FIST OF THE NORTH STAR Volume 1 (2021)

 

Eleven years back, I wrote several blog entries on Gutsoon Entertainment's large, color Master Editions of FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, the ultra-violent martial arts/superhero manga classic, objectively critiquing both the manga itself and the then-current English translation and its presentation. Gutsoon managed to publish nine volumes of the series before the company went out of business, which was frustrating to FOTNS fans because Gutsoon's attempt was the second time an English translation failed to go the manga's full distance, though I have to note that Gutsoon's editions at least made it further along that the previous rights-holders did during the late 1980's.

But that was then and this is now, and the original English language rights-holders, Viz Media, have reclaimed the rights and are issuing beautiful hardcover editions that maintain the manga's black and white art (with occasional color effects that first appeared in the weekly Shonen Jump chapters). I'm hoping that this time the reprinting of this epic series makes it all the way to the end, and won't crap out a third of the way through, just as things kick into high gear...

Anyway, on to an introduction to the series for newcomers, and a look at what you get in Volume 1. NOTE: The text that follows was originally written nine years ago, though I have updated some of it to reflect the current edition. Also, the art seen here is from earlier editions — basically what I could cull from online — so the dialogue is not that of the current translation.

In the year 199X, World War III breaks out and after the nuclear holocaust's smoke and fire clears (to say nothing of the attendant fallout), the earth has been rendered a scorched and barren wasteland where lawlessness and savagery rule and the weak are the pathetic prey of the strong and cartoonishly sadistic. Out of the blistering, Sergio Leone-esque wastes strides Kenshiro, a tall, stoic and impossibly-muscled warrior who is a completely flagrant fusion of the ENTER THE DRAGON-era Bruce Lee's martial prowess (taken of course to an insane next level) and Mel Gibson as Mad Max, for both the Aussie hero's post-apocalyptic setting and basic visual.
Kenshiro: a shameless gene-splicing (read "ripoff/mashup") of Mad Max and Bruce Lee. (cover art from the original Japanese tankoban edition of the first volume) 

NOTE: Kenshiro can't be considered a total visual ripoff of Mad Max because Ken's leather jacket does not have any trace of sleeves! So, there!

Mel "Sugartits" Gibson: the sartorial template for Kenshiro.

This initial collection of what was originally a twenty-seven volume Japanese series introduces readers to Kenshiro, the 64th successor to the super-human martial art of Hokuto Shinken, and the savage post-apocalyptic dystopia in which he exists. The narrative kicks off with Ken's emergence from the barren wasteland after being on the receiving end of one of the most personally humiliating ass-kickings in recorded history — a beatdown made all the worse by it having been handed out by a guy who looks not unlike one of the Nelson brothers in a Sgt. Pepper's outfit —

Kenshiro receives the beatdown of twelve lifetimes...

...and is given the chest scars that will serve as his equivalent to Superman's "S."

— and his quest to rescue his fiancee, Yuria.

Yuria: unwitting catalyst for an odyssey of violence.

who has been kidnapped by his former friend, Shin — the aforementioned Nelson lookalike — aka "King" (like in a deck of cards).
It's good to be the King: Shin enjoys the spoils of conquest. (Note: he has a Johnson, but you couldn't flat-out depict one in the Japanese comics of the time, not even in the ones that were straight-up porn. No Willies, but endless amounts of graphic violence? That's okay. Go figure...)

Shin is one of the top students of the Nanto Seiken style of martial arts, a form that grants the practitioner the ability to slice through virtually anything with their bare hands (stone included), and that discipline is the polar opposite of Hokuto Shinken's internally-based assassination techniques that cause an opponents body to literally explode.

Shin breaks it down for the readers.

Due to some obscure bit of reasoning, it has been decreed by the elders of both styles that Hokuto Shinken and Nanto Seiken must never fight due to the nature of their interdependent duality, and that if they do fight it would cause a cosmic imbalance of devastating magnitude (or some such quasi-mystical shit). So, needless to say, once the nuclear holocaust effectively re-wrote the rules of basic human existence, so too were the two-thousand year old laws governing the secret martial world cast aside, thus setting Kenshiro in motion as both a rescuer and an engine of righteous vengeance on the side of good, while Shin proves to be a vicious and power-hungry asshole of a conqueror. In the end only one man can be left standing, but what shall be the ultimate fate of Yuria?

Kenshiro versus Shin: only one can survive. And since this series went on for twenty-six volumes past this one in Japan, guess who eventually wins?   

The first arc concludes here, and immediately swings into the first three chapters of Ken's adventures, this time pitting him against an army of highly-skilled para-military bastards who savagely abuse the general public and kidnap all available females for unwilling breeding stock. Even little girls, one of whom happens be a child who befriended Ken...

 FIST OF THE NORTH STAR is in no way a work of "deep" meaning or even of great intelligence, but it is a warrior's saga that's technically science-fiction thanks to its post-apocalyptic future setting, but the virtually medieval level of society and technology, along with frequent forays into Asian concepts of mythology and the like, keep the tale firmly within the bounds of a Conan-style story in which the barbarian hero also happened to be a martial artist with superhuman skills and powers.
Why it sucks to be one of the downtrodden in the post-apocalyptic landscape of FIST OF THE NORTH STAR.

It's a crazy mashup of genres and is fun for its once-shocking amounts of over-the-top gore and violence, but once you get past that element, what remains is a "manly" soap opera of nearly non-stop kung fu. The manga recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary and though now considered a classic, the tropes that it invented have been eclipsed many times over since its debut. For those of us who were there for this (and its TV adaptation) when it happened, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR was exhilarating stuff, but even then it was plain to see that the protagonist was a pretty much one note superhero whose chief fascinating aspect was his sheer badassery and the fact that his martial art allowed him to pick up the skills and techniques of even his most super-powered opponents, provided he survived that initial encounter. The emotional histrionics are geared to an audience that is on the verge of discovering girls, and once Yuria is out of the picture (believe me, that isn't a spoiler) its very few remaining female characters offer little or nothing to the overall narrative. (Though there is Rin, a little girl orphan who follows Ken on his journeys, initially for protection, but eventually out a what becomes a case of chosen family, along with Bat, another orphan who previously survived by scrounging and thievery.)

Unfortunately, one of the series' biggest flaws is that it just isn't all that compelling until the introduction of Rei, a noble though conflicted Nanto Seiken master who becomes Kenshiro's closest and most respected friend, and the moment when Ken's presumed-dead brothers take center stage and launch the intra-familial power struggle that provides the series with its true core and point (a point that is eventually resolved, yet the series continued aimlessly for another twelve collected volumes after that decisive conclusion in Japan, due to the series still being wildly popular and incredibly lucrative). When Rei and Ken's brothers show up, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR comes to spectacular and memorable life and it is for that period that the series is justly remembered and revered. That said, it's a bit of a wait until it all comes together, with everything preceding the good stuff serving only to reiterate Ken's badassery and keep readers hooked solely by the Neal Adams-influenced artwork and the curiosity to find out in which outrageous way Ken will defeat his many, many adversaries.

Kenshiro makes with the Bruce Lee thing.

FIST OF THE NORTH STAR is definitely worth a look for those interested in seeing another culture's take on the superhero, but don't expect real greatness from it until a couple of volumes down the line.
Stay tuned for Volume Two and our hero testing his considerable skills the paramilitary forces of "GOLAN."