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* PillarsOfMoralCharacter: A constant plot point through much of the series. For example, much of Kenshiro's turmoil for facing against Toki stems from the fact that not only is Toki his (adopted) older brother (whom he is obligated to respect and revere), but Toki also saved his life when they were children. It pops up in other ways now and then, as well.
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* NeverForgottenSkill: Close to the end of the series, Kenshirou ends up losing his memory. Despite this, he kills off some thugs with Hokuto Shinken with little effort. Clearly, his skills with the martial art can never be forgotten, even if he has amnesia.
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* NeverForgottenSkill: Close to In the end of the series, Kenshirou manga's final story arc, Kenshiro ends up losing his memory. Despite this, he kills off some thugs with Hokuto Shinken with little effort. Clearly, his skills with once somebody has mastered the martial ways of Hokuto Shinken, their knowledge of the art can never be forgotten, even if he has amnesia.become second nature to them.
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** And in [[DynastyWarriors Hokuto Musou]], he's the narrator.
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** And in [[DynastyWarriors [[VideoGame/DynastyWarriors Hokuto Musou]], he's the narrator.
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Adding another example
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* PaperCutting: Yuda when fighting against Rei; Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh; Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and later with Clifflanders, and other occasions.
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* PaperCutting: Yuda when fighting against vs Rei; Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh; vs Souther; Raoh vs Kenshiro; Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and later with vs Sanga; Kenshiro vs Clifflanders, and other occasions.
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* PaperCutting: Yuda when fighting against Rei; Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh; Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and later with Clifflanders, and other occasions.
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** Shown almost literally when a wild dog protects its child from Sara and Seiji who it thinks were a threat.
* PaperCutting: Yuda when fighting against Rei; Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh; Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and later with Clifflanders, and other occasions.
* PaperCutting: Yuda when fighting against Rei; Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh; Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and later with Clifflanders, and other occasions.
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Adding another example
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* PaperCutting: Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh. Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and on the next day with one of the Clifflanders.
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* PaperCutting: Yuda when fighting against Rei; Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh. Kokuoh; Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and on the next day later with one of the Clifflanders.Clifflanders, and other occasions.
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Adding paper cutting trop with few examples that I remember
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* PaperCutting: Raoh when fighting Kenshiro, which makes him admit that Kenshiro is a worthy opponent and forces him to dismount Kokuoh. Kenshiro when fighting with Sanga and on the next day with one of the Clifflanders.
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* OneSidedArmWrestling: Kenshiro gets into one with a {{Mook}}, who amplifies the danger by having buzzsaws spinning so the loser gets their arm cut off. Kenshiro spares the mook from having his arm cut off... by snapping it around the buzzsaw.
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* InertialImpalement: One scene shows the villain's fortifications, including sharpened trees thicker than a man's arm. Later on the downtrodden villagers storm the villain's base, and one guy is shown to have somehow impaled himself at least three feet on one of the stakes.
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The Messiah has been disambiguated between Messianic Archetype and All Loving Hero. Bad examples and ZCE are being removed; if you disagree, please readd with sufficient context.
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* TheMessiah: Not Kenshiro, but Toki. Think of him as an ass-kicking Jesus. It isn't very hard. Actually, Yuria is just the big Messiah of the series.
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* TheNarrator: ShigeruChiba, who also voiced a few of the villains, pulls double duty here. He also gets gradually more excitable as the TV series goes on; as an episode of ''TriviaNoIzumi'' pointed out, he starts off doing the next-episode previews in a rather stern voice, but by the final episode he's [[ChewingTheScenery screaming the narration at the top of his lungs]]. It originally started as an in-joke by Chiba; he apparently stopped ramping it up for a while for fear of giving himself an aneurysm, but began doing it again when fans asked him why he wasn't shouting anymore.
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* TheNarrator: ShigeruChiba, Creator/ShigeruChiba, who also voiced a few of the villains, pulls double duty here. He also gets gradually more excitable as the TV series goes on; as an episode of ''TriviaNoIzumi'' pointed out, he starts off doing the next-episode previews in a rather stern voice, but by the final episode he's [[ChewingTheScenery screaming the narration at the top of his lungs]]. It originally started as an in-joke by Chiba; he apparently stopped ramping it up for a while for fear of giving himself an aneurysm, but began doing it again when fans asked him why he wasn't shouting anymore.
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* TheNarrator: ShigeruChiba, who also voiced a few of the villains, pulls double duty here. He also gets gradually more excitable as the TV series goes on; as an episode of ''TriviaNoIzumi'' pointed out, he starts off doing the next-episode previews in a rather stern voice, but by the final episode he's ''screaming'' the narration at the top of his lungs. It originally started as an in-joke by Chiba; he apparently stopped ramping it up for a while for fear of giving himself an aneurysm, but began doing it again when fans asked him why he wasn't shouting anymore.
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* TheNarrator: ShigeruChiba, who also voiced a few of the villains, pulls double duty here. He also gets gradually more excitable as the TV series goes on; as an episode of ''TriviaNoIzumi'' pointed out, he starts off doing the next-episode previews in a rather stern voice, but by the final episode he's ''screaming'' [[ChewingTheScenery screaming the narration at the top of his lungs.lungs]]. It originally started as an in-joke by Chiba; he apparently stopped ramping it up for a while for fear of giving himself an aneurysm, but began doing it again when fans asked him why he wasn't shouting anymore.
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* PaperRam: Kenshiro is this at first, and upgraded later to a full LightningBruiser.
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* ImprovFu: Jyuza gave Raoh one hell of a HumiliationConga with a fighting style he invented on the spot. The fight ends with him stealing Raoh's horse, Kokuoh.
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* IntangibleMan: One of the effects of Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique ''Musou Tensei''[[hottip:* :"Nil-Thought Rebirth"]].
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* IntangibleMan: One of the effects of Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique ''Musou Tensei''[[hottip:* :"Nil-Thought Rebirth"]].Tensei''[[note]]"Nil-Thought Rebirth"[[/note]].
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* InfantImmortality: Although children and even infants often died in the manga (along with a few dogs), the TV anime often rewrote such scenes so that the child escapes from harm's way with Kenshiro's help (the most prominent examples being Taki, Bat's adopted little brother who gets shot by a ruffian, and Ryo, the kid who ate poisoned bread in Shuh's hideout).
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* InfantImmortality: Although children and even infants often died in the manga (along with a few dogs), the TV anime often rewrote such scenes so that the child escapes from harm's way with Kenshiro's help (the most prominent examples being Taki, Bat's adopted little brother who gets shot by a ruffian, one of Jackal's men, and Ryo, the kid in Shuu's hideout who ate bread poisoned bread in Shuh's hideout).by Souther and his men).
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* PaperRam: Kenshiro is this at first, and upgraded later to a full LightningBruiser.
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* NeverForgottenSkill: Close to the end of the series, Kenshirou ends up losing his memory. Despite this, he kills off some thugs with Hokuto Shinken with little effort. Clearly, his skills with the martial art can never be forgotten, even if he has amnesia.
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* NoHuggingNoKissing: Despite love, or rather fighting for it, being a main theme in the series, not much happens between the OfficialCouple, Kenshiro and Yuria are shown to be a couple in its purest form, the original manga and anime only had them going as far as holding hands, and yet it is implied they went much further than that, the [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVAs]] even had Yuria expecting Kenshiro's child; spin-offs avert this by having other characters like Rei, Jagi, Raoh and even Kenshiro's uncle getting hot and heavy with their interests, ironically Ken and Yuria gets no such "step-up" in spin-offs even though they are the original OfficialCouple.
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* NoHuggingNoKissing: Despite love, or rather fighting for it, being a main theme in the series, not much happens between the OfficialCouple, Kenshiro and Yuria are shown to be a couple in its purest form, the original manga and anime only had them going as far as holding hands, and yet it is implied they went much further than that, the [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVAs]] movies even had Yuria expecting Kenshiro's child; spin-offs avert this by having other characters like Rei, Jagi, Raoh and even Kenshiro's uncle getting hot and heavy with their interests, ironically Ken and Yuria gets no such "step-up" in spin-offs even though they are the original OfficialCouple. OfficialCouple.
* NonIndicativeName: Out of the six members of the ''Nanto Roku Seiken'' (South Dipper Six Sacred Fists), only five of them are martial artists. Since Yuria has no fighting skills, there's only five main branches of ''Nanto Seiken''.
* NonIndicativeName: Out of the six members of the ''Nanto Roku Seiken'' (South Dipper Six Sacred Fists), only five of them are martial artists. Since Yuria has no fighting skills, there's only five main branches of ''Nanto Seiken''.
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* MusclesAreMeaningless: Partially averted. Almost all serious martial artists are musclebound bruisers (and about half of them, including Kenshiro, are much taller and more massive than average inhabitants of the postnuclear desert), but, on the other hand, there are a lot of really superhumanly big people in this series (mutants? genetically engineered? it is never explained where all these five-meters tall humans came from), [[GiantMook but their giant size usually does not help them much]], even though some of them are accomplished martial artists in their own right. Buronson likes toying with this one. Hokuto's breathing techniques effectively embody this trope, but apparently most of those {{giant mook}}s [[ArtisticLicence were about as tall as Toki]].
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* MusclesAreMeaningless: Partially averted. Almost all serious martial artists are musclebound bruisers (and about half of them, including Kenshiro, are much taller and more massive than average inhabitants of the postnuclear desert), but, on the other hand, there are a lot of really superhumanly big people in this series (mutants? genetically engineered? it is never explained where all these five-meters tall humans came from), [[GiantMook but their giant size usually does not help them much]], even though some of them are accomplished martial artists in their own right. Buronson likes toying with this one. Hokuto's breathing techniques effectively embody this trope, but apparently most of those {{giant mook}}s [[ArtisticLicence [[ArtisticLicense were about as tall as Toki]].
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Toki looks and acts a ''hell'' of a lot like a certain Son of {{God}}. Not to mention a variety of "cameos," like Mr. T and Hulk Hogan lookalikes teaming up together, or the two brothers who resemble the tag team Legion of Doom, or a Shura who looks like Sloth from ''Film/TheGoonies''... the list goes on and on.
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Toki looks and acts a ''hell'' of a lot like a certain Son of {{God}}. Not to mention a variety of "cameos," like Mr. T and Hulk Hogan lookalikes (Barona and Bask, respectively) teaming up together, or the two Harn brothers who resemble the tag team Legion of Doom, or a Shura who looks like Sloth from ''Film/TheGoonies''...''Film/TheGoonies'', or Abida who strongly resembles Gene Simmons... the list goes on and on.
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Moving from YMMV.
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* MotiveDecay: After his parents were murdered and his sister sold into slavery, Rei didn't bother with his role as the Star of Justice until after meeting Toki.
** Souther's original traumatic backstory was omitted in the ''Shin Kyuuseishu Densetsu'' movies, leaving him as a [[ForTheEvulz one dimensional villain]].
** Souther's original traumatic backstory was omitted in the ''Shin Kyuuseishu Densetsu'' movies, leaving him as a [[ForTheEvulz one dimensional villain]].
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** Lends itself to unintentional NarmCharm at times. For instance, when Kenshiro confronts Amiba after the later [[EpicFail epically fails]] at [[WhatTheFuAreYouDoing copying Hokuto Shinken]], he is supposed to step up right into Amiba's face. However, the animation for this scene is simply a still frame of Kenshiro leaning forward being slid up next to a terrified Amiba, and it comes off as even more inappropriately humorous (possibly because the immediately preceding scene was already fairly BloodyHilarious).
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* KillEmAll: FistOfTheNorthStar is a long-running manga with a massive and diverse cast of characters... but if they aren't named Kenshiro, Lin, or Bat, don't expect them to stick around for long. Story arcs where ''everyone'' but our protagonist ends up dead in a heap are extremely common.
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** Possibly also how Lynn could free herself from Zaria's hypno-magic spell.
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* MadBomber: Jackal and his gang are awfully fond of dynamite sticks as weapons.
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Trope renamed
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* LighterAndSofter: Yes, LighterAndSofter. Fist of North Star was not the first post-apocalyptic manga. It would ''probably'' be ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' by GoNagai. Compared with THAT series - an utterly rotten CrapsackWorld where HumansAreBastards and [[ItGotWorse it gets worse]] ALWAYS, Hokuto no Ken is a pretty optimistic and hopeful story. At least Fist Of The North Star gives the message that you can still be good and noble and remain a human being even in the worst circumstances. ViolenceJack? Not so much.
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* LighterAndSofter: Yes, LighterAndSofter. Fist of North Star was not the first post-apocalyptic manga. It would ''probably'' be ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' by GoNagai. Compared with THAT series - an utterly rotten CrapsackWorld where HumansAreBastards and [[ItGotWorse it gets worse]] ALWAYS, [[FromBadToWorse things only ever get worse]], Hokuto no Ken is a pretty optimistic and hopeful story. At least Fist Of The North Star gives the message that you can still be good and noble and remain a human being even in the worst circumstances. ViolenceJack? Not so much.
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Moving to game page
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* MsFanservice: Mamiya gets assigned for this postion in [[DynastyWarriors Hokuto Musou/Ken's Rage]], not only her early 3D render had a daring see-through skirt with a tong underneath, but her classic alternate outfit has extreme cloth damage, whereas for the guys is just desintegrated shirts, Mamiya's is large portions of the whole outfit, it ends when she's basically half-naked.
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* MuggingTheMonster: This happens ''all the damned time'' to Kenshiro and the other major badasses of the series. You'd think the mooks that these guys come up against would know not to mess with them, especially after seeing their fellows exploded messily.
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FistOfTheNorthStar/{{Tropes A To H}} | '''Tropes I To P''' | FistOfTheNorthStar/{{Tropes Q To Z}}
----
!!!''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' provides examples of the following tropes:
* IAmBigBoned: The Asura Gyoko.
* ILoveYouBecauseICantControlYou: Shin loves Yuria because she is [[InformedAbility an emotionally strong-willed woman]] whom he sees as a challenge to make her ''willingly'' fall in love with him.
* InfantImmortality: Although children and even infants often died in the manga (along with a few dogs), the TV anime often rewrote such scenes so that the child escapes from harm's way with Kenshiro's help (the most prominent examples being Taki, Bat's adopted little brother who gets shot by a ruffian, and Ryo, the kid who ate poisoned bread in Shuh's hideout).
* InformedAbility: There are villains who brag about their unstoppable fighting styles whose power we never see onscreen, though a good load of them do manage to show it off. The most ubiquitous example has to be Souther's Tensho Juuji Hou attack, which supposedly can cut through stainless steel, but only scratches Ken's shoulders a bit and got a ''lot'' of hype beforehand. Granted Ken's MadeOfIron, but still. (It's like Musou Tensei in that he passes through Ken's attempted counterattacks, but no mention is made of why this doesn't work when he jumps right into Ken's successful Tenha Kassatsu.)
** Kenshiro once got hit in the head with a solid stone pillar as big as he is and remained completely unfazed (the pillar shattered to pieces). So it is easy to see how an attack that can cut stainless steel might be not a big deal to him.
* IntangibleMan: One of the effects of Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique ''Musou Tensei''[[hottip:* :"Nil-Thought Rebirth"]].
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: The manga's final volume has Ken and Bat ''both'' trying out the IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy suit with Lin: earlier, Kaioh had pressed the pressure point Shikan Haku on Lin's back that would cause her to fall in love with the first man she saw upon waking -- expecting that it would be a scummy bandit or a lowly beggar, ''anyone'' but Ken; nevertheless when she wakes, it's just Ken and Bat (who'd learned of Shikan Haku -- important point there). Bat was aware of Lin's love for Ken, but Ken was sympathetic to her for all that she'd been through and instead wanted her to live peacefully, so he rode off to ensure that Lin would fall in love with Bat instead. Bat makes a show of going along, but at their wedding he's unable to fully commit -- feeling that it's not right for him to be getting the (sincere) love compelled onto her, so in an even more extreme case, he actually causes retrograde amnesia in her, then in an ''incredibly'' cockamimie plot actually attempts to "guide" the rebuilding of memories in an attempt to cause her to fall in love with Ken all over again instead... by the end though, [[spoiler:it fails when Ken and Lin both regain their memories, and in her case remembering her love for the now-dying Bat. While Ken promised to Bat that he would go off with Lin, he secretly pressed healing points on Bat before leaving without her... leaving her a welcome surprise]].
* JabbaTableManners: In a world where ''basic'' food and fresh water can ''literally'' cost you an arm and a leg, any character who eats gourmet food can automatically be labelled as a wasteful villain. Souther in particular is an '''exceptionally''' vile example of this trope. Shisuka from ''Kenshiro Den'' is an even more literal example than Souther, though the first arc of the manga (post-Kaioh) had Kouketsu.
* KamehameHadoken: '''HOKUTO GOSHO HA!!!'''
** '''TENSHO HONRETSU!!!'''
* {{Kiai}}: Kenshiro's battle cries mimic those of Bruce Lee. Not to mention that in the anime, he looks like him too (at least in the early episodes). In the manga though, his face, hair, and clothes all very closely resemble Mel Gibson's character, "Mad" Max Rockatansky in the Mad Max films -- then, when he went off to Shura, Sylvester Stallone.
** There's also his famous "ATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA!" kiai, which he uses when he's busting out his ''Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken'' on some sorry bad guy
* KiAttacks: Hokuto Shin Ken uses ''Touki'' to strike opponent's pressure points with out contact.
** ''Gento Ko Ken'' specializes in using ki to destroy enemies on the cellular level via [[KillItWithFire burning]] or [[KillItWithIce freezing]].
** Hokuto Ryu Ken uses ''Matouki'' which is [[MagicByAnyOtherName flat out magic]].
* KickTheDog: A constant, neverending stream of atrocities designed to make you feel that the villains deserve every last bit of righteous ultra-violence Ken can lavish upon them. One bad guy even ''literally'' kicks a dog -- a cute puppy to be precise.
* KillerYoyo: Mamiya uses two of them, and looking ''damn'' fine while doing so.
* KnuckleCracking: Part and parcel of Kenshiro's BruceLeeClone nature.
* KungFuJesus: Not Jesus Himself, but his lookalike Toki. Not to mention Kenshiro himself in the ''Kensiro Den'' prequel film, right down to ressurecting from LITERALLY being crucified.
* LighterAndSofter: Yes, LighterAndSofter. Fist of North Star was not the first post-apocalyptic manga. It would ''probably'' be ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' by GoNagai. Compared with THAT series - an utterly rotten CrapsackWorld where HumansAreBastards and [[ItGotWorse it gets worse]] ALWAYS, Hokuto no Ken is a pretty optimistic and hopeful story. At least Fist Of The North Star gives the message that you can still be good and noble and remain a human being even in the worst circumstances. ViolenceJack? Not so much.
* LimitedAnimation: Whenever Ken walks, more often than not the animators just take a static frame of him and wave it up and down. Leads to {{Narm}} in some cases, such as the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAYLxEG5X-Y HILARIOUSLY bad special effect in episode 23,]] where we see Ken from an exploding Mook's point of view, and it's painfully obvious that the animators just waved Ken's picture around in the background. There's also the episode in which Ken kills Devil's Rebirth: It just shows him from the back as he punches, while Devil's body goes past up. It's the funniest GreenScreen effect ever.
* LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: Inverted with Hokuto Ryuuken, which uses magical incantations heavily in its fighting style but is explicitly stated to be inferior to Hokuto Shinken, which focuses on physical attack and pressure-point techniques.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: strong characters with unique fighting styles are introduced, only to be killed off within the next volume or two. Think ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', if people died.
** Some of them are given bit more screen time in Toei's anime version, like Raiga and Fuga, Koryu, Hyui and Shuren, Shoki and Nagato to name a few.
* LookWhatICanDoNow: Long training sequences are generally avoided, but this does not stop characters from suddenly unleashing new abilities that they either learned spontaneously, or perhaps [[IAmNotLeftHanded had known all along]].
* LoveFreak: Shu, Yuria, to an extent. Lin also counts as well.
* LoveMakesYouEvil: Recurring theme for several villains. Most notably Shin and Souther.
* LoweredMonsterDifficulty: The population of [[TheSpartanWay the land of Shura]]. Especially notable in filler.
* MadeOfIron: If you're one of the more powerful fighters in this series, you are virtually immune to damage. For example, Kiba Daioh, a relatively low-level martial artist villain, used a technique which literally transformed his skin into steel, so that when super-strong Kenshiro used a massive steel beam to bludgeon him, the beam was bent into U-shape without doing any damage. Then Kenshiro [[CrazyPrepared struck a pressure point which effectively canceled the effect]], allowing Ken to break Kiba's spine during the second try.
* MadeOfPlasticine: On the other hand, if you're a {{mook|s}}, prepare to have your body remolded like play-doh.
* MagicPants: Kenshiro destroys his shirt and expensive looking leather jacket in practically every episode, and yet never seems to have any problem getting it back by the next one.
* ManlyTears: One of the most famous users of this trope. It should be noted however, that the men of this series sheds just as much, if not ''more'' TenderTears, contrary to popular belief.
** [[FridgeBrilliance Considering the kind of future mankind lives in, it's insane to think guys still hold on to the belief that]] MenDontCry.
* MartialMedic: Kenshiro can manipulate pressure points to heal as well as harm.
* MeaningfulName: Toki, who shares his grace with the ibis he was named after, and Souther, a slightly more convoluted example. The southerly winds. What birds fly on. Birds like the Nanto style is inspired by. Meaning he is at the root of all Nanto schools, as the emperor. Like that ''wouldn't'' get to his head... And then there's Kenshiro himself, whose name translates to something like "Fourth Son of the Fist."
* MegaManning: The first clue that Ken is running on ThePowerOfFriendship is when he starts to [[LookWhatICanDoNow inexplicably use attacks that belonged to fallen allies]]. He also explicitly ''claims'' that practitioners of his style can duplicate the attacks of any other style, though he's the only practitioner shown actually doing this. Also, Raoh runs a giant prison full of martial artists for the sole purpose of stealing all their secrets. There's not enough detail to determine whether it's this or AwesomeByAnalysis, but analysis really doesn't seem like Raoh's strongest suit.
* MenDontCry: ''Completely'' and ''wonderfully'' averted in this franchise: violence and brutality be damned, ''Fist of the North Star'' is frankly one of the most sensitive and warm-hearted anime franchises of the 1980's.
* TheMessiah: Not Kenshiro, but Toki. Think of him as an ass-kicking Jesus. It isn't very hard. Actually, Yuria is just the big Messiah of the series.
* MightyGlacier: Mr. Heart practically defines this, in both the show and the PS2 fighter. Another large character, Fudou, does basically nothing but ride this trope.
* MonsterOfTheWeek: The anime version of the Southern Cross arc, and to a lesser extent the Goshasei and Shura arcs, gave Kenshiro more weekly villains than the ones he fought in the original manga.
* MonsterSobStory: Told by both Souther and Kaioh to Kenshiro ''right before'' their final battles, when there's no time left for the reader to watch them grow as characters or sympathise with them. Though the week-to-week short term plotting of the shounen manga industry is probably to blame here.
* MonumentalDamage / SceneryGorn: The anime intro shows the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel tower and Tower bridge.
* MoodWhiplash: The over the top ways in which evil, evil people die insanely sometimes verges on black humor, partially from Narm and partially from their cowardly antics. Then there's the time Ken's cute sidekick gets splattered with gore in the middle of a brutal fistfight to the death by way of comic relief. However, this trope is here for one man: Jyuza. In the manga, his introduction, a digression from a hopeless war the established characters are fighting, takes its sweet time showing us a piece of his happy-go-lucky, adventurous life. Then he is called out to fight, and its back to the nightmare for the audience.
* MookHorrorShow: When Ken annihilates Jackal and his gang. Fittingly, the episode is entitled "I Am Death Itself! I'll Chase You to the Ends of Hell!"
* MoralMyopia: Kiba Daioh, PlayedForLaughs.
* MsFanservice: Mamiya gets assigned for this postion in [[DynastyWarriors Hokuto Musou/Ken's Rage]], not only her early 3D render had a daring see-through skirt with a tong underneath, but her classic alternate outfit has extreme cloth damage, whereas for the guys is just desintegrated shirts, Mamiya's is large portions of the whole outfit, it ends when she's basically half-naked.
* {{Mukokuseki}}: Racially ambiguous characters, names written in katakana, and lack of Japanese signage make many readers confused about where the story is set. But during the Southern Cross arc of the manga, Bat specifically states that Shin's gang rules the former Kanto area.
* MusclesAreMeaningless: Partially averted. Almost all serious martial artists are musclebound bruisers (and about half of them, including Kenshiro, are much taller and more massive than average inhabitants of the postnuclear desert), but, on the other hand, there are a lot of really superhumanly big people in this series (mutants? genetically engineered? it is never explained where all these five-meters tall humans came from), [[GiantMook but their giant size usually does not help them much]], even though some of them are accomplished martial artists in their own right. Buronson likes toying with this one. Hokuto's breathing techniques effectively embody this trope, but apparently most of those {{giant mook}}s [[ArtisticLicence were about as tall as Toki]].
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Several times, especially Raoh with Yuria. Arguably Shin. Certainly Kaioh. Fortunately in Raoh's case it was "My God, What [[spoiler:I Could Have]] Done."
* MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours: Tons of it. Mostly favoring Kenshiro, of course.
* NamesTheSame: In-universe, [[KungFuJesus Toki]] and [[BattleAura Touki]].
* TheNarrator: ShigeruChiba, who also voiced a few of the villains, pulls double duty here. He also gets gradually more excitable as the TV series goes on; as an episode of ''TriviaNoIzumi'' pointed out, he starts off doing the next-episode previews in a rather stern voice, but by the final episode he's ''screaming'' the narration at the top of his lungs. It originally started as an in-joke by Chiba; he apparently stopped ramping it up for a while for fear of giving himself an aneurysm, but began doing it again when fans asked him why he wasn't shouting anymore.
* NewOldWest: Right down to the "stranger walking out of the duststorm into the town" shots and the Morricone-esque mournful-saxophone music of Spaghetti Westerns in the more sad and thoughtful scenes.
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Kenshiro can not only kill or heal people by touching pressure points, but in one episode, he even touches a pressure point that makes a thug involuntarily move his mouth to answer Kenshiro's questions.
* NiceHat: The helmets in ''North Star'' are legendary. One notable example is Uighur, who hides whips in his horned helmet (you pull them out by yanking on the horns).
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Toki looks and acts a ''hell'' of a lot like a certain Son of {{God}}. Not to mention a variety of "cameos," like Mr. T and Hulk Hogan lookalikes teaming up together, or the two brothers who resemble the tag team Legion of Doom, or a Shura who looks like Sloth from ''Film/TheGoonies''... the list goes on and on.
** The elder in Mamiya's village bears a [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/fist_of_the_north_star/v04/c028/14.html suspicious resemblance]] to [[StarWars Obi-Wan Kenobi]].
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: These situations provide the majority of the story's motivations and plot devices.
* NoHuggingNoKissing: Despite love, or rather fighting for it, being a main theme in the series, not much happens between the OfficialCouple, Kenshiro and Yuria are shown to be a couple in its purest form, the original manga and anime only had them going as far as holding hands, and yet it is implied they went much further than that, the [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVAs]] even had Yuria expecting Kenshiro's child; spin-offs avert this by having other characters like Rei, Jagi, Raoh and even Kenshiro's uncle getting hot and heavy with their interests, ironically Ken and Yuria gets no such "step-up" in spin-offs even though they are the original OfficialCouple.
* NorioWakamoto: Its a small appearance, but the man himself voices Raoh in his first silhouette scene, as well as Shuren. Somewhat altered in that Shuren was a heroic character.
** And in [[DynastyWarriors Hokuto Musou]], he's the narrator.
* NotHyperbole: If Kenshiro tells that after he's through with you there will be not one hair left from you, he MEANS it! [[spoiler:Southern found out about it the hard way.]]
* NotWorthKilling: Jagi when he was disfigured by Kenshiro. Kenshiro would later regret his decision, as it backfired a lot. (Jagi was the one whose conniving caused Shin to decide that Kenshiro didn't deserve Yuria, and Jagi's later ''modus operandi'' was to drag Kenshiro's name through the mud.)
* NuclearWeaponsTaboo: Averted in the very first scene.
* OffscreenTeleportation: Ken, the first time he's against Jackal, does this a lot. Some characters are explicitly shown to teleport, like Joker.
* OneHundredAndEight: The number of branches of Nanto Seiken.
* OneManArmy: Pretty much every named character except for Lin and Bat. Heck, even ''Mamiya'' qualifies... albeit, a one ''woman'' army.
* OneNameOnly: Everyone except Buzz and Gill Harn. In the pilot, Kenshiro had the full name of "Kasumi KenshirÅ", which would later be used by [[FistOfTheBlueSky his uncle]].
* OnlySixFaces: More than a handful of the women look ''remarkably'' similar, which is used as a plot point. Also, before his character development kicked in, Rei looked a hell of a lot like Shin.
* PapaWolf: Kenshiro to Bat and Lin; Fudoh to his various orphaned kids; and Ein to his daughter Asuka.
** Subverted, in comedic fashion, by the leader of the Fang Clan once Kenshiro genuinely challenges his facade.
* PersonOfMassDestruction: Pretty much all the main fighters throughout, from Kenshiro to Kaioh.
* PetTheDog: One villain did this (literally), then did a HeelFaceTurn.
* PlayingWithFire: Shuren plays this trope note-for-note with one interesting variation: instead of being supernatural, his fire skills are described coming from expert use of chemicals combined with a high level of martial arts.
* PlotTumor: The original manga focused primarily on martial arts (some hardcore, some zany) and the KiAttacks were a rare occurrence. In the manga's second run, we are introduced to ''Gento Ko Ken'' - a martial art based almost entirely on KiAttacks.
* PosthumousCharacter: Ryuken.
* PowerCreepPowerSeep: It happens in the numerous action and fighting oriented games for the franchise, lesser fighters like Jagi turns into capable {{Combat Pragmatist}}s with strength and weapons on par with the major combatants; Mamiya in particular gets the greater doses due being the only ActionGirl in these adaptations, she improves so much that it borders on NewPowersAsThePlotDemands.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: In his climactic battle against Raoh, Kenshiro reveals that he has the power of all his friends behind him. Subverted earlier when [[spoiler:Rei, attacking Raoh, tried to invoke it. ''Really'' bad timing, Rei.]]
* ThePowerOfLove: Raoh, meanwhile, is only able to learn Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique, Musou Tensei, [[spoiler:through his love of Yuria and sorrow over her sad fate]]. Which was MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours by Kenshiro when [[spoiler:he revealed that not only does he have sorrow over Yuria too which gives him as much power as Raoh, he also has sorrow over losing his beloved big brother Raoh!]] The Power of Love is ''all over this story''. If Raoh and Kenshiro's case wasn't enough, see Kenshiro vs. Souther, which itself is also all about this.
* PrecisionGuidedBoomerang: The Colonel deploys several small, metal, razor-sharp boomerangs (perhaps a deliberate homage to The Road Warrior, which was very influential on the series), as part of his complex martial art. They are all on target, despite him plunging the battlefield into darkness (to make it hard to see the boomerangs!) Ultimately it's revealed he's psychically guiding them.
* PreMortemOneLiner: "You are already dead." But if that's true, is it ''[[MindScrew really]]'' pre-mortem?
* PressurePoint: 708 of them to be exact, with equal ability to heal as well as kill if the right ones are pressed. More precisely, the vital points used by ''Hokuto Shinken'' is known as the ''Keiraku Hiko'', which roughly translates to the "hidden points of the meridian". The rival style, ''Hokuto Ryuken'', uses another set of pressure pointd called the ''Keiraku Hako'' or the "destructive points", which has exactly 1109 points.
* PronounTrouble: The Last General of Nanto and the Heavenly Emperor are both revealed to be female. The former case can be justified, since the Five Chariots were intentionally hiding the Last General's identity to prevent Raoh from going after Yuria.
* PsychopathicManchild: The Fang Bandits, which are an entire ''group'' of animal themed Psychopathic Manchildren.
* PummelDuel: TropeMaker in Anime.
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!!!''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' provides examples of the following tropes:
* IAmBigBoned: The Asura Gyoko.
* ILoveYouBecauseICantControlYou: Shin loves Yuria because she is [[InformedAbility an emotionally strong-willed woman]] whom he sees as a challenge to make her ''willingly'' fall in love with him.
* InfantImmortality: Although children and even infants often died in the manga (along with a few dogs), the TV anime often rewrote such scenes so that the child escapes from harm's way with Kenshiro's help (the most prominent examples being Taki, Bat's adopted little brother who gets shot by a ruffian, and Ryo, the kid who ate poisoned bread in Shuh's hideout).
* InformedAbility: There are villains who brag about their unstoppable fighting styles whose power we never see onscreen, though a good load of them do manage to show it off. The most ubiquitous example has to be Souther's Tensho Juuji Hou attack, which supposedly can cut through stainless steel, but only scratches Ken's shoulders a bit and got a ''lot'' of hype beforehand. Granted Ken's MadeOfIron, but still. (It's like Musou Tensei in that he passes through Ken's attempted counterattacks, but no mention is made of why this doesn't work when he jumps right into Ken's successful Tenha Kassatsu.)
** Kenshiro once got hit in the head with a solid stone pillar as big as he is and remained completely unfazed (the pillar shattered to pieces). So it is easy to see how an attack that can cut stainless steel might be not a big deal to him.
* IntangibleMan: One of the effects of Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique ''Musou Tensei''[[hottip:* :"Nil-Thought Rebirth"]].
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: The manga's final volume has Ken and Bat ''both'' trying out the IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy suit with Lin: earlier, Kaioh had pressed the pressure point Shikan Haku on Lin's back that would cause her to fall in love with the first man she saw upon waking -- expecting that it would be a scummy bandit or a lowly beggar, ''anyone'' but Ken; nevertheless when she wakes, it's just Ken and Bat (who'd learned of Shikan Haku -- important point there). Bat was aware of Lin's love for Ken, but Ken was sympathetic to her for all that she'd been through and instead wanted her to live peacefully, so he rode off to ensure that Lin would fall in love with Bat instead. Bat makes a show of going along, but at their wedding he's unable to fully commit -- feeling that it's not right for him to be getting the (sincere) love compelled onto her, so in an even more extreme case, he actually causes retrograde amnesia in her, then in an ''incredibly'' cockamimie plot actually attempts to "guide" the rebuilding of memories in an attempt to cause her to fall in love with Ken all over again instead... by the end though, [[spoiler:it fails when Ken and Lin both regain their memories, and in her case remembering her love for the now-dying Bat. While Ken promised to Bat that he would go off with Lin, he secretly pressed healing points on Bat before leaving without her... leaving her a welcome surprise]].
* JabbaTableManners: In a world where ''basic'' food and fresh water can ''literally'' cost you an arm and a leg, any character who eats gourmet food can automatically be labelled as a wasteful villain. Souther in particular is an '''exceptionally''' vile example of this trope. Shisuka from ''Kenshiro Den'' is an even more literal example than Souther, though the first arc of the manga (post-Kaioh) had Kouketsu.
* KamehameHadoken: '''HOKUTO GOSHO HA!!!'''
** '''TENSHO HONRETSU!!!'''
* {{Kiai}}: Kenshiro's battle cries mimic those of Bruce Lee. Not to mention that in the anime, he looks like him too (at least in the early episodes). In the manga though, his face, hair, and clothes all very closely resemble Mel Gibson's character, "Mad" Max Rockatansky in the Mad Max films -- then, when he went off to Shura, Sylvester Stallone.
** There's also his famous "ATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA!" kiai, which he uses when he's busting out his ''Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken'' on some sorry bad guy
* KiAttacks: Hokuto Shin Ken uses ''Touki'' to strike opponent's pressure points with out contact.
** ''Gento Ko Ken'' specializes in using ki to destroy enemies on the cellular level via [[KillItWithFire burning]] or [[KillItWithIce freezing]].
** Hokuto Ryu Ken uses ''Matouki'' which is [[MagicByAnyOtherName flat out magic]].
* KickTheDog: A constant, neverending stream of atrocities designed to make you feel that the villains deserve every last bit of righteous ultra-violence Ken can lavish upon them. One bad guy even ''literally'' kicks a dog -- a cute puppy to be precise.
* KillerYoyo: Mamiya uses two of them, and looking ''damn'' fine while doing so.
* KnuckleCracking: Part and parcel of Kenshiro's BruceLeeClone nature.
* KungFuJesus: Not Jesus Himself, but his lookalike Toki. Not to mention Kenshiro himself in the ''Kensiro Den'' prequel film, right down to ressurecting from LITERALLY being crucified.
* LighterAndSofter: Yes, LighterAndSofter. Fist of North Star was not the first post-apocalyptic manga. It would ''probably'' be ''Manga/ViolenceJack'' by GoNagai. Compared with THAT series - an utterly rotten CrapsackWorld where HumansAreBastards and [[ItGotWorse it gets worse]] ALWAYS, Hokuto no Ken is a pretty optimistic and hopeful story. At least Fist Of The North Star gives the message that you can still be good and noble and remain a human being even in the worst circumstances. ViolenceJack? Not so much.
* LimitedAnimation: Whenever Ken walks, more often than not the animators just take a static frame of him and wave it up and down. Leads to {{Narm}} in some cases, such as the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAYLxEG5X-Y HILARIOUSLY bad special effect in episode 23,]] where we see Ken from an exploding Mook's point of view, and it's painfully obvious that the animators just waved Ken's picture around in the background. There's also the episode in which Ken kills Devil's Rebirth: It just shows him from the back as he punches, while Devil's body goes past up. It's the funniest GreenScreen effect ever.
* LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: Inverted with Hokuto Ryuuken, which uses magical incantations heavily in its fighting style but is explicitly stated to be inferior to Hokuto Shinken, which focuses on physical attack and pressure-point techniques.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: strong characters with unique fighting styles are introduced, only to be killed off within the next volume or two. Think ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', if people died.
** Some of them are given bit more screen time in Toei's anime version, like Raiga and Fuga, Koryu, Hyui and Shuren, Shoki and Nagato to name a few.
* LookWhatICanDoNow: Long training sequences are generally avoided, but this does not stop characters from suddenly unleashing new abilities that they either learned spontaneously, or perhaps [[IAmNotLeftHanded had known all along]].
* LoveFreak: Shu, Yuria, to an extent. Lin also counts as well.
* LoveMakesYouEvil: Recurring theme for several villains. Most notably Shin and Souther.
* LoweredMonsterDifficulty: The population of [[TheSpartanWay the land of Shura]]. Especially notable in filler.
* MadeOfIron: If you're one of the more powerful fighters in this series, you are virtually immune to damage. For example, Kiba Daioh, a relatively low-level martial artist villain, used a technique which literally transformed his skin into steel, so that when super-strong Kenshiro used a massive steel beam to bludgeon him, the beam was bent into U-shape without doing any damage. Then Kenshiro [[CrazyPrepared struck a pressure point which effectively canceled the effect]], allowing Ken to break Kiba's spine during the second try.
* MadeOfPlasticine: On the other hand, if you're a {{mook|s}}, prepare to have your body remolded like play-doh.
* MagicPants: Kenshiro destroys his shirt and expensive looking leather jacket in practically every episode, and yet never seems to have any problem getting it back by the next one.
* ManlyTears: One of the most famous users of this trope. It should be noted however, that the men of this series sheds just as much, if not ''more'' TenderTears, contrary to popular belief.
** [[FridgeBrilliance Considering the kind of future mankind lives in, it's insane to think guys still hold on to the belief that]] MenDontCry.
* MartialMedic: Kenshiro can manipulate pressure points to heal as well as harm.
* MeaningfulName: Toki, who shares his grace with the ibis he was named after, and Souther, a slightly more convoluted example. The southerly winds. What birds fly on. Birds like the Nanto style is inspired by. Meaning he is at the root of all Nanto schools, as the emperor. Like that ''wouldn't'' get to his head... And then there's Kenshiro himself, whose name translates to something like "Fourth Son of the Fist."
* MegaManning: The first clue that Ken is running on ThePowerOfFriendship is when he starts to [[LookWhatICanDoNow inexplicably use attacks that belonged to fallen allies]]. He also explicitly ''claims'' that practitioners of his style can duplicate the attacks of any other style, though he's the only practitioner shown actually doing this. Also, Raoh runs a giant prison full of martial artists for the sole purpose of stealing all their secrets. There's not enough detail to determine whether it's this or AwesomeByAnalysis, but analysis really doesn't seem like Raoh's strongest suit.
* MenDontCry: ''Completely'' and ''wonderfully'' averted in this franchise: violence and brutality be damned, ''Fist of the North Star'' is frankly one of the most sensitive and warm-hearted anime franchises of the 1980's.
* TheMessiah: Not Kenshiro, but Toki. Think of him as an ass-kicking Jesus. It isn't very hard. Actually, Yuria is just the big Messiah of the series.
* MightyGlacier: Mr. Heart practically defines this, in both the show and the PS2 fighter. Another large character, Fudou, does basically nothing but ride this trope.
* MonsterOfTheWeek: The anime version of the Southern Cross arc, and to a lesser extent the Goshasei and Shura arcs, gave Kenshiro more weekly villains than the ones he fought in the original manga.
* MonsterSobStory: Told by both Souther and Kaioh to Kenshiro ''right before'' their final battles, when there's no time left for the reader to watch them grow as characters or sympathise with them. Though the week-to-week short term plotting of the shounen manga industry is probably to blame here.
* MonumentalDamage / SceneryGorn: The anime intro shows the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel tower and Tower bridge.
* MoodWhiplash: The over the top ways in which evil, evil people die insanely sometimes verges on black humor, partially from Narm and partially from their cowardly antics. Then there's the time Ken's cute sidekick gets splattered with gore in the middle of a brutal fistfight to the death by way of comic relief. However, this trope is here for one man: Jyuza. In the manga, his introduction, a digression from a hopeless war the established characters are fighting, takes its sweet time showing us a piece of his happy-go-lucky, adventurous life. Then he is called out to fight, and its back to the nightmare for the audience.
* MookHorrorShow: When Ken annihilates Jackal and his gang. Fittingly, the episode is entitled "I Am Death Itself! I'll Chase You to the Ends of Hell!"
* MoralMyopia: Kiba Daioh, PlayedForLaughs.
* MsFanservice: Mamiya gets assigned for this postion in [[DynastyWarriors Hokuto Musou/Ken's Rage]], not only her early 3D render had a daring see-through skirt with a tong underneath, but her classic alternate outfit has extreme cloth damage, whereas for the guys is just desintegrated shirts, Mamiya's is large portions of the whole outfit, it ends when she's basically half-naked.
* {{Mukokuseki}}: Racially ambiguous characters, names written in katakana, and lack of Japanese signage make many readers confused about where the story is set. But during the Southern Cross arc of the manga, Bat specifically states that Shin's gang rules the former Kanto area.
* MusclesAreMeaningless: Partially averted. Almost all serious martial artists are musclebound bruisers (and about half of them, including Kenshiro, are much taller and more massive than average inhabitants of the postnuclear desert), but, on the other hand, there are a lot of really superhumanly big people in this series (mutants? genetically engineered? it is never explained where all these five-meters tall humans came from), [[GiantMook but their giant size usually does not help them much]], even though some of them are accomplished martial artists in their own right. Buronson likes toying with this one. Hokuto's breathing techniques effectively embody this trope, but apparently most of those {{giant mook}}s [[ArtisticLicence were about as tall as Toki]].
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Several times, especially Raoh with Yuria. Arguably Shin. Certainly Kaioh. Fortunately in Raoh's case it was "My God, What [[spoiler:I Could Have]] Done."
* MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours: Tons of it. Mostly favoring Kenshiro, of course.
* NamesTheSame: In-universe, [[KungFuJesus Toki]] and [[BattleAura Touki]].
* TheNarrator: ShigeruChiba, who also voiced a few of the villains, pulls double duty here. He also gets gradually more excitable as the TV series goes on; as an episode of ''TriviaNoIzumi'' pointed out, he starts off doing the next-episode previews in a rather stern voice, but by the final episode he's ''screaming'' the narration at the top of his lungs. It originally started as an in-joke by Chiba; he apparently stopped ramping it up for a while for fear of giving himself an aneurysm, but began doing it again when fans asked him why he wasn't shouting anymore.
* NewOldWest: Right down to the "stranger walking out of the duststorm into the town" shots and the Morricone-esque mournful-saxophone music of Spaghetti Westerns in the more sad and thoughtful scenes.
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: Kenshiro can not only kill or heal people by touching pressure points, but in one episode, he even touches a pressure point that makes a thug involuntarily move his mouth to answer Kenshiro's questions.
* NiceHat: The helmets in ''North Star'' are legendary. One notable example is Uighur, who hides whips in his horned helmet (you pull them out by yanking on the horns).
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Toki looks and acts a ''hell'' of a lot like a certain Son of {{God}}. Not to mention a variety of "cameos," like Mr. T and Hulk Hogan lookalikes teaming up together, or the two brothers who resemble the tag team Legion of Doom, or a Shura who looks like Sloth from ''Film/TheGoonies''... the list goes on and on.
** The elder in Mamiya's village bears a [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/fist_of_the_north_star/v04/c028/14.html suspicious resemblance]] to [[StarWars Obi-Wan Kenobi]].
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: These situations provide the majority of the story's motivations and plot devices.
* NoHuggingNoKissing: Despite love, or rather fighting for it, being a main theme in the series, not much happens between the OfficialCouple, Kenshiro and Yuria are shown to be a couple in its purest form, the original manga and anime only had them going as far as holding hands, and yet it is implied they went much further than that, the [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVAs]] even had Yuria expecting Kenshiro's child; spin-offs avert this by having other characters like Rei, Jagi, Raoh and even Kenshiro's uncle getting hot and heavy with their interests, ironically Ken and Yuria gets no such "step-up" in spin-offs even though they are the original OfficialCouple.
* NorioWakamoto: Its a small appearance, but the man himself voices Raoh in his first silhouette scene, as well as Shuren. Somewhat altered in that Shuren was a heroic character.
** And in [[DynastyWarriors Hokuto Musou]], he's the narrator.
* NotHyperbole: If Kenshiro tells that after he's through with you there will be not one hair left from you, he MEANS it! [[spoiler:Southern found out about it the hard way.]]
* NotWorthKilling: Jagi when he was disfigured by Kenshiro. Kenshiro would later regret his decision, as it backfired a lot. (Jagi was the one whose conniving caused Shin to decide that Kenshiro didn't deserve Yuria, and Jagi's later ''modus operandi'' was to drag Kenshiro's name through the mud.)
* NuclearWeaponsTaboo: Averted in the very first scene.
* OffscreenTeleportation: Ken, the first time he's against Jackal, does this a lot. Some characters are explicitly shown to teleport, like Joker.
* OneHundredAndEight: The number of branches of Nanto Seiken.
* OneManArmy: Pretty much every named character except for Lin and Bat. Heck, even ''Mamiya'' qualifies... albeit, a one ''woman'' army.
* OneNameOnly: Everyone except Buzz and Gill Harn. In the pilot, Kenshiro had the full name of "Kasumi KenshirÅ", which would later be used by [[FistOfTheBlueSky his uncle]].
* OnlySixFaces: More than a handful of the women look ''remarkably'' similar, which is used as a plot point. Also, before his character development kicked in, Rei looked a hell of a lot like Shin.
* PapaWolf: Kenshiro to Bat and Lin; Fudoh to his various orphaned kids; and Ein to his daughter Asuka.
** Subverted, in comedic fashion, by the leader of the Fang Clan once Kenshiro genuinely challenges his facade.
* PersonOfMassDestruction: Pretty much all the main fighters throughout, from Kenshiro to Kaioh.
* PetTheDog: One villain did this (literally), then did a HeelFaceTurn.
* PlayingWithFire: Shuren plays this trope note-for-note with one interesting variation: instead of being supernatural, his fire skills are described coming from expert use of chemicals combined with a high level of martial arts.
* PlotTumor: The original manga focused primarily on martial arts (some hardcore, some zany) and the KiAttacks were a rare occurrence. In the manga's second run, we are introduced to ''Gento Ko Ken'' - a martial art based almost entirely on KiAttacks.
* PosthumousCharacter: Ryuken.
* PowerCreepPowerSeep: It happens in the numerous action and fighting oriented games for the franchise, lesser fighters like Jagi turns into capable {{Combat Pragmatist}}s with strength and weapons on par with the major combatants; Mamiya in particular gets the greater doses due being the only ActionGirl in these adaptations, she improves so much that it borders on NewPowersAsThePlotDemands.
* ThePowerOfFriendship: In his climactic battle against Raoh, Kenshiro reveals that he has the power of all his friends behind him. Subverted earlier when [[spoiler:Rei, attacking Raoh, tried to invoke it. ''Really'' bad timing, Rei.]]
* ThePowerOfLove: Raoh, meanwhile, is only able to learn Hokuto Shinken's ultimate technique, Musou Tensei, [[spoiler:through his love of Yuria and sorrow over her sad fate]]. Which was MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours by Kenshiro when [[spoiler:he revealed that not only does he have sorrow over Yuria too which gives him as much power as Raoh, he also has sorrow over losing his beloved big brother Raoh!]] The Power of Love is ''all over this story''. If Raoh and Kenshiro's case wasn't enough, see Kenshiro vs. Souther, which itself is also all about this.
* PrecisionGuidedBoomerang: The Colonel deploys several small, metal, razor-sharp boomerangs (perhaps a deliberate homage to The Road Warrior, which was very influential on the series), as part of his complex martial art. They are all on target, despite him plunging the battlefield into darkness (to make it hard to see the boomerangs!) Ultimately it's revealed he's psychically guiding them.
* PreMortemOneLiner: "You are already dead." But if that's true, is it ''[[MindScrew really]]'' pre-mortem?
* PressurePoint: 708 of them to be exact, with equal ability to heal as well as kill if the right ones are pressed. More precisely, the vital points used by ''Hokuto Shinken'' is known as the ''Keiraku Hiko'', which roughly translates to the "hidden points of the meridian". The rival style, ''Hokuto Ryuken'', uses another set of pressure pointd called the ''Keiraku Hako'' or the "destructive points", which has exactly 1109 points.
* PronounTrouble: The Last General of Nanto and the Heavenly Emperor are both revealed to be female. The former case can be justified, since the Five Chariots were intentionally hiding the Last General's identity to prevent Raoh from going after Yuria.
* PsychopathicManchild: The Fang Bandits, which are an entire ''group'' of animal themed Psychopathic Manchildren.
* PummelDuel: TropeMaker in Anime.
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