Fist of the North Star (one-shot)

Fist of the North Star
Japanese Name	北斗の拳
Romaji Name	Hokuto no Ken
Author	Tetsuo Hara
Genre(s)	Martial arts
Magazine	Fresh Jump
Year(s) Released	April 1983 (Chapter 1) June 1983 (Chapter 2)

For other uses of "Fist of the North Star", see the disambiguation page

Fist of the North Star (北斗の拳, Hokuto no Ken) is a two chapter long one-shot pilot of the Fist of the North Star series written and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. Both chapters were included in volume 2 of Hara's previous work Iron Don Quixote.

It was re-released for the 30th anniversary of the series under the title Fist of the North Star Origins.

Plot Summary

Chapter 1

A teenage Kenshiro Kasumi is the current successor of the deadly Hokuto Shinken martial art. As he fights a bull, his girlfriend Yuki and father watch. After destroying the bull with Hokuto Shinken, Kenshiro takes Yuki to her apartment on a motorcycle where she accidentally witnesses a murder. She desperately calls Ken to come and save her but is ultimately killed too. When Ken and his father come back to her apartment, he is shocked to see his girlfriend laying dead on the floor. The murderers threaten Ken with their guns, but he kicks one of them when his father notices that Yuki wasn't killed by being shot, but rather with martial arts. The police then show up and arrest Kenshiro and his father. In jail, Ken and his father are talking when the real murderer, a man named Goda, and the police chief show up and taunts them. Enraged, Ken grips and pulls the iron bars apart to try and go after Goda and encounters them with the police commissioner. The chief attacks him first, but he is quickly disposed of when Ken punches him and strikes his pressure points. Goda then tries to kill Ken with the same move he used to kill Yuki, but Ken dodges and counterattacks by ripping his hand's skin off. Goda tries to attack again, but Kenshiro finishes him off with a special attack called Hokuto Twin Dragon Wave. Gonta violently explodes as the now nervous police commissioner tries to reason with Kenshiro. Ken presses a pressure point on the commissioner's head and begins to walk away, but he points a gun at Ken's turned-back and threatens him. Ken exclaims that he's "already dead" and explodes as Ken leaves.

Chapter 2

Ryu and his girlfriend Yoko are on the run since Ryu no longer wants to work for an assassination business called the Taizanji and wants to start a new life with Yoko. As other Taizanji assassins try to stop them and when both of them are about to be killed, Kenshiro Kasumi shows up and takes out their pursuers. After Ryu thanks Ken and asks if he can do anything for him Ken says he wants to find a place to rest. After giving Ken a place to sleep, Ryu thinks that the Taizanji must always be after him and that he's always alert and tests him with a knife. Ken realizes that he's been sleeping for 3 days. As Ken tries to leave the building, it is now surrounded by armed police and a tall man wearing chains named Baiken Kinbu. Ken, Ryu, and Yoko try to escape by going into the sewers as Baiken orders his men to burn down the building with flamethrowers. When the three get back out of the sewers they are spotted by the police, which are defeated by Ken. The group tries to take the police vehicle, but Baiken shoots at them, and Ryu and Yoko are killed. In his final moments, Ryu gets in front of Ken to block the bullets from hitting him. Saddened, Ken uses the police car to run away. Sometime later, Ken sneaks into a Taizanji Temple and infiltrates it undetected. Ken faces Baiken again and Baiken attacks him with a claw weapon, but Ken launches it back and Baiken destroys it before it hits his face. Baiken then uses a secret technique called The Illusionary Fist Claws of the Steel Devil which hits but doesn't kill him. Ken counters with the Hokuto One Hundred Crack Fist which finally and ultimately kills Baiken.

Trivia

• Tetsuo Hara got the idea to make a manga about "a martial artist who destroys his opponents by striking their acupressure points" from his editor at the time Nobuhiko Horie, based on Hara's wishes to draw a martial arts manga and his knowledge of pressure points.

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