FistoftheNorthStar

Fist of the North Star (TV Series Collection 1) (1984)

So, after a day of VERY intense therapy after the Sexy Soccer debacle (check the site for the full story) I started Fist of the North Star. And before we get into the heart of the review I have a few quick notes to go over:

1. If you’re really frothing at the mouth to start watching Fist of the North Star, and don’t know where to start, the TV series is the place to begin. The animated film came two years after the show’s debut and condenses the first major arc of the series into two hours. Look forward to the review of that.

2. If you decided to go with the live action film, grab a hammer and a nail, and drive that sucker right through the palm of your hand. It’s pretty close to the same thing. (And here’s where someone will go “But Malcolm McDowell is in it! How bad could it be?!” and here’s where I remind you he was also in Caligula, Wing Commander III, and Wing Commander IV. The latter two being PC games from the era when acting in a live action PC game was two steps above turning tricks for crack in Hollywood. And if you don’t believe me, Mark Hamill did the same thing before his ‘comeback’ as the Joker.)

3. Subtitles are almost always better than the dub. I know some people don’t like to read, but it’s a fact.

Where were we? Ah yes…so the year is 199X (in the future!) after nuclear bombs went off and turned the planet into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The wasteland is full of roving gangs determined to rape and kill every person they can possibly find so they can steal their stuff and…well…rape and kill. But along comes a lone warrior to save the wasteland and beat the hell out of anyone he encounters trying to rape or kill anyone. And by ‘beat the hell out of’ I mean touch them with his index fingers very gently so their heads explode.

Yes, no joke.

Our hero is Ken, successor to the Hokotu no Ken martial arts fighting style. Like the Highlander, there can be only one, and he’s on his own personal quest for vengeance (at least for the majority of this collection) against his brother Shin, who is the successor to the rival form of martial arts that is just as deadly. And Shin kidnapped Ken’s girlfriend, so he wants her back too.

The distilled, one sentence description of the show is this: Replace Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior with Bruce Lee and a tiny smidge of Jesus. If Jesus knew a martial art that can make a dude’s head explode. Which he probably did because he was Jesus.

The first few episodes follow a simple formula, Ken goes to a town, fights a gang off, and pisses Shin off a little more. It builds and there’s some comic relief in the form of Bat (or Bart, depending on the dub or subtitle track) and Lin, Ken’s two kid sidekicks. The formula could easily continue for the remainder of the series, and does to a certain extent, but so far it’s still fresh and interesting because of the mix of character development and fighting.

Discotek Media obtained the rights last year and have plans on releasing the entire series on DVD in the coming months, with two box sets of 36 episodes each already available. The first box contains both an English dub and Japanese audio with subtitle tracks, but the English dub is the same one that Manga Entertainment (who only dubbed the first 36 episodes) released when they had the rights to the series in the 90’s. Fair warning now, if you start collecting the series, box set 2 onward will only have subtitle tracks. No English dubbing.

And speaking of the subtitles, I have to give HUGE credit to Discotek for their cleanup job on the subs for this set. Not too long back Toei Animation released the entire Fist of the North Star series to internet streaming and download sites with subtitles, and while they weren’t bad, sometimes you could tell you were getting the ‘just enough to get by’ treatment. It would have been very easy for Discotek to release the same subs on their set, but they went the extra mile.

The video is also amazing for a 27-year-old animated series from Japan. I’m amazed at how well it still holds up in comparison to other animated series. One thing that did surprise me though, was after all the years of hearing about FotNS being so violent and brutal, and watching fan subs and the Manga Entertainment releases, it’s really nothing that couldn’t be aired on Adult Swim now. Most of the blood is silver (which I thought was an edit from the original because getting edited anime was the norm in the 90’s) and quite a few of the exploding bodies are shown in profile. It’s not tame by any means, but I was imagining the uncut version to be filled with blood and bodily organs in every frame.

This show baffles me because it’s only got a cult following at best. It’s great fun, and it’s really a subgenre show of a subgenre show, if you catch my drift. My copy of Volume 2 is on it’s way and I’m really looking forward to checking that one out, too.

4 out of 4

reviewed by Seth Moore