Review of Fist of the North Star: HOKUTO NO KEN

I’ve been saying this on forums on occasions already but this is the fourth adaptation of the same story which makes its existence itself questionable, like what is the necessity of it? Like yeah it’s fiction and entertainment, not really necessary in itself by default, but why would you redo the same story the same way for a fourth time? If it’s a different take like cartoons and movies do with their retelling and remakes of stories I would understand it, but it’s that the case for anime, and particularly this one? Well let’s find out

The first adaptation from 1984 partially rearranged the early events of the manga, thus it made several minor antagonists be minions of the first major one, and also delayed the first major showdown because of that. As a result, that villain and fight had more buildup and anticipation, and the amount of minor enemies between the first two major ones was reduced, so that’s a good call from that show. Unfortunately it also had a lot more minor non-challenging villains and pointless filler added in it, but that early rearrange worked in its favor. To this day I think of it as the best version of the story, but only for the first season, more on that later.

The 1986 movie was honestly a rushed and incomplete job and even had two different endings across two different versions, thus it obviously affected the already not high quality of the script considerably, but it also focused a lot on Kenshiro being this savior-like figure in this desolated world, and actually made Rei having a part in taking Jagi down, so he got his deserved revenge. Plus it was the best looking and animated version of them all, especially because it had the gore that the tv series censored or toned down. Thus despite all of its shortcomings, I think it’s worth a watch.

The third version was a pentalogy of films released throughout the late 00s and honestly had the best looking artwork amongst every version, but everything else was half-baked, from special effects to music to actual animation and man those main voices what the hell. The story was condensed in a few movies with a lot of material straight up skipped, but at least was completed this time, well, as far as the first part goes at least. But for some reason Raoh got two new underlings and there’s a lot of focus on their perspectives and I never got the reason why for that, it didn’t add anything important nor interesting, thus it only made it more tedious and boring as a whole. It didn’t help that it also added extra backstories for the main characters, that either weren’t all that interesting on their own or at times contradicted the main canon dynamics. Thus I don’t think that version is worth watching as a whole.

I guess I should mention the Legend of Heroes as well but that was just a short of the third Kenshiro vs Raoh fight done in just a few minutes and with outdated CGI, thus not even worth mentioning or be counted as another adaptation.

There were more prequels and sequels set in this universe, but that exceeds the content of this entry so luckily there’s no reason to talk about those here, and for the better, honestly.

And then we get this one, which aims to be the most faithful version of all, thus automatically winning over some manga purists fans despite all of its shortcomings. The obvious first one is the visuals, where it automatically loses against all the three previous versions, but wins over the unworthy of mention short and previous infamous CGI disasters like 2016 Berserk and Souten no Ken Regenesis, despite some claiming that this series is equally bad or even worse in that regard. My guess is that muscular bodies are very hard to draw and even worse animate, thus every major manly action manga is animated in CGI to make the task easier, to which I say JUST CHANGE THE DESIGNS A BIT IF YOU NEED LIKE THE OLDER VERSIONS DID MAN WHAT THE HELL, THESE BODIES LOOK LIKE AWFUL PLASTIC IN CGI, and it doesn’t help that they also move very awkwardly, thus defeating the whole point of opting for this style and technique.

That’s not the only issue with it but the rest are either a mixed bag or minor. My guess is that the team responsible for this anime wanted to empathize that Hokuto is the most serious fighting shounen ever, and they wanted to reflect that in the visuals, opting for a dark toned colouring, consisting mostly of gray and brown, resulting in very lifeless aesthetics. I mean I guess it fits the setting right, but the series is still mostly rule of cool and has a lot of tragicomic moments due to the over the top deaths and dramatic tone, it is still not that serious to need this kind of dry style, but I guess it isn’t all that bad for it. The other one is that at times the series features moments in 2D which clash a lot with the rest but most importantly look fine as fuck, like a more refined look of the 00s pentalogy, which makes me wonder WHY DOES NOT THE SHOW JUST LOOK LIKE THAT THE WHOLE TIME INSTEAD?

Not everything is bad though, as this version features the second best gore in the franchise so far, surpassed only by the 1986 movie, but even then the gray colouring makes everything look weird and unlike the movie, this is not the most remarkable show in its year in that regard, as the second of Dorohedoro already bested it at that, not only for its brutality but also for being made in better CGI and having actual colour.

The audio department is alright, might be the best part of this. The BGM is quite the rocker, despite lacking the energy of the retro one. The opening sucks ass, it is not really pop nor really rock, it sounds very laid back and low energy and lacks a lot of balls for this type of anime. The ending song is another cover of the iconic Ai wo Torimodose opening of the first anime, more commonly known as YOU WA SHOCK for its opening line, but it seems that the song is doomed to sound worse in each passing version, unlike the Cutey Honey takes, nothing matches the original when it comes to this. The voice acting is good, a middle point between the over the topness of the original and there’s actual voice talent and good casting in here, unlike the rest of the franchise. I never liked Saori Hayami much, and it got tiresome to have her in every anime out there now, so I’m not fond of how Yuria sounds here, and I can’t listen to Bat’s fucking Deku voice, but as for others like Rei and Shin, I prefer them over any of the previous versions.

But oh well, I have praised poorly animated shows in the past because I don’t think bad visuals are enough to ruin a show, unless they were so bad that they affect everything else, and that’s not exactly the case here. The story and writing aren’t exactly worse because of the visuals, but with that said, the action is, and Hokuto no Ken is a rule of cool action series first, and theme exploration and character dynamics come second. So even though the anime is not ruined because of the animation, it is considerably less of what could have been.

I mean despite the simplistic story and structure, there’s some substance and credibility to be found in the plot and setting. There’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland where strong tyrants enslave the weak in order to monopolize the little resources, food and water there are, and the setting is the result of a nuclear war between incompetent world leaders that bombed each other, thus destroying the world as a result. That was a very strong aspect when the original came out, during the Cold War paranoia, and it’s even equally relevant today because there are more superpowers with the capability of just nuking each other, as they even baited to do if pressed, just some years ago. In such a dire scenario, the protagonist roams around the desert that the world has become and helps the innocent people from sadists and is seen as a saviour, almost Jesus-like figure because of it, which is funny if you know Toki. He protects people that help others and want to rebuild life in this destroyed world by growing plants and planting seeds that will become food throughout the years, while also killing the bad guys.

And yet that plays out mostly by having the main character exploding the minor one dimensional assholes villains that kill others for fun. I mean I guess in such a deserted wasteland it makes sense that there will be power abuse, I mean look at our world, and the lack of proper food and water will result in lots of literal retards roaming around in such an intoxicated environment or something. But then you consider the functioning weapons and vehicles they have, the amount of huge and muscular dudes there are despite not being well fed nor hydrated, that there is a lot of people that can think and speak normally, the fact that no one covers their skin and faces or anything, Bat somehow knowing enough stuff to spit exposition every two episodes, and every minor gang leader knowing about the hidden deadly martial art of the Hokuto Shinken, and yeah, the series is not that believable anymore. Let alone everything regarding Kenshiro´s abilities.

Even the politicians that appear in the show are presented in a laughably evil manner. As idiotic as our world and reality had become and everything that can be said about several world leaders like Trump, Kim, Putin, Jinping and more, none of them ever actually attempted to do anything of the sort of what’s done in this series, despite all the crossing threats, for the better of course. I mean I guess the ISDF is as evil as the minor villains in this series, if not even way more, but that still doesn’t count as the best characterization, you know.

And yeah there are more themes to talk about in Hokuto no Ken, the different ideologies of the important characters in what and how to do in that world to make it a better place based on their ideas of righteousness and justice, whether to protect people with compassion or rule them and eliminate every conflict by force, whether to adopt the fight or flight mentality and position in this setting in order to survive, how a former idealistic soldier became the same thing that he despised about his leaders, and the spiritual arc that Kenshiro goes through, that even becomes a part in his growth in power at the end of the series…the problem? Almost one of that is present in this series, or goes by quickly and presented very simply, which leads to the next issue:

The series is incomplete, which is of course to be expected in a first season of a show adapting a hundred chapters manga, but that’s where the comparison with the oldest version comes in. Say what you will about the filler-filled adaptations of old, but in this case it meant that the best part of the manga, the first one, was fully adapted in one series, whereas this one lacks all the aforementioned themes in the previous paragraphs, plus all the character dynamics and important fights yet to come.

And also, criticize the abuse of padding and cliffhangers in old fiction all you wish, I rather take that over the fast pacing of current shows where nothing has an impact. It’s a criticism I have with series nowadays, it is fine that they don’t drag on and can be finished shortly, but the transitions between scenes go rather quickly and a lot of the time I at least don’t feel much while watching them, and the episodes end in whatever scenes, not impactful ones. This series is an example, the second season of Jigokuraku is another one. Other times the pacing is so fast it affects the writing itself, as was the case with Golden Kamuy’s NOT final season and all of its skipped content. In this case, the fight between Kenshiro and Shin went by so fast and everything afterwards didn’t feel as interesting, thus leaving me with a very uninterested impression.

But I also have to be honest about Hokuto, I was never big into it, even the best parts of it have weak elements like Souther leaving Kenshiro on the floor and leaving despite Hokuto being the famous high stakes no plot armor fighting shounen, Shin and to an extent the Nanto fighters being retconned once the four Hokuto brothers are introduced and explored, and everything past the first part of the manga being far weaker. I don’t know if this anime will get to that part, as the opening finishes with Raoh, and no other adaptation after the first one ever bothered to get there, but that, and what comes in the manga after the end of the second season of the 80s anime, that’s even way worse, really lower the overall quality of the source material.

But let’s not think about that for now and hope that the next season of this adaptation covers the major fights and themes and hopefully uses more of its 2D instead of its 3D…wouldn’t that be nice? I don’t know if I’ll be there watching it, but that would increase the level and quality of this adaptation considerably.

5/10