Fist of the North Star Recommended

Publisher
Manga Entertainment
Director
Toyou Ashida
Production
Fuji TV, Shueisha, Toei
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
109 episodes
Year
1984

Fist of the North Star (series & movie)

By Sydneyguy
28th Apr 04

Earth is a baron wasteland after nuclear war. The most valuable commodity is water. There is no law!! Violence and the strong rule. But a saviour shall walk among them........

Fist of the North Star (FTNS) is a old anime series with hundreds of episodes. It was made into a anime movie which is a very quick run down of what happens in the series.

THE MOVIE: The movie introduces you to most of the main characters in the series. I watched this first and i became very moved. While i have seen reviewers who either hated it or loved it, i easily agree for the later. The movie does squeeze a lot of what happens into 2 hours and thus does appear to be a mindless violent movie. But if you can look into the heart of it's themes (destiny, hope) like i did, you will enjoy this a lot more

THE SERIES: There are differences from the series and the movie. This will be obvious when you watch the series.

Kenshiro and Juila wish to live a peaceful life until his "brother" takes his love away from him and leaves with mortally wound, with 7 wounds on his chest (when lined up shows the north star star system) Kenshiro then journeys to take back his love while he fights many opponents who seek to harm the weak

Kenshiro is a Hokuto Shinken practioner, a martial arts which focusses on hitting a opponents presure points which lead to a horrible death. There can only be one successor, but Kenshiro had 3 other brothers.........

Kenshiro's main opponent is Raoh or Ken-Oh, one of his brothers. Raoh wishes to become lord of the world and Kenshiro is his greatess threat to achieving this goal.

The series, you meet many martial artist with many different skills and personailities. What draws you to the series is how Kenshiro deals with these opponents. The script is light on talk, but it more than makes up for it with action.

I truely enjoyed this series. There is over 60 hours to complete all the episodes (You can cut the series into 2 parts, with the second part having a different focus and villains). When you see Kenshiro rides off into the sunset you knows sadly that is all.

9/10

-- Sydneyguy 28th Apr 04

Fist of the North Star Images