he gained nothing from.
  • Evil Is Bigger: A good many of Kenshiro's foes are at least twice his size, and at six feet tall and 220 lbs of solid muscle, Ken's already huge by Asian standards.
  • Executive Suite Fight: Whereas the entire first season of Fist of the North Star takes place in a fallout-blanketed and crumbling post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, Kenshiro's final confrontation with his Rival Turned Evil best-friend Shin takes place in a cleanly polished, cavernous throne-room of marble and gold.
  • Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: Yuda.
  • Excited Episode Title: "God or Devil?! The Mightiest Man Appears in Hell!", and many others.
  • Expanded Universe: Plenty. In addition to the manga, there's also Fist of the Blue Sky and its sequel, the New Fist fo the North Star movie & novel, the Hokuto Gaiden series, the Legends of the True Saivour series, the various one-shot follow-ups, a few video games, quite a bit of anime filler...
  • Expy:
    • Kenshiro (himself an expy of Bruce Lee) gets an expy in Super Robot Wars OG in form of Folka Albark. From the same game, Shura King Alkaid might also be an expy to Raoh in his "Ken-Oh" persona, while Folka's Aloof Big Brother might be an amalgamation of Toki and Raoh in his non-"Ken-Oh" persona.
    • Clone Zero in The King of Fighters 2000, who is an expy of the Rasho Han, and has special moves named after ones used by Kaioh and Hyoh.
    • Sakuya from the Raoh Gaiden anime series, who is an expy of Demona from Gargoyles. This was less so as time went on though, and in any case was an expy of the look and sound - they were nothing alike personality-wise or in mindset.
    • Goliath, a boss from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, is basically what you get if you cross Raoh with Frankenstein's monster. His death animation replicates Raoh's own, right down to the white aura and fist raised to the sky. The only difference is that Goliath's body disintegrates.
  • Eyepatch of Power: The Colonel, Akashachi and Shachi. Subverted with Mr. Spade, who loses his eye to Ken and gets quickly killed in their next encounter.
  • Eye Scream:
    • We see it in chapter 2 of the manga, where Kenshiro catches a bolt from a crossbow and throws it back straight at the center of the eye of the punk who shot it.
    • Shu used his Nanto Seiken style to blind himself so that the young Kenshiro could be spared.
    • Shachi. To prove his devotion to Kenshiro before Hyo, he gouged out his left eye - AND was willing to gouge his right eye too!
    • Madame Patra, a mistress of illusion, gets this when two of her own illusion pearls are jammed into her eye sockets by Kenshiro.
    • The Colonel, the first user of a Nanto style faced in the manga other than Shin, gets a version of this when Ken manipulates one of his pressure points into forcing his one remaining eye to roll up in its socket, effectively permanently blinding it. In the manner of the other example above for Patra, his death is also, even by the show's standards, fairly graphic.
  • False Reassurance: Kenshiro and Rei have just killed off a huge group of Fang Clan members, leaving only the leader alive. This exchange occurs after he's subjected to a Hokuto Shinken technique.
Cquote1

Thug: (gets pummeled by Kenshiro's North Star Thousand Smashing Fist attack) "Huh? I'm not hurt, I don't feel a thing..."
Kenshiro: "Even so, you'll be dead in seven seconds." (walks away)
Thug: "NO! I DON'T WANT TO DIE IN SEVEN SECONDS!" (gets diced up by Rei's Nanto Suichoken)
Rei: "Then die now!"

Cquote2
  • Fantastic Fighting Style: The Hokuto Shinken and Nanto Seiken styles, along with their derivatives.
  • Faux Action Girl: Mamiya, and to some extent Reina from the Legends of the True Savior movies. Subverted by Hokuto Musou, where gameplay-wise Mamiya is apparently awesome; after Rei's death, she disappears until the events of Hokuto no Ken 2, but in the manga, she has one last hurrah as a fighter at the end when out of sympathy for Bat who's being tortured by an old enemy of Kenshiro's, she tries to sacrifice herself to give him a quick death.
  • Fighting Series: Fist of the North Star is probably the first major Shonen fighting series (albeit a quite violent and bloody one)[3], and proved to be quite influential for series to come.
  • Filler: Like any other manga-based anime series, the TV series featured original arcs and episodes between the main story in order to prevent the series from exceeding its source material. The most notorious example is the anime version of the Bloody Cross Saga, which puts off the final battle between Kenshiro and Shin by more than a dozen episodes.
    • Averted when you watch the TV series in the order recommended by Daryl Surat of Anime World Order: 1-8; 11-13; 22-37; 39-108. Recap Episodes are optional.
      • The problem with Surat's order is that it leaves out episodes 17-21. While these episodes are all filler, the events that lead up to Episode 22 won't make much sense if you skip them due to how the order of events were changed during the Bloody Cross Saga (plus some of the filler characters, like Joker and Saki, are involved in canon episodes and don't show up in #22).
  • Filler Villain: The purpose of Joker, Shin's anime-only right-hand man, was to serve as an informant between Shin and his numerous henchmen that he'd sent out to hunt Kenshiro.
  • Final First Hug: When Raoh, broken-and-defeated by Kenshiro, holds the younger warrior's face for the first and final time like a big brother:
Cquote1

Raoh: "Come, let me see the face of the man who has defeated Raoh... You are magnificent, my little brother."
Kenshiro: "Big brother..."

Cquote2
  • Finishing Move: Practically everything the Hokuto Shinken users do is one of these, some of which go as far as using an on-screen countdown before the victim dies a horrible death. The Fighting Game made by Arc System Works made the more notable and flashy moves into instant kill moves or Fatal KO's.
  • Four Is Death: Four words that will always lead to death: "Omae wa mou shindeiru"/"You Are Already Dead."
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend: A trademark of the series is that Kenshiro frequently reminisces about all his fallen allies and rivals. The only exception to this is Ryuga, who is never mentioned again after Raoh's death. Obviously, filler characters are also forgotten, even in the final episode of the series.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: During certain scenes of the Hokuto Army in the second series, viewers with a keen eye can spot various characters who died in the first series or didn't appear in the second. For example, in one scene where Bat is watching Kenshiro fight Kaioh in their final battle, Amiba can be seen holding Lin's pet puppy, Pel (now a fully-grown dog), in the crowd of onlookers.
  • Freudian Excuse: Souther and Yuda. Souther's was somewhat understandable since, yes, it is traumatic when you accidently kill your own teacher, but what Souther did wasn't a good way to pay his respects to him. Yuda's, on the other hand, is just plain silly.
    • The insane motivations of many villains can be partly explained by the fact that the series take place After the Bomb: When you're already on the edge from the sheer, mind-blasting horror of nuclear apocalypse, even relatively minor things can push you over the brink and turn into all-consuming obsessions. This is especially the case when you've got a LOT of super-powered martial artists, and faced with the chaos After the End.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: This is the way the people of Shura advance through the ranks of their society - in fact, until you have killed 100 people, you don't even have a name to distinguish yourself from others.
  • Gag Dub: Famous Gag Dub situation. While doing the official French language dub of the anime, everyone working on the show was disgusted by the insane levels of violence - especially since they knew it had been bought for a morning cartoon show aimed at kids and would air alongside Sailor Moon. As most of the dubbers didn't think much of anime anyway, they demanded to be allowed to do whatever they wanted and therefore got to narm up the dialogues and add jokes. Basically, the French dub is an Abridged Series, only not fan-made.
  • Gentle Giant: Fudoh the Mountain. He was once fearsome enough to make even a young Raoh tremble in fear. But after encountering a young Yuria, who willing put herself between him and a door where a mother dog was giving birth to puppies and having one of the newborns crawl around on his gigantic hand, he decided to change his ways. The only thing that can arouse his fighting spirit is his desire to protect the orphaned children in his care.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: The NES game (actually the second Famicom game) kept in the fairly gory exploding deaths of enemies when they die from being punched. Interestingly, the Sega Genesis (which normally had much less heavy-handed censoring than the NES) port of the Mega Drive game removed this, substituting the "fly off the screen" death used for kicking.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Some of the more bizarre minor villains tend to show up without any foreshadowing, especially in filler. These include a pair of acrobatic thugs wearing metal claws and bat costumes, a random underling of Jagi who attempts to use a Hokuto Shinken technique on Kenshiro, and a giant crab man. The final villain, Bolge, is a great example too; a random thug spared by Kenshiro, showing no gratitude whatsoever, who has started up his own army.
  • Glass Cannon: Kenshiro was this at first, but later upgraded to a full-on Lightning Bruiser.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: For a hero, Kenshiro has a seriously evil looking pair of red-glowing eyes whenever a villain gets him SERIOUSLY angry.
  • A God Am I: The invariable mental illness that strikes martial-arts masters in this wasteland world who don't walk the path of righteousness.
  • Good Hair, Evil Hair: People with mohawks are evil 100% of the time. One Giant Mook actually turned his mohawk into a buzzsaw.
  • Good Is Not Soft: After the bitter lessons at the beginning of the manga and in the backstory, Kenshiro almost never shows mercy to villains and bandits (a few borderline exceptions are people who managed to avoid hurting innocents on-panel, like Akashachi). He might shed Manly Tears for some of the major villains, but not before they are already dead. Some of his Hokuto Shinken applications are also downright sadistic.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Kenshiro, the hero, has seven scars on his chest in the shape of the Big Dipper, put there by Shin during the latter's Face Heel Turn. The scars would be a plot point, as that was the only identifying trait Rei knew of his sister's kidnapper. Jagi, a Complete Monster, has a brutally-scarred face he keeps behind a helmet, and deliberately matched Kenshiro's scars in order to pass as him. Ditto for the manga's ending, when Bat inflicts them onto himself to pass as Ken as well - but unlike Jagi, he does it to protect Ken.
  • Gonk: Physically incapable villains tend to be this.
  • Gorn: Probably the most ridiculous example occurs in the fight against the Colonel, where Kenshiro uses a technique that makes his opponent's muscles eject their intact skeleton from their body. To paraphrase SF Debris, the Gorn in this series is just sickening enough... to be hilarious.
  • Graceful Loser: Raoh and, to a lesser extent, Souther. Souther's death was changed in the movie Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Martyred Love (which retells the Souther arc from Raoh's perspective), in which Souther takes a page from Shin's book and decides that it's Better to Die Than Be Killed. In the original manga (including the events of Hokuto no Ken 2), there's quite a few more.
  • Gratuitous English: The opening song. "YOU WA SHOCK!" This is probably because "you wa shock" sounds a lot like "you are shock". It's become so prevalent that many don't even know that the song is actually called Ai wo Torimodose. The other opening themes count too, with Silent Survivor's "DO SURVIVE!" and Tough Boy's "Living in the eighties!"
  • Guilty Pleasures: Screw anger management classes, THIS is the show to watch on a bad day.
  • Guns Are Worthless: By the time the series takes place, firearms seemed to have become an endangered species, especially since ammunition is hard to come by. Being located in the region of a dried out ersatz Japan with similarly draconian gun laws and prevalence explains why there aren't many firearms in the first place.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Fudoh the Mountain delivers one to Raoh so crushing that it destroys his confidence for the rest of the series. Also probably the only Hannibal Lecture that doubles as a Heartwarming Moment. Blame Raoh for explicitly telling Fudoh beforehand that he was using Fudoh as a tune-up fight so that Raoh could work the fear out of his system, vaccination-style. Like Fudoh wasn't going to take advantage of that overconfidence?
  • Harmless Lady Disguise: During Rei's introduction, he's disguising himself as a helpless woman with a cloak in order to attract bandits and kill them for their food.
  • Healing Factor: Most good fighters in the series have one to a degree, but the Hokuto and Nanto practitioners have it to a much greater degree. Doesn't stop them from getting VERY seriously hurt, though. It is also subverted in that it's not so much that they heal quickly, but that they know how to utilize their body's energy and acupuncture points to facilitate healing. If you're a mook, though, so sad for you.
  • Heel Face Turn: A good number of villains perform these moments before their death, usually only long enough to admit their remorse. Though once in a while, you get a villain who not only does this to atone for their sins, but lasts long enough to help Kenshiro and company along the way. The most obvious examples would be:
    • Raiga and Fuga, the gatekeepers of Cassandra Prison, who, after their supposedly unstoppable fighting style is beaten, pledge loyalty to Ken, long enough to fight and defeat their master and assist Ken, Rei and Mamiya in freeing Toki from the prison. Sadly, they die keeping a collapsing ceiling held up long enough for Ken and his friends to escape.
      • And speaking of Cassandra, several of Uighur's men choose to switch sides and fight off Raoh's army.
    • Falco, who fights for Jakoh at first, though it's revealed that he is working for Jakoh against his will due to the fact that Jakoh is holding the Celestial Emperor... or rather, Empress hostage. Once Ken and the Hokuto Army frees the Celestial Emperor, it's open season on Jakoh and Falco kills Jakoh in such an awesome way by incinerating his head. Falco then jumps at the chance to help Kenshiro clean up the Kingdom of Shura... but sadly doesn't last long, as he is viciously killed by a nameless Shura mook of all people.
    • In a flashback, Fudoh the Mountain. He started out as a bandit who used his size and strength to terrorize and rob people, even causing a younger Raoh to tremble with terror. But after a run-in with Yuria (plus holding a newborn puppy in his hand), he ultimately turns into a selfless hero who will stop at nothing to protect those he cares about, particularly the children he takes under his wing.
  • He Will Not Cry, So I Cry for Him: When Asuka, Ein's adopted daughter, is asked why she's not crying at her father's funeral, she replies "If I cry, Daddy won't be able to rest". Kenshiro promptly hugs her with warmth and kindness and weeps Tender Tears of sadness in her place.
  • Heroes Fight Barehanded: Kenshiro himself, as well as almost all the other characters, except for Mamiya and Jagi.
  • Hidden Eyes: Sometimes, Kenshiro needs to be more stoic than usual. He can accomplish this by casting shadows over his eyes, at will, even when the sun's directly in his face.
  • High-Pressure Blood: In spades.
    • One villain, Sergeant Mad, even has a fighting style based around this, as he throws narrow, hollow needles that eject the victim's blood right out of their body (the anime gives them to an Elite Mook, with Sergeant Mad getting daggers coated with deadly scorpion venom instead).
      • In real life, these shouldn't be all that efficient at removing blood (he makes no attempt to hit any major veins or arteries), it is accepted that the main danger of this attack is the resulting catastrophic blood loss rather than being stuck full of needles.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Ironic deaths have a way of happening around Kenshiro, even when he isn't directly causing them.
    • A particularly satisfying death is that of Jackal, who goes out by way of his own dynamite, and with the hand of Devil's Rebirth, who has just learned that Jackal was playing him for a fool, around him so he cannot escape.
  • Hollywood Atheist: Baran the Emperor of Light, one of the villains from the manga-only final chapters, finds the idea of God absurd due to the fact that his Dead Little Sister Yuka refused to take a medicine he stole for her due to her moral upbringing, resulting in her death from a preventable disease.
  • Honor Before Reason: To be even a fundamentally decent person in a post-apocalyptic wasteland is to be this trope; and that's without going into the actual heroes of this universe.
  • Hope Spot: Played for dark comedy in the Jagi/Kenshiro fight. Kenshiro usually lets the Mooks he's about to deliver a thrashing to get in a couple before cruelly crushing their hopes.
    • A much more tragic version occurs in the Juza/Raoh fight, whereupon he gets no less than three of these.
    • When Lin is trapped in Shura, away from Kenshiro, and being hunted by an entire army's worth of soldiers in order to bring her to Kaioh, she is saved by Sayaka. Sayaka, being Kaioh's sister, commands enough authority to keep Lin safe. Sayaka allows Lin sanctuary out of the kindness of her heart... and Kaioh promptly murders her as part of his plan to drive Hyoh insane, leading to Lin falling right into Kaioh's hands.
  • I Am Big Boned: Gyoko will kill anyone who even slightly insinuates that he is fat. Of course, the very first thing that Kenshiro does upon confronting him is to hit his Berserk Button.
  • I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Shin loves Yuria because she is an emotionally strong-willed woman whom he sees as a challenge to make willingly fall in love with him.
  • Improv Fu: Juza the Cloud gave Raoh one hell of a Humiliation Conga with a fighting style he invented on the spot. He explains that his body (and thus his fighting style) moves in the same way as a cloud, allowing him full freedom as to how he handles fighting. The first fight ends with him stealing Raoh's horse, Kokuoh.
  • Infant Immortality: Although children and even infants often died in the manga (along with a few dogs), the TV anime often rewrote such scenes so that the child is saved by Kenshiro at the last moment (the most prominent examples being Taki, Bat's best friend who was shot dead by a member of Jackal's gang, and Ryo, the kid who died after eating poisoned bread in Shu's hideout).
  • Informed Ability: There are villains who brag about their unstoppable fighting styles whose power we never see onscreen, though a good load of them do manage to show it off. The most ubiquitous example has to be Souther's Tensho Juji Hou attack, which supposedly can cut through stainless steel, but only scratches Ken's shoulders a bit and got a lot of hype beforehand. Granted Ken's Made of Iron, but still (It's like Musou Tensei in that he passes through Ken's attempted counterattacks, but no mention is made of why this doesn't work when he jumps right into Ken's successful Tenha Kassatsu).
    • Kenshiro once got hit in the head with a solid stone pillar as big as he is and remained completely unfazed (the pillar shattered to pieces), so it's easy to see how an attack that can cut stainless steel might be not a big deal to him.
  • Intangible Man: One of the effects of Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique Musou Tensei[4].
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The manga's final volume has Ken and Bat both trying out the I Want My Beloved to Be Happy suit with Lin. Earlier, Kaioh had pressed the pressure point Shikan Haku on Lin's back that would cause her to fall in love with the first man she saw upon waking - expecting that it would be a scummy bandit or a lowly beggar, anyone but Ken; nevertheless, when she wakes, it's just Ken and Bat (who'd learned of Shikan Haku - important point there). Bat was aware of Lin's love for Ken, but Ken was sympathetic to her for all that she'd been through and instead wanted her to live peacefully, so he rode off to ensure that Lin would fall in love with Bat instead. Bat makes a show of going along, but at their wedding, he's unable to fully commit - feeling that it's not right for him to be getting the (sincere) love compelled onto her, so in an even more extreme case, he actually causes retrograde amnesia in her, then in an incredibly cockamamie plot, actually attempts to "guide" the rebuilding of memories in an attempt to cause her to fall in love with Ken all over again instead... by the end, though, it fails when Ken and Lin both regain their memories and, in her case, remembering her love for the now-dying Bat. While Ken promised to Bat that he would go off with Lin, he secretly pressed healing points on Bat before leaving without her... leaving her a welcome surprise.
  • Jabba Table Manners: In a world where basic food and fresh water can literally cost you an arm and a leg, any character who eats gourmet food can automatically be labelled as a wasteful villain.
    • Souther in particular is an exceptionally vile example of this trope; he is shown throwing food away and punishing anyone who tries to pick it up.
    • Shizuka from Kenshiro Den is an even more literal example than Souther, since he resembles the Trope Namer.
    • The first post-Kaioh arc of the manga had Kouketsu, whose prowess in forcing others to grow food gave him access to large amounts of it, with the inevitable disregard for proper table etiquette.
  • Kamehame Hadoken: "HOKUTO GOSHO HA!"
    • "TENSHO HONRETSU!"
  • Kiai: Kenshiro's battle cries mimic those of Bruce Lee. Not to mention that, in the anime, he looks like him too (at least in the first three seasons). In the manga though, his face, hair, and clothes all very closely resemble Mel Gibson's character, "Mad" Max Rockatansky in the Mad Max films - then, when he went off to Shura, Sylvester Stallone.
  • Ki Attacks: Hokuto Shinken uses Touki to strike opponent's pressure points without contact.
    • Gento Koken specializes in using ki to destroy enemies on the cellular level via burning or freezing.
    • Hokuto Ryuuken uses Matouki which is flat out magic.
  • Kick the Dog: A constant, never-ending stream of atrocities designed to make you feel that the villains deserve every last bit of righteous ultra-violence Ken can lavish upon them. One bad guy even literally kicks a dog - Lin's pet puppy, to be precise.
  • Kill'Em All: The manga was a long-running series with a massive and diverse cast of characters... but if they aren't named Kenshiro, Lin, Bat, Mamiya or Airi, don't expect them to stick around for long. Story arcs where everyone but the main characters end up dead are extremely common.
  • Killer Yoyo: Mamiya uses two of them, and looks damn fine while doing so.
  • Knuckle-Cracking: Part and parcel of Kenshiro's Bruce Lee Clone nature.
  • Kung Fu Jesus: Not Jesus himself, but his lookalike, Toki, who is often given the Fan Nickname of "Nuclear Jesus".
    • Not to mention Kenshiro himself in the Kenshiro Den prequel film, right down to literally being crucified.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Kenshiro is a living embodiment of this. Whenever savage thugs or would-be dictators kill helpless people for fun and amusement, expect them to suffer violent and painful deaths at the literal hands of Kenshiro.
  • Lighter and Softer: Yes, really. Fist of the North Star was not the first post-apocalyptic-themed manga. It would (probably) be Violence Jack by Go Nagai. Compared with THAT series, an utterly rotten Crapsack World where Humans Are Bastards and it always gets worse, Fist of the North Star is a pretty optimistic and hopeful story that gives the message that you can still be good and noble and remain a human being, even in the worst circumstances. Violence Jack? Not so much.
  • Limited Animation:
    • Whenever Kenshiro walks, more often than not the animators just take a static frame of him and wave it up and down. Leads to Narm in some cases, such as this HILARIOUSLY bad special effect in episode 23, where we see Ken from an exploding Mook's point of view, and it's painfully obvious that the animators just waved the animation cel of Ken around.
    • There's also the episode in which Ken kills Devil's Rebirth. It just shows him from the back as he punches, while Devil's body goes past up. It's the funniest Green Screen effect ever.
    • In one instance, Kenshiro confronts Amiba after the latter fails at copying Hokuto Shinken, he is supposed to step up right into Amiba's face. However, the animation for this scene is simply a still frame of Kenshiro leaning forward being slid up next to a terrified Amiba, and it comes off as even more inappropriately humorous (possibly because the immediately preceding scene was already fairly Bloody Hilarious).
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Inverted with Hokuto Ryuuken, which uses magical incantations heavily in its fighting style, but is explicitly stated to be inferior to Hokuto Shinken, which uses pushups.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: Strong characters with unique fighting styles are introduced, only to be killed off within the next volume or two. Think of it as Bleach if people actually died.
    • Some of them are given a bit more screentime in Toei's anime version, like Raiga and Fuga, Koryu, Hyui and Shuren, Shoki and Nagato to name a few.
  • Look What I Can Do Now!: Long training sequences are generally avoided, but this does not stop characters from suddenly unleashing new abilities that they either learned spontaneously, or perhaps had known all along.
  • Loophole Abuse: Kenshiro hits a Fang Clan mook with one of his techniques before informing him that he'll die in seven seconds. The mook panics, screaming he doesn't want to die in seven seconds. Rei then slices him to pieces, saying he can just die now.
  • Love Freak: Shu and Yuria, to an extent. Lin also counts as well.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Recurring theme for several villains, most notably Shin and Souther.
  • Lowered Monster Difficulty: The population of the Land of Shura, especially notable in filler.
  • Mad Bomber: Jackal is awfully fond of using dynamite sticks as weapons.
  • Made of Iron: If you're one of the more powerful fighters in this series, you are virtually immune to damage. For example, King Fang, a relatively low-level martial artist villain, used a technique which literally transformed his skin into steel, so that when super-strong Kenshiro used a massive steel beam to bludgeon him, the beam was bent into a U-shape without doing any damage - then Kenshiro struck a pressure point which effectively canceled the effect, allowing him to break King Fang's spine on the second try.
  • Made of Plasticine: On the other hand, if you're a mook, prepare to have your body remolded like Play-Doh.
  • Magic Pants: Kenshiro destroys his shirt and expensive looking leather jacket in practically every episode, and yet never seems to have any problem getting it back by the next one.
  • Manly Tears: One of the most famous users of this trope. It should be noted however, that the men of this series sheds just as much, if not more Tender Tears, contrary to popular belief.
  • Martial Medic: Kenshiro, and his adoptive brother Toki, can manipulate pressure points to heal as well as harm.
  • Meaningful Name: Toki, who shares his grace with the ibis he was named after, and Souther, who's a slightly more convoluted example, as he's named after the southerly winds that birds like the one that the Nanto Seiken styles are inspired by fly on - meaning he is at the root of all Nanto schools, as the emperor. And then there's Kenshiro himself, whose name translates to something like "Fourth Son of the Fist".
  • Mega Manning: The first clue that Ken is running on The Power of Friendship is when he starts to inexplicably use attacks that belonged to fallen allies. He also explicitly claims that practitioners of his style can duplicate the attacks of any other style, though he's the only practitioner shown actually doing this. Also, Raoh runs a giant prison full of martial artists for the sole purpose of stealing all their secrets. There's not enough detail to determine whether it's this or Awesome By Analysis, but analysis really doesn't seem like Raoh's strongest suit.
  • Men Don't Cry: Completely and wonderfully averted in this franchise: violence and brutality be damned, Fist of the North Star is frankly one of the most sensitive and warm-hearted anime franchises of the 1980s.
  • The Messiah: Not Kenshiro, but Toki. Think of him as an ass-kicking Jesus. It isn't very hard. Actually, Yuria is the biggest Messiah of the series when she becomes the Last Nanto General.
  • Mighty Glacier: Mr. Heart practically defines this, in both the show and the Play Station 2 fighter. Another large character, Fudoh the Mountain, does basically nothing but ride this trope.
  • Monster of the Week: The anime version of the Bloody Cross Saga, and to a lesser extent the Nanto Goshasei and Kaioh Sagas, gave Kenshiro more weekly villains than the ones he fought in the original manga.
  • Monster Sob Story: Told by both Souther and Kaioh to Kenshiro right before their final battles, when there's no time left for the reader to watch them grow as characters or sympathise with them (though the week-to-week short-term plotting of the Shonen manga industry is probably to blame here), and the same goes for Yuda towards Rei. The Colonel also does this during his fight, though it doesn't work on Kenshiro at all. Played even straighter by Jagi and Heart, who's sob stories are only in side material, and are never revealed to the characters.
  • Monumental Damage/Scenery Gorn: The anime intro shows the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and London's Tower Bridge.
  • Mood Whiplash: The over-the-top ways in which evil people die insanely sometimes verges on black humor, partially from Narm and partially from their cowardly antics, then there's the time Ken's cute sidekick gets splattered with gore in the middle of a brutal fistfight to the death by way of comic relief. However, this trope is here for one man: Juza the Cloud. In the manga, his introduction, a digression from a hopeless war the established characters are fighting, takes its sweet time showing us a piece of his happy-go-lucky, adventurous life, then he's called out to fight and it's back to the nightmares for the audience.
  • Mook Horror Show/Roaring Rampage of Revenge: When Ken annihilates Jackal and his gang after they murder Auntie Toyo. Fittingly, the episode is entitled "I Am Death Itself! I'll Chase You to the Ends of Hell!".
  • Moral Myopia: King Fang will avenge the deaths of his sons, but sees no problem in throwing them in harm's way to save himself if needed.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Mamiya gets assigned for this position in Hokuto Musou. Not only does her early 3D render have a daring see-through skirt with a thong underneath, but her classic alternate outfit has extreme clothing damage, whereas for the guys, it's just disintegrated shirts.
  • Mukokuseki: Racially ambiguous characters, names written in katakana, and lack of Japanese signage make many readers confused about where the story is set. But during the Bloody Cross Saga of the manga, Bat specifically states that Shin's gang rules over the former Kanto region.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: Partially averted. Almost all serious martial artists are musclebound bruisers (and about half of them, including Kenshiro, are much taller and more massive than average inhabitants of the post-nuclear desert), but, on the other hand, there are a lot of really superhumanly big people in this series (mutants? genetically engineered? it is never explained where all these five-meters tall humans came from), but their giant size usually does not help them much, even though some of them are accomplished martial artists in their own right. Buronson likes toying with this one. Hokuto's breathing techniques effectively embody this trope, but apparently most of those giant mooks were about as tall as Toki.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Several times, especially Raoh with Yuria. Arguably Shin and certainly Kaioh. Fortunately, in Raoh's case, it was "My God, What Did I Almost Do?"
  • My Kung Fu Is Stronger Than Yours: Tons of it. Mostly favoring Kenshiro, of course.
  • Named by the Adaptation: Many minor characters that went unnamed in the manga were given names in the anime like Johnny the Bartender (who was a prominent character in the God's Army arc) and King Fang (the leader of the Fang Clan). Jackal's biker gang was also given a name in the anime, where they're known as 'The Warriors' (a possible reference to the 1979 film of the same name).
  • Name's the Same: Quite a few in-universe examples:
    • Toki and Tōki, although the latter has a long vowel and is alternatively pronounced "aura" in some panels.
    • Ryūken can refer to either the Hokuto Shinken master who trained the four Hokuto Brothers or the Hokuto branch named after the Lapis Lazuli stone, though the latter is sometimes spelt "Ryuuken".
    • The name Zaku was used twice for two different minor villains: one of them is a servant of Raoh and the other is a member of the Celestial Emperor's army who gets killed by Kenshiro off-screen.
    • Ryū is the name of either Raoh's posthumous son or Kaioh's pet dog that he drowned when he was a kid.
  • The Narrator: Shigeru Chiba, who also voiced a few of the villains, pulls double duty here. He also gets gradually more excitable as the TV series goes on; as an episode of Trivia No Izumi pointed out, he starts off doing the next-episode previews in a rather stern voice, but by the final episode, he's screaming the narration at the top of his lungs. It originally started as an in-joke by Chiba; he apparently stopped ramping it up for a while for fear of giving himself an aneurysm, but began doing it again when fans asked him why he wasn't shouting anymore.
  • New Old West: Right down to the "stranger walking out of the duststorm into the town" shots and the Morricone-esque mournful-saxophone music of Spaghetti Westerns in the more sad and thoughtful scenes.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Kenshiro can not only kill or heal people by touching pressure points, but in one episode, he even touches a pressure point that makes a thug involuntarily move his mouth to answer Kenshiro's questions.
  • Nice Hat: The helmets in Hokuto no Ken are legendary. One notable example is Uighur, who hides whips in his horned helmet (he pulls them out by yanking on the horns). Jagi, Raoh and Kaioh's helmets also count, with Kaioh's helmet being especially nice, as it seemingly boosts his Anryū Tenha technique, which has the ability to nullify Kenshiro's Musou Tensei.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed:
    • Toki looks and acts a hell of a lot like a certain Son of God. Not to mention a variety of "cameos", like Mr. T and Hulk Hogan lookalikes teaming up together, or the two brothers who resemble Road Warriors Animal and Hawk, or a Shura Warrior who looks like Sloth from The Goonies... the list goes on and on.
    • Even some of the major martial artists in the manga were modeled after popular musicians from the era, such as Yuda (modeled after Boy George with a bit of Dee Snider), Ryuga (based on David Bowie), Hyui the Tornado (named and modeled after Huey Lewis), Han (modeled after Freddie Mercury) and Baran (modeled after a young Pete Burns).
    • The elder in Mamiya's village bears a suspicious resemblance to Obi-Wan Kenobi from A New Hope.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: These situations provide the majority of the story's motivations and plot devices.
  • No Hugging, No Kissing: Despite love, or rather fighting for it, being a main theme in the series, not much happens between the Official Couple. Kenshiro and Yuria are shown to be a couple in its purest form, but the original manga and anime only had them going as far as holding hands, and yet it's implied they went much further than that, the OVAs even had Yuria expecting Kenshiro's child; spin-offs avert this by having other characters like Rei, Jagi, Raoh and even Kenshiro's uncle getting hot and heavy with their interests. Ironically, Ken and Yuria get no such "step-up" in spin-offs, even though they are the original Official Couple.
  • Norio Wakamoto: It's a small appearance, but the man himself voices Raoh in his first silhouette scene, as well as Shuren the Flame. Somewhat altered in that Shuren was a heroic character.
  • Not Worth Killing: Jagi when he was disfigured by Kenshiro. Kenshiro would later regret his decision, as it backfired tremendously (Jagi was the one whose conniving caused Shin to decide that Kenshiro didn't deserve Yuria, and Jagi's later modus operandi was to drag Kenshiro's name through the mud). Therefore, the next time he and Jagi meet, Kenshiro makes sure that Jagi doesn't survive.
  • Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Averted in the very first scene. Hard.
  • Off-Model: Well, off-size chart. Neither the manga nor the anime can firmly decide whether to make Raoh the size of Andre the Giant or King Kong.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Ken, the first time he's against Jackal, does this a lot. Some characters are explicitly shown to teleport, like Joker.
  • One-Man Army: Pretty much every named character except for Lin and Bat. Heck, even Mamiya qualifies... albeit, a one woman army.
  • One Name Only: Everyone except Sergeant Mad and the Harn Brothers, Buzz and Gill. In the pilot, Kenshiro had the full name of "Kenshirō Kasumi", which would later be used by his uncle.
  • Only Six Faces: More than a handful of the women look remarkably similar, which is used as a plot point. Also, before his character development kicked in, Rei looked a hell of a lot like Shin but with a different hairstyle.
  • Organ Dodge: Souther is immune to Kenshiro's pressure-point attacks in their first battle because he was born with dextrocardia with situs inversus totalis, which completely reverses the position of all his internal organs and pressure points. When Kenshiro learns his secret during their final battle, Souther's fate is sealed.
  • Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Raoh and Kenshiro's battle in the 1986 film. At one point during the battle, both of them temporarily fall unconscious, only for Raoh to wake up and find himself covered in litres of both his and Kenshiro's blood.
  • Papa Wolf: Kenshiro to Bat and Lin, Fudoh to his various orphaned kids and Ein to his adopted daughter Asuka.
    • Subverted, in comedic fashion, by the leader of the Fang Clan once Kenshiro genuinely challenges his facade.
  • Paper Cutting: Yuda vs. Rei; Kenshiro vs. Souther; Raoh vs. Kenshiro; Kenshiro vs. Sanga; Kenshiro vs. the Cliff Landers, and other occasions.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Pretty much all the main fighters throughout, from Kenshiro to Kaioh.
  • Pet the Dog: One villain (Fudoh the Mountain) literally did this, and then did a Heel Face Turn.
  • Pillars of Moral Character: A constant plot point through much of the series. For example, much of Kenshiro's turmoil for facing against Toki (who was actually being impersonated by his jealous rival, Amiba) stems from the fact that not only is Toki his (adopted) older brother (whom he is obligated to respect and revere), but Toki also saved his life when they were children. It pops up in other ways now and then, as well.
  • Playing with Fire: Shuren the Flame plays this trope note-for-note with one interesting variation: instead of being supernatural, his fire skills are described coming from expert use of chemicals combined with a high level of martial arts.
  • Plot Tumor: The original manga focused primarily on martial arts (some hardcore, some zany) and the Ki Attacks were a rare occurrence. In the manga's second run, we are introduced to Gento Koken - a martial art based almost entirely on Ki Attacks.
  • Posthumous Character: Ryuken has been long dead due to his fatal confrontation with Raoh, and solely appears through flashbacks.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: It happens in the numerous action and fighting oriented games for the franchise, lesser fighters like Jagi turns into capable Combat Pragmatists with strength and weapons on par with the major combatants; Mamiya in particular gets the greater doses due being the only Action Girl in these adaptations, she improves so much that it borders on New Powers as the Plot Demands.
  • The Power of Friendship: In his climactic battle against Raoh, Kenshiro reveals that he has the power of all his friends behind him. Subverted earlier when Rei, attacking Raoh, tried to invoke it. Really bad timing there, Rei.
  • The Power of Love: Raoh, meanwhile, is only able to learn Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique, Musou Tensei, through his love of Yuria and sorrow over her sad fate. This was trumped by Kenshiro when he revealed that not only does he have sorrow over Yuria too, which gives him as much power as Raoh, he also has sorrow over losing his beloved big brother Raoh! The Power of Love is all over this story. If Raoh and Kenshiro's case wasn't enough, see Kenshiro vs. Souther, which itself is also all about this.
  • Precision-Guided Boomerang: The Colonel deploys several small, metal, razor-sharp boomerangs (perhaps a deliberate homage to The Road Warrior, which was very influential on the series), as part of his complex martial art. They are all on target, despite him plunging the battlefield into darkness (to make it hard to see the boomerangs!) Ultimately, it's revealed that he's psychically guiding them.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "You are already dead." But if that's true, is it really pre-mortem?
  • Pressure Point: 708 of them to be exact, with equal ability to heal as well as kill if the right ones are pressed. More precisely, the vital points used by Hokuto Shinken is known as the Keiraku Hiko, which roughly translates to the "hidden points of the meridian". The rival style, Hokuto Ryuken, uses another set of pressure points called the Keiraku Hako or the "destructive points", which has exactly 1109 points.
  • Pronoun Trouble: The Last Nanto General and the Celestial Emperor are both revealed to be female. The former case can be justified, since the Five Chariots were intentionally hiding the Last General's identity to prevent Raoh from going after Yuria.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: The Fang Clan, which is an entire group of wolf-themed Psychopathic Manchildren.
  • Pummel Duel: The Trope Maker in Anime.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Ten No Haoh makes you cheer for Raoh from scene number one when he shreds through like so much rice-paper a band of rapists, who flew-like-a-flag the dress of an innocent little girl whom they raped before brutally murdering.
  • Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: The Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken, one of Kenshiro's signature moves. Oddly enough, Hokuto Ujou Moushumi is just that, except it ends with a "merciful" gut punch instead of Your Head Asplode. That's averted in Hokuto Musou gameplay (where it's a series of spinning high kicks followed by a giant uppercut that sends out an energy wave), but is kept for the cutscene of Souther's defeat.
  • Rated "M" for Manly: One of the contenders for the manliest anime of all time.
  • Razor Floss: The Major of God's Army wields this. At one point, he stretches it taut and runs past a man, which cuts the man in half. Kenshiro later uses it against him by hitting one of his pressure points and tying his garrote around his neck, causing the Major to strangle himself to death, or outright decapitates himself in the manga.
    • Raiga and Fuga's martial art, Nishin Furaiken, also used these.
  • Razor Wind: Sometimes difficult to tell. The art of Nanto Seiken cuts with the fingers and hands, as well as a subset of longer-range techniques that fall under this. They both cut like swords, so in close combat it's hard to tell whether it's their hands or the wind from their hands. Yuda's long range ground slashes and Rei's attack against the fire breather are explicitly classed here. Hyui, the wind-themed member of the Nanto Gohasei, has a similar style that uses these attacks exclusively with no close combat at all.
  • Really Dead Montage: Rei, Shu, Fudoh and Ein all get theirs in the TV series.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Shin delivers a magnificent, textbook speech to Ken during a flashback, right down to having him pinned down underfoot. The topic was obsession, and Ken took it to heart.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: One kid gets magenta eyes while Brainwashed and Crazy (thanks to Jagi shoving a finger into his brain).
  • Redemption Equals Death: Quite a few do not survive their (barely) "face" turns for long, though the manga-only Baran goes further than usual in the first chapter of the final volume in not only choosing to die, but arranging for a public execution - and thus humiliation - and actually letting himself be killed, though his final moments are spent in the presence of his redeemers.
    • Dr. Duran during the anime's "Disciples of Shin" arc; he's a doctor who makes sure that he helps the people of the village he lives in as much as possible, seeing how he used to work for one of Shin's henchmen, Dante. Duran is then confronted by Dante, who threatens to kill him unless he murders Kenshiro. He, of course, fails and is killed by Dante's men with razor-sharp boomerangs - right in front of the girl who wanted to be his wife when she grew up.
  • Refrain From Assuming: The opening theme Ai wo Torimodose is often shortened to its Gratuitous English phrase You wa Shock.
  • Rescue Arc: Pretty much the entirety of the Bloody Cross Saga (especially in the anime version). The constant kidnapping of Lin during the Kaioh Saga also qualifies.
  • Retcon: The original series had Kenshiro, the 64th Hokuto Shinken successor, be the very second Hokuto Shinken practitioner to perform the ultimate Musou Tensei art, the first was the Hokuto Shinken founder himself, and the third to use it was Raoh. Come Souten no Ken and Kenshiro's uncle Kasumi, the 62nd Hokuto Shinken successor, performs the Musou Tensei against Liu Zong-Wu. Being created by the original authors themselves, it didn't get pushed into Alternate Continuity territory.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: There's a bridge where Raoh's thugs have checkpoints at both ends to search for Kenshiro, so Kenshiro attempts to evade them by hiding in a wagon of straw that his ally Fudoh the Mountain pulls across the bridge. The thugs have drafted villagers to do their searching for them, and one of these villagers at the entrance of the bridge spots Kenshiro, but deliberately pretends that he didn't see him. By the time Fudoh gets to the other end of the bridge, another villager has ratted out the villager who has covered for Kenshiro, hoping to be humbly rewarded with food and such. However, both villagers are killed by Raoh's thugs, one for helping Kenshiro, and the other for ratting out the first villager!
  • The Rival: Shin, at first, and later Raoh.
  • Rule of Cool: Followed to the letter.
  • Rummage Sale Reject: Even if the 1980s did have pretty awful clothing, is this the best that the Mooks could come up with?
  • Samus Is a Girl: When we find out that the Last Nanto General is Yuria. Also, when we learn that the Celestial Emperor is actually an Empress, and is in fact Lin's estranged twin sister, Lui.
  • Say My Name: Invoked (whether deliberate or not remains to be told) by Dirty Coward Jagi, whose Catch Phrase is actually "Say my name, you bastard!", shotgun-pointing optional. This was even made into a super move in the Atomiswave fighting game.
Cquote1

"KEEEEEEEEEEN!" - Lin
"YUUUUUUURIAAAAA!" - Kenshiro and Shin

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  • Scarpia Ultimatum: What Shin gives to Yuria when he kidnaps her.
  • Secret Legacy: Hokuto Shinken may seem like a mere fantastical assassination art passed on into the shadows, coming across much like a cold methodology of death to any that views it from afar, but Hokuto Shinken is way much more than what is let on by its brutal techniques and attacks. According to in-world history, the style was created when those of the Gento Koken line accidentally failed to protect the Celestial Emperor of China, and this in turn brought about the chaotic days of the Three Kingdoms. Made to be the second protecting branch of the Celestial Emperor by the Hokuto Soke line, those who inherit this style are not just mere assassins and the protectors of the Emperor, but rather those who take up the living metaphorical mantle of the Taoist god Hokuto Seikun, who is considered the judge of the living who decides on the longevity of each person and decides who goes to heaven or hell, and is the central basis on why the Hokuto Shinken line is dedicated to upholding peace, protecting the innocent, and bringing about merciless judgement on the wicked.
  • Series Continuity Error:
    • When Kenshiro's adoptive brothers were first introduced, Kenshiro initially mentions that none of them are actually blood-related. Later, it turns out that the eldest two, Raoh and Toki, are blood-related after all and we are shown the ruins of their childhood home along with the graves of their birth parents. However, it later turns out that none of them (except Jagi) were even born in Japan at all, but that the three of them were refugees from the Kingdom of Shura and that Raoh and Toki's mother is buried in a swamp. If that wasn't enough confusion, then comes the prequel, Fist of the Blue Sky, which shows that the baby Kenshiro was born in Japan... or not, as apparently where he was born was actually in China.
    • In the Hokuto no Ken 2 portion of the anime, the child version of Toki is drawn with white hair during the flashbacks when he was still in Shura. However, the first anime series already established the fact that Toki's natural hair color is dark brown and it didn't become white until he was exposed to nuclear fallout as an adult.
  • The Smurfette Principle: The only prominent female combatant in the original manga is Mamiya, and she's not exactly a powerhouse like the other men. The Arc System Works fighting game and Hokuto Musou both made her the sole female playable character, though apparently, she's relatively more powerful in the latter. There are actually quite a number of female martial artists in the franchise as a whole, but almost all of them are anime or game original characters or characters from later spin-offs published years after the conclusion of the original manga.
  • Shonen Demographic: The archetypal example, though you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for Seinen due to the frequent ultra-violence that occurs throughout - and yes, there are Seinen spin-offs and side-stories to FotNS/HnK.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The whole darned franchise is one to the Australian cult classic Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, although it's only prominent during the early chapters.
    • When Kenshiro heads off to Shura with the shades/goggles on, he ends up looking an incredible lot like Marion Cobretti...
    • Chapter 3 of Volume 27 is tragic as hell - but ends with an incredible shout-out to the opening of the manga. Kenshiro is staggering through the desert, begging for water - but this time, Bat and Lin are right there to help him.
    • In episode 3 of the anime, Mr. Diamond has his men force a man to shoot a tin can off the head of his own son. This is a clear shout-out to the story about the famous Swiss Folk Hero William Tell.
      • In the manga, Diamond instead makes a young girl carry her father, who has a noose around his neck, on her shoulders so that when she eventually collapses from exhaustion, the man will be hanged. This will be quite familiar to anyone who's seen Once Upon a Time in the West.
    • Joker is an obvious shout-out to the DC villain of the same name, as is Jakoh since his facial features are closely modeled after the same character.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Despite all the violent warlords wanting Yuria's affection, she forever loves Ken for his kind and tender nature.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Unapologetically idealistic and morally righteous in spite of being set in a post-apocalyptic Crapsack World. The heart and soul of the series seems to be "It is easy to do good in times of prosperity, but it takes a true hero to be a good person when the entire world is screaming for you to be otherwise."
  • Spaghetti Western: Replace the gunplay with kung-fu, and the grim violence punctuated with bursts of heroic idealism will fit right-in the world of Sergio Leone.
  • The Spartan Way: The Kingdom of Shura, where the law states that one cannot reach manhood until he has defeated at least 100 men.
  • The Stoic: Kenshiro, Raoh and Souther.
  • Stout Strength: Mr. Heart and, to a lesser extent, Fudoh.
  • Streamline Pictures: The English dub of the movie by Streamline Pictures removed most of the backstory regarding the history of Hokuto and Nanto and how their styles worked, had some of the names anglicized or mispronounced (in particular, Raoh pronounces Ryuken's name as "Rye-ah-ken" instead of the proper "Ree-ooh-ken"), and even changed the cause of death of Shin (in the Japanese version, Raoh easily defeats Shin while in the English version, Kenshiro apparently does, making it a half-assed, anti-climactic Curb Stomp Battle). On the plus side, it had James Avery (Uncle Phil/Shredder) as the voice of the Fang King.
  • Spam Attack: The Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken is a classic example.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Many of the child characters who were killed off in the manga (like Bat's friend Taki and Ryo, the kid who ate poisoned bread in Shu's hideout) were spared of their gruesome fates in the anime due to network regulations at the time forbidding the on-screen deaths of children.
    • One of the rare examples of a villain surviving in the anime is the Imperial Executioner in the very first episode of Hokuto no Ken 2. He flees after burning an entire cage filled with imprisoned villagers in front of the Hokuto Army and never shows up again to get his comeuppance. In the manga, his face was smashed in by Kenshiro shortly afterward.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": As with all popular Japanese manga franchises, the spellings of many character names tend to differ between sources and media. Notably, the name of the Holy Emperor tends to vary from "Souther", "Thouzer", "Thouther" and even "Thoutoher" (and it's notably pronounced "Sauza" even in the English dub of Hokuto Musou). Not to mention Yuria/Julia, Yuda/Juda, Lin/Rin, Shu/Shuh/Shew and Uighur/Uyghur.
  • Stock Shout-Outs: The Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken is one of the big ones in anime. Any Spam Attack accompanied by an "ATATATATATATA!" shout is giving a nod to Kenshiro.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: One of the franchise's hang-ups is that it is written to portray women in a particularly patronizing way, even women (such as Mamiya, or Reina from the movies) who are way more competent than the average male villager, mooks and villains of the week. The sad thing is that the show clearly thought it was pro-woman in some episodes, but it was just incredibly paternalistic.
  • Sudden Downer Ending: The ending of Legend of Kenshiro is so pointlessly sadistic it could have been written by Souther himself. Ken has recovered his spirit, embraced his destiny as the messiah and saved the city... then Siska turns out to have a third detonator and blows it up anyway, leaving Kenshiro screaming despondently among the ruins and corpses of his friends. However, The Stinger has Kenshiro wandering into a village looking for water and eventually meeting two very familiar orphans...
  • Suicidal Overconfidence: In spades. Just about every single villain that isn't a successor of one of the major martial arts styles falls under this trope. They can watch Kenshiro (or another successor) murder dozens or hundreds of their peers without breaking a sweat, shrug off firearms and artillery, and other such feats, and still think they have what it takes to take them on. The bad guys in this story have no self-preservation instinct to speak of.
  • Super-Deformed: There is a spin-off manga with a super deformed art style called DD Fist of the North Star. In this story, "...the characters of Fist of the North Star are living in peaceful Japan. In particular, Kenshiro is a convenience store worker, Raoh works at a factory, and wracked by illness, Toki is looking for work." A TV anime adaptation is planned. This is all stated in Anime News Network article.
  • Swiper No Swiping: This happens near the end of the 1986 movie. Raoh is about to deliver a finishing blow to an unconscious Kenshiro, when Lin appears and begs him to spare Kenshiro's life. He does.
  • Tender Tears: Despite their appearance, men of the Fist of the North Star series are actually very warm-hearted and do this a lot, maybe even more than Manly Tears. Even Raoh does this to grieve for Toki and Yuria's suffering, and those are the only times he ever sheds tears.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: Any time an instrumental version of Ai wo Torimodose! cues up.
    • In the finale of the anime, the vocal version is played when Kenshiro performs his final blow on Kaioh.
    • In the Atomiswave fighting game, the theme is played when a character performs a Fatal K.O.
    • In Ken's Rage, the player gets to enjoy this during boss fights.
  • Theme Naming:
    • Shin's four henchmen in the manga are named after playing cards (Spade, Diamond, Club, Heart), while the anime adds Joker to the mix.
    • The members of God's Army are named after military ranks (The Colonel, Sergeant Mad, The Major).
    • Jackal and his underlings are all animal-themed (although only two of them, Fox and Hawk, are named in the manga).
    • The martial arts of the Nanto Seiken school follows an avian motif (Lone Eagle, Waterfowl, Crimson Crane, White Heron and Phoenix).
  • There Are No Therapists: An aversion. Hokuto Shinken's healing techniques can be used for psychological as well as physical healing, as was the case when Kenshiro gave Lin a pressure-point adjustment to help cure her trauma-induced muteness.
  • There Can Be Only One: Once Kenshiro's brothers are introduced, it is revealed that the law of Hokuto Shinken states that only one student can inherit its teachings; the others are to be either disabled or euthanized. This ends up leading to the story's events - Jagi's berserk moment came when Kenshiro was chosen, and Raoh's refusal to let himself be crippled led to the fight in which Ryuken died.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: When Kenshiro growls this phrase at you, it goes without saying that you're pretty much screwed. Kenshiro goes one further after Shu's death: "Not one hair of you will remain on this world, Souther!"
  • This Is Your Brain on Evil: Hokuto Ryuuken does hideous things to its users' minds. It's a major part of why Kaioh, one of Kenshiro's nastier adversaries and a Ryuuken master, is Easily Forgiven.
  • Tiger Versus Dragon: Kenshiro and Raoh are sometimes represented by a dragon and a tiger, respectively. Kenshiro is stoic and does not seek power, Raoh is more hot-blooded and ambitious.
    • It also comes up when Kenshiro and Rei fight each other to save Airi and Mamiya, as Rei uses a technique called South Star Tiger Destroys Dragon and Kenshiro uses North Star Dragon Attacks Tiger.
  • Time Skip: The second half of the manga begins several years after the first one, with Bat and Lin now grown up.
  • Token Motivational Nemesis: Shin in the manga, whose only reason of existence is to give Kenshiro his signature scars and take Yuria away from him before being killed by the end of the tenth chapter. The Adaptation Expansion of the TV series padded Shin's role for up to 22 episodes, making him the Big Bad of Part 1. Most of this only amounted to giving Shin more henchmen to order around than the four he had in the manga, but he does get his own moment of glory by thwarting a conspiracy to overthrow him just before his final battle with Kenshiro. The anime also depicts the dissolution of Shin's army and the destruction of Southern Cross before the final battle, which arguably gives a greater sense of resolution to the Shin than simply having his army vanish with no explanation after his death like in the manga.
  • Too Dumb to Live:
    • A lot of glaring villain examples in the filler episodes, in particular a Bad Boss who has just witnessed Kenshiro demolish his fifteen-foot-tall henchman Glenn (whom he brainwashed as a slave since childhood) with one hand. When Kenshiro took pity on Glenn and gave him a second chance to be a good person, said Bad Boss just had to murder said giant in cold blood by shooting him full of arrows, then taunts Glenn as he expires for being such a weakling complete with Evil Laugh in front of the horrified, angry and STILL PRESENT Kenshiro. What an Idiot!
    • Fortunately averted by Souther's troops after his defeat, once Kenshiro's walked back down the pyramid stairs. There's obvious shame and regret over what they were fighting for, but in the first Raoh Den movie, the kids actually put themselves between the troops and Kenshiro. Had the troops in that one made a move, Kenshiro would have been right there.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Toki, Yuria, Shu, Fudoh the Mountain, Ein, countless hordes of innocent, well-meaning bystanders and the planet itself.
  • To the Pain: Ken usually describes just what he did to an opponent before it finishes them off.
  • Touch of Death: Hokuto Shinken is basically an entire martial art based around this.
  • Training From Hell:
    • Even in a series notable for its lack of gratuitous training scenes, there are a few glaring examples. At one point, Ken flashes back to when the adolescent students of his school had to fight the students in another school... where the fights were apparently to the death.
    • Another time, there's the memory of the Hokuto Shinken final test, where Ken and Raoh have to face a tiger and are expected to make the tiger back down through sheer badassness - killing the tiger instead is considered a major screw-up.
  • Tragic Hero: Raoh, for several reasons actually. 1) He wants to restore order and peace to the world by means of instilling fear and terror, 2) he wants Yuria to fall in love with him through similar methods, and 3) his ultimate goal is to become so powerful that even the heavens will bow down to him. His status as a tragic hero is especially prevalent in the spin-off series, Legends of the Dark King.
    • Shin also counts.
  • Trope Maker/Trope Codifier: Quite simply, FOTNS is THE granddaddy of most Shonen fighting series (along with Dragon Ball), and pretty much every trope that applies to them was codified by it (Again, with Dragon Ball). It's easier to mention which fighting series are NOT in any way influenced by it).
  • Troperrific: Yes, it starts in the year 199X. Yes, it features absurd villains with absurd haircuts. Yes, it features a martial arts style that seems to have a counter for everything. Yes, there's a lot of pans and people explaining what they just did. Yes, it features a linear progression of threats to our heroes. Yes, it defined basically everything we know and make fun of as a "Shonen" show, and yes, it plays every single one of those tropes utterly, completely straight without irony. The show wouldn't possibly be as effective if it did otherwise, however. If the show made light of Kenshiro's abilities or had the villains act in any other way or any number of subversions that viewers are now perhaps used to, it would be a fundamentally different show. Of course, when it first came out, most of these tropes weren't solid enough to be subverted anyway.
  • True Companions: Anyone who is an ally of Kenshiro will exhibit Undying Loyalty to him, but the best examples are Bat, Lin, Rei, Mamiya and Toki.
  • Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The war that trashed the world took place in 199X.
  • Two Guys and a Girl:
    • Kenshiro, Shin and Yuria, at least in the flashbacks and the beginning of the series.
    • In the Hokuto Brothers Saga, it's Kenshiro, Rei and Mamiya, but that one has a far, far more tragic ending.
  • Unflinching Walk:
    • In one episode, Kenshiro destroys a tank with the power of Hokuto Shinken and walks away as it explodes.
    • In the 1986 movie, after recovering from his first fight with Shin, he slowly trudges towards a group of mooks attacking Lin and Bat, not even stopping as skyscrapers fall on top of him.
  • Unstoppable Rage: Ken does this almost every episode, usually illustrated when his battle aura causes his shirt to disintegrate. This is even more amusing once you discover that it's actually a part of Hokuto Shinken - the move is called Tenryu Kokyu Ho, or "Art of the Dragon's Breath", and enables the practitioner to tap into the 70% of the human body's power that is not normally used.
    • There's actually an exception. When Rei first appears and says he's looking for the man with seven scars on his chest, the plot requires that Kenshiro not show his chest. Accordingly, Kenshiro's battle aura never does this until that plot is resolved.
  • Up to Eleven: Kenshiro's already a one-man killing machine but the movie instalments ramp up his power to ridiculous levels.
    • In the 1986 movie, he topples a skyscraper with ONE PUNCH and proceeds to WALK THROUGH IT while it's collapsing.
    • In Kenshiro Den, he single-handedly destroys an entire army (and bear in mind, that this is a prequel).
  • Updated Rerelease: The manga has several collected editions in addition to the initial Jump Comics releases published during its serialization throughout the eighties, most notably the Kanzenban edition published by Shogakukan in 2006, which condenses the original 27 volume run to 14 volumes and reprints all the colored art from the Weekly Shonen Jump serial, as well as all the opening pages that were omitted in earlier editions. The 18-volume Ultimate Edition published throughout 2013 and 2014 has a new story in the beginning of Vol. 11 that details how Kokuoh lost his eye between the first and second halves of the manga.
  • Visual Novel: In 1986, Enix created a spinoff visual novel/Adventure Game called Hokuto no Ken: Violence Gekiga Adventure. It was released for several computers that were popular in Japan at the time. It was basically a loose retelling of the Bloody Cross Saga with many of the same events transpiring differently.
    • There was another Visual Novel-style game released by Banpresto in 1995, simply titled Hokuto no Ken. It was released for the Play Station and Sega Saturn and took place after the events of the manga. Lin gets kidnapped (again) on the day of her wedding with Bat and another Hokuto school (Hokuto Mumyoken) is behind the events.
  • The War on Terror: In the intro to Jun'ai no Shō - which is the first part of the Shin Kyūseishu Densetsu film series - it is implied that this was the reason for the nuclear war.
  • Wasteland Elder: Kenshiro encounters quite a few elderly village leaders during the series.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: "Hey, there's a new, cool-looking character with an awesome new fighting sty- Aw, they're dead already." And that's for the good guys. Bad guys end up in the boneyard even quicker and bloodier.
  • The Western: Think David Carradine's Kung Fu directed by Sergio Leone on a very bad day and you get this classic Sci-Fi Kung-Fu Western.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Pel, Lin's beloved Precious Puppy, who appears only in the anime series, disappears mysteriously after episode 63 without any explanation, only to make one last cameo during episode 70. He then reappears fully-grown in the final episode of the sequel series.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: Kenshiro kills mooks without remorse, but will often try to spare their boss because of a Freudian Excuse.
  • What the Fu Are You Doing?: In one episode, a mook unsuccessfully tries to perform a Hokuto Zankai Ken on Kenshiro. Said mook ends up exploding due to Ken hitting a pressure point on his face.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer: The solution to everything is to apply Hokuto Shinken. No exceptions. Bandits holding the village hostage? Hokuto Shinken. Facing down a tank? Hokuto Shinken. Trying to cure a little girl of trauma-induced muteness? Hokuto Shinken, dammit!
  • Whip It Good: Uighur. Uighur is a huge, huge man running a prison, so the theme of control and enslavement is still there but without any of the usual vampiness associated with whips. In fact, he's presented as a serious martial artist (Well, as serious as you can be if you're not named Kenshiro, Toki, Raoh, Souther or Rei, anyway...).
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Averted, majorly. Although one of the white-haired characters, near-death Rei is not quite as morally pure as Ken, the other white-haired character is Toki, who is pretty much the best person in the series and Too Good for This Sinful Earth.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Kenshiro is an idealist who lives in a Crapsack World where people die every day over a scrap of food or a sip of water. Still, he believes it is easy being despicable in that age, but it takes a true HERO to keep your humanity and keep being a good person when everything and everyone around seems suggesting you otherwise. In the first chapter, Bat asks him bluntly how he has survived so far if he would not even try to break himself out of jail because it could get a little girl in trouble. Not long after, Bat finds out Kenshiro is idealistic because he can afford it. Behaving like scum and harming helpless people in front of him is a very, very bad idea. Like in "he WILL disintegrate you" bad idea.
  • Wife-Basher Basher:
    • Though Kenshiro and Rei will avenge the abuse of all innocents as a matter of course, they are exceptionally harsh towards any "man" who dares to strike or abuse women; and that's saying something considering how brutal and cruel Hokuto Shinken and Nanto Suichoken already are.
    • If you serve in Raoh's armies, do not rape women if you don't want your head literally slapped off your shoulders, as the rapist mook in the manga found out the hard way.
  • William Telling: Used as a Kick the Dog moment in an early episode of the anime, with one of Mr. Diamond's men forcing a villager to try to shoot a can off the head of his son with a bow and arrow. Fortunately, Kenshiro catches the arrow in mid-air and throws it straight back at the thug.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: It only took a nudge from Jagi to make Shin go Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
    • Raoh does some truly hideous things to build his empire, but considering the state the world is in, it's easy to see why. Not to mention his goal to become the strongest man alive, as he was originally intended to be the successor to Hokuto Shinken before losing the position twice.
    • Souther, if he's not a Jerkass Woobie.
  • A World Half Full:
    • Even if the world is burnt by nuclear fire, it will only stay bad if you choose to let it stay bad. If you have the power and are willing to care, then even a wasteland can be made a better place.
    • Despite the nuclear war, there seem to be quite a few people still left, and later on in the manga, the post-war civilization has developed to a point where a large number of independent states exist here and there.
  • World of Badass: Averted. Even Mook-level enemies are often gigantic superhuman badasses, but most of the world's population are peaceful villagers who have no chance of standing up against them, and until Kenshiro passes through an area, the non-badass people just have to bend over and take it - resistance will just get them killed.
  • World of Ham: There is no space for subtle emotions here; all feelings are either screamed out, punched out or cried out in the worlds of Buronson and Hara.
  • Worthless Yellow Rocks: A bunch of Zeed's men in the first episode find a briefcase full of Japanese yen. Since this is the post-apocalyptic future, though, the thug who grabbed the briefcase promptly throws the money away, saying that it's not even fit to be used as toilet paper.
  • Worthy Opponent: Shin, Souther, Raoh and Falco to Kenshiro. Toki, Juza and Fudoh to Raoh. Yuda to Rei. Shu to Souther... maybe.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Some assholes decided that maiming a child or worse would be fun in the post-apocalyptic world and no law would ever convict them. Unfortunately for them, Karma Houdini doesn't exist in the world of Hokuto no Ken[5], so expect Kenshiro to turn these human wastes of life into Jackson Pollock paintings.
  • Wuxia: One of the earliest forrays of this genre to use the future (albeit a primitive one) rather than the past as a setting.
  • Yandere: In the manga, Shin is just a garden variety victim of Love Makes You Evil, but in the anime Adaptation Expansion, he gets enough character development to be revealed as one of these types - complete with an Alas, Poor Villain at the end.
  • You Are Already Dead: The Trope Namer.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Made very explicit by having astrology play a part in most major fight scenes.
    • The "Dream Mode" of Hokuto Musou plays with this with a series of "what if?" scenarios, but at the end of all of them, they turn out to literally be dreams and the character goes on to meet their intended destiny regardless of whether their life may have been better or worse for it.
      • With the somewhat tragicomic exception of Jagi - he actually takes the dream to heart, and is packing his things to get the fuck out of Dodge so that he avoids Kenshiro when one of his mooks tells him that Kenshiro is in the building.
  • You Didn't Ask: Often, Ken will only save someone after being told for the 1,000th time about how evil the captor/tyrant is.
    • And just as often subverted. If anyone is doing anything evil or unlawful to innocents within earshot of Kenshiro, he will usually respond. If they're lucky, he'll just make their arms useless or otherwise neutralize them. If they did something really bad, such as hurting women or children, expect to see heads exploding.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Rei gets hit with an attack by Raoh that would kill him painfully in three days, giving him a limited amount of time to find and defeat his arch-nemesis, Yuda. When he gets close to the limit without defeating Yuda, he enlists Toki's aid to extend his life for one more day via a process so painful, it causes his hair to go white.
  • Your Head Asplode: Watch out if you have a mohawk! Sometimes subverted as, even without a mohawk, it doesn't mean you're safe. Look at Jakoh's death scene for one example.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle:
    • Kenshiro meets this trope after storming one of Raoh's castles in search of his kidnapped fiancée.
    • It also happens during the anime version of the Bloody Cross Saga, except Raoh is replaced with Shin.
    • Also happens when Rei storms Yuda's hideout with the intent to kill him, only to find out that Yuda left long ago.
  • Your Size May Vary: Attacking opponents suddenly much bigger? Kokouh, Raoh's unusually large horse, becoming large enough to completely stomp mooks under his hoofs when moments ago, they were only as big as his head? Raoh himself, usually only two heads taller than Kenshiro, suddenly becomes a giant at least as twice as tall? Mako begging for mercy from Jagi, whose knees are now at head level? This series has a lot of this.
  • Zeerust: The original manga was published during the 1980s, at a time when most doomsday predictions placed the end of the world at the late 1990s. Thus, the nuclear war occurs in the year 199X and the term Seikimatsu ("century's end") is used to refer to the era in which the story takes place. This becomes Zeerust Canon in all of the newer spin-offs published after 2000 and onward, which continued using the term Seikimatsu.

"ATATATATATATATATATA! OWATTA!"

"Omae wa mou shindeiru."

"NANI?!"

"HIDEBU!!" *splat*

  1. "Nil-Thought Rebirth"
  2. In Yuda's case, admitting Rei is prettier counterbalances being a mass murderer with an unwilling harem of branded women. Mamiya is one of his escaped victims, but never mind her.
  3. Though it can be argued that works like Devilman, Violence Jack, Kamen Rider, and Dororo came first, before the concept of Shonen even existed
  4. "Nil-Thought Rebirth"
  5. Seriously, try to find a single entry of it...