Fist of the North Star

Summary: >

Fist of the North Star Plot Diagram:

A o---------> B

As Kenshiro progresses to point B he fights people and their heads explode. Also, if you've passed point A you are already dead.

Thoughts: >

So if you think of martial arts fighting, you might think that beating the crap out of people is cool. There are also some deadly techniques that legend has it could make your heart explode. That is even cooler. So some guy in Japan extrapolated that in order to make the coolest anime ever you'd have this guy who knocks people back in a single punch and their heads explode. If you took nearly every one of those Chuck Norris facts and tried to embody them in an anime, you'd almost have a guy who is over the top badass as our protagonist Kenshiro. The image of Kenshiro getting so pissed that he is surrounded by a flaming blue aura of ki which causes his muscles to bulge and his shirt to tear itself to shreds is an iconic image in the anime world.

Fist of the North Star is a force to be reckoned with - mainly because it's so unbelievably bad that it enters a realm of its own awesomeness. Being the most violent martial arts anime EVER and reining champion among anime titles where people's heads explode, this is an anime which has become a cult classic. It comes together in a package that is just perfectly bad. Distopian world, bad character designs, characters that are beyond cliche defenders of justice in this post apocalyptic world where apparently there is still a lot of "innocent" people for them to defend. The dub is of course bad, but is the icing on the cake and you will most certainly want to make sure you watch this dubbed if at all possible. Story? Dude people's heads are exploding. Who in the hell cares why. Music? this is all you need to know.

The animation is actually pretty interesting considering the immense carnage taking place. What we see in anime these days is heavily sanitized. Sure, there's blood and sometimes people get cut in half. In old school titles like Fist of the North Star they probably had morticians acting as consultants to accurately depict the blood and guts spilling out of people. You could probably learn about organ placement by watching where they come flying out of the bodies here.

Before most had ever heard of "anime", Streamline brought over state of the art "Japanimation" *shiver* (glad that term never caught on), such as North Star and were determined to prove that cartoons could be for adults. First of all, if I were going to seriously introduce anyone to anime, the LAST title I would ever show them is this. Second point is that while it's too violent for kids, North Star is way to dumb in its simplicity and violence to appeal to adults much.

Verdict? It's totally bad, but that's all the more reason to watch this gore fest. There never was, nor will there ever be again, another Fist of the North Star. It's in a class by itself. If you're of drinking age: the more wasted you get the more awesome this show becomes. Invite some friends over and watch it together. Good times.

Fist of the North Star: Hell yeah.

Screen Caps: >