Fist of the North Star/Nightmare Fuel

• The nuclear war of 199X, as shown in the opening of the 1986 movie. It's on par with Barefoot Gen, showing people being graphically vaporized by the nuclear bombs, loads of Eye Scream, and people so badly burned that they resemble shambling zombies before they finally fall over and die.
• Hokuto Shinken ("North Star God Fist") consists of the practitioner hitting the pressure points of a person. It can be used for healing, which both Kenshiro and Toki demonstrate during the series, but when it is used to kill, it often results in various horrifying effects such as hands blowing up, heads exploding, the whole body exploding, causing someone to uncontrollably walk backwards off a skyscraper, separating a person's skeleton from their skin, causing a person's body to feel like it's covered with bare nerves... and the list goes on. Oh, and the person on the receiving end will often be in agonizing pain as they die from one of these effects. The story itself acknowledges that it is a terrible fighting style that must never be misused on people, or else the world will be left in ruins. As events in the story show, it wasn't kidding.
  • Nanto Seiken ("South Star Holy Fist") is this for a different reason. Hokuto Shinken destroys enemies by hitting their pressure points (in other words, from the inside-out), while Nanto Seiken simply destroys enemies from the outside-in. A practitioner of this style will have fingers as sharp as swords, and can either stab you, as Shin graphically demonstrated on Kenshiro, or slash you to ribbons with air pressure, as Rei does to his enemies. Oh, and one variant adds setting them on fire...
  • And the worst part? They're assassination techniques, meaning the practitioners are also incredibly skilled at sneaking up on people and doing their job (as shown multiple times by Kenshiro and Rei casually walking up into enemy camps in broad daylight without being noticed until they decide to speak). Imagine you're a Mook doing nothing but your job and talking with your fellow Mook about whatever you've been doing, and suddenly your companion explodes, falls into pieces or has a hand sticking out of their chest...
  • The one technique that takes the grand prize out of Hokuto Shinken (and really, a lot of techniques we witness)? Hokuto Ujō Hagan Ken, which roughly translates to "North Star Humanist Face-Destroying Fist". There's Toki, who's sitting there calmly while 2 of the prison guards are about to kill him, and then all of a sudden, Toki raises his arms and a beam of energy is shot from each one towards the guards on both sides. At first, the guards are confused as to what just happened and, as if on cue, their bodies start to contort. Kenshiro then explains that those who are on the receiving end of the technique will experience sheer joy before they die. And lo, the guards' bodies start to twist and turn on every limb in a nightmarish way. But the worst part? The guards' faces are not contorted in pain, but rather in sheer pleasure and ecstasy while their bodies twist and turn further until they're completely disintegrated. Even Mamiya, an ally to Kenshiro and Toki herself, has a terrified look on her face upon witnessing this technique. It's so ironic that the most illuminated, wise and gentle character in the series has mastered such a horrifying technique, which fans jokingly call "the Jesus Rainbow Beam".
  • And to complete the horror, to master these styles, the practitioners must go through a terrifying training regime that makes them strong enough to tear through tank armor by sheer brute force or take hits with that kind of power - and that's the weak ones such as Jagi. Kenshiro once sent someone into orbit with a single kick... and then there's Raoh, who is leagues above that.
• There's a really nasty moment during Kenshiro and Shin's rematch where Shin manages to administer a particularly painful attack where he stabs his fingers straight through Kenshiro's hand. Kenshiro no-sells it, and retaliates by punching straight through one of Shin's own hands.
• Taizan Tenrōken ("Mount Tai Heavenly Wolf Fist") is a truly terrifying fighting style. Raoh's second-in-command Ryuga is the only practitioner of this style, and that's a good thing. With this style, he scoops out chunks of his victims' flesh while leaving them with a feeling of bitter coldness. They feel cold, not necessarily because he's freezing them, but because he scooped out their nerve endings. Kenshiro even says that this is a terrible style. When the guy who makes peoples' heads explode just by hitting their pressure points actually says this, you just know you're all kinds of fucked up.
  • Taizanji Kenpō ("Mount Tai Temple Martial Arts") in general counts as this: it's a collection of strange, yet powerful martial arts styles with nightmarish effects, with the first technique ever seen in the original two-shot pilot having the lovely name of "Bear Claw Bisection Fist". Worse yet, most known practitioners are crazy and/or evil, and have no qualms about using their strength to commit atrocities for their own sick kicks. One gets the impression that Raoh collected so many of them in his army specifically to make sure they would be kept in check until it was time to kill most of them (of the ones in his army, only Ryuga wasn't crazy and evil).
    • In the pilot, they're even worse: due to a combination of assassination and blackmail, they effectively control Japan, and they're just as evil and crazy as they are in the series.
• Hokuto Ryuuken ("North Star Lapis Lazuli Fist") sounds like a cool style... until you see it in action (basically, think of it as being Hokuto Shinken's evil brother). One teacher of the style, Jukei, used it... and paid a terrible price. Apparently, it put him in a state similar to being on drugs. While under its influence, he became demonic-looking, with bulging veins all over his body, his eyes becoming incredibly bloodshot and emitting purple smoke breath. He also killed a lot of people and caused a lot of destruction while under Hokuto Ryuuken's influence. Ryūken had to hit pressure points on his neck to snap him out of it. Oh, and Jukei hadn't even surrendered himself completely to it by that point! Here's the kicker, though... Jukei didn't even remember what he did while he was on a rampage, and Ryūken had to inform him that, during his rampage, he killed his own wife and child. This is the reason why the plot of the Kaioh Saga focused on killing off everyone who practiced this style.
• Jagi, the first major villain in the series to use Hokuto Shinken. Just look at his unmasked face and you'll see.
• A large majority of the villains embody this trope. They look as ugly as sin and have the personality to match. Some of them seem to be as large as a house or a 10-storey building, and that's bigger than Kenshiro, who is six-feet tall. They go around robbing, raping and murdering people. They don't care if women and children are among the people they target. They will also not listen to reason at all. Indeed, one must wonder if they were good people before the nuclear war, or if they were always like this. In fact, with a lot of them being so big and ugly, one must wonder how they got into bomb shelters to survive... and if anyone else in the bomb shelters survived with them. On the other hand, since they're so evil, heartless and monstrous, you will be fine with Kenshiro using Hokuto Shinken on them.
• When Toki strikes a pressure point on Rei that will extend his lifespan long enough to allow him to fight Yuda, what happens proves that it was never going to be easy. The procedure is incredibly painful, and lots of screaming results from it. In particular, all of Rei's fingernails burst out of his fingers, one-by-one.
  • And the reason why Toki had to do this to Rei? Raoh used a Hokuto Shinken technique on him that would cause all of his blood to haemorrhage out of his body in three days.
• Kaioh. He happens to be incredibly skilled at using Hokuto Ryuuken, and has become so corrupted by its power that he has to wear armor, not for protection, but to keep his evil Battle Aura contained. It goes without saying that, if that armor ever comes off, horrible things will happen. At one point, he murders his little sister Sayaka in order to drive Kenshiro's blood brother Hyoh into insanity. He also captures Lin and straight-up states that she will bear him his son, whether she likes it or not. He's at least seven-feet tall and pretty wide due to his muscular body, so how Lin would be able to bear him a child is a nightmarish question to think about. The fact that she was on a bed and he was slowly and menacingly approaching her at one point certainly did not help matters.