STARTING THIS WEEK: FIST OF THE NORTH STAR FRIDAY!!!

Just a typical day in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Fair warning to those of you who don't give a shit: after a surprising period of being given short shrift on this of all sites, I'll finally be getting around to doing an objective overview of the English language translation of the seminal ultra-violent superhero manga, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, specifically the aborted-after-volume 9 MASTER EDITION version (as opposed to Viz's aborted-even-earlier translation). If you're a lover of kung fu, superheroes, post-nuke savagery, ludicrous melodrama and heroes who shed manly tears, by all means check it out. Also give it a shot if you're a newbie, but feel free to give it a miss if it just ain't yer thang. I've been a dyed-in-the-wool groupie since stumbling across the untranslated TV version and a couple of volumes of the untranslated manga in the fall of 1985 and I'm still on the North Star bandwagon, so it's time to give the unitiated some guidance on what is and isnt worth your time in the meager amount of the series that's made it to these shores in English. Dostoyevsky it ain't, but it's certainly entertaining for those of us of a particular bent.

So stay tuned, and remember: "Omae wa mo shinderu."

FIST OF THE NORTH STAR's protagonist, Kenshiro: the embodiment of "No more Mr. Nice Guy."