* How does [[spoiler: Raoh's death]] bring peace? I realize that there's nobody trying to take over the world anymore, but what about all those mooks? The last time [[spoiler: they thought he was dead,]] they were perfectly willing to just run roughshod over Muggles like the gangs had been doing since the beginning. Did all the mooks just die or something?
** Having read Wikipedia, this original troper found out this gets expanded on in Raoh Gaiden. (He kills the more power-hungry/corrupt ones.) Dammit, AllThereInTheManual!
** My money is on them having too many enemies: Kenshiro wasn't the only wandering high-end {{Mook}}-hunting martial artist around (like Ein and the Harn brothers), and with Raoh dead Jako started expanding the Heavenly Emperor's territory and sicking the Gento practitioners on anyone stupid enough to oppose him or break his law. Add to that that the very worst of the lot were massacred by Kenshiro, Rei, Juda, the Nanto Goshasei and ''Raoh himself'', and that Raoh's elite force is still around and capable of kicking their collective asses, and you don't have to imagine too much on what happened to them.
* Why would that town have a radiation shelter that can only be closed from the outside? How did they expect it to be opened from the inside if say, someone as strong as Ken wasn't there? I'm guessing the former is they expected someone who was in an anti-radiation safety suit to do that, and the latter is because only said individuals would know when it was safe to come out and it'd be unsafe to just open it ( how did they know it was safe to open?), but still.
** Are you talking about the one from the Toki backstory? If so, it had powered doors but they ''malfunctioned''.
** In the anime for no good reason they can only be kept closed from the outside. The manga has no such problem since the malfunction's still there but now there's manual shutters on both sides.
* Speaking of that radiation shelter, why couldn't Toki be let in? The shelter's mostly children (probably to make Toki's sacrifice seem more noble). I don't see why Kenshiro and Toki couldn't have picked up two kids each and stood there like that.
** In one of the anime adaptations it was stated that the shelter only had room for two more adults (as they would have to stay inside for two weeks and food and water must have been carefully rationed for that purpose). That was another reason for Toki to do what he did, because otherwise it would have been Kenshiro who would have willingly sacrificed himself to save his fiancee and brother, and Toki knew this.
* Why did the series pretend Jagi didn't exist after a while? He's Kenshiro's brother.
** Likely because he was petty, cowardly, exceedingly weak, and none of the Hokuto brothers really gave a crap about him.
*** He was the one who pushed Shin into doing what he did with Yuria, which started the damn storyline. You could at least give him credit for that.
*** I think it's because after a while, even the bit with Shin was mostly forgotten other than his cameos in "Kenshirou's opponents/companions" montages; barely anything before Souther was acknowledged. Jagi couldn't even get a break on in his own manga! (It ends with [[spoiler:his thought process at death being more drawn out than in the anime, followed by Kenshirou and the former leader of his gang being sympathetic towards Jagi's late girlfriend]].)
*** Because Jagi's multitude of other crimes (murders, massacres, rapes, killing Rei and Airi's parents and selling her to slavery...) permanently disqualified him from Hokuto. If he hadn't been killed, no doubt Raoh would have eventually done the deed even if he did employ him.
** Besides the reasons listed above, there's also the fact that Jagi was clearly the weakest, least skilled off the lot. He was never in the running for the spot of Successor of Hokuto no Shinken to begin with, which is evidenced by how different people down the line praise Kenshiro, Raoh, and Toki, saying how the 3 of them have created the greatest era in the history of this particular martial arts or how any one of them would have made a fine successor if they hadn't all been born in the same era. Jagi, from the beginning, wasn't a match for Kenshiro and was therefore obviously not going to have been the equal or superior to either Toki or Raoh. So, when characters are talking about the Hokuto brothers down the line Jagi is omitted due to the fact that the conversations always revolved around how skilled said brothers were. For example, towards the end of the anime, when Kenshiro and Raoh are on their way to meet up with the Last General of Nanto, Rihaku recites the history of the Brothers to his daughter. Notably, Jagi appears in the flashbacks, just like he did early in the series. We see his same plea with Toki and Raoh to do something about the fact that Kenshiro has been chosen as successor over the 3 of them. However, he is never mentioned by name by Rihaku, because Rihaku is talking about the skills of the Brothers and their suitability to being successor. Jagi simply doesn't qualify and is therefore omitted.
* What makes Mr. Heart so popular? The guy keeps turning up in a lot of the spin-offs that were made in the series, he even got a place in the arcade game as a playable character.
** He was the first onscreen villain to actually do visible damage to Ken in a non-flashback scene. I guess that counts for something.
** He's an absolutely giant, lardy CampGay fat guy, whose fat can repel nigh on any attack. He embodies virtually everything about Hokuto's hilarious and gimmicky cast of filler villains.
** Also, unlike most other low to mid-level villains, Heart was relatively jovial towards people. He's shown treating the bartender fairly decently, and it's only when he sees his own blood that he goes berserk.
* Okay, at first I thought there were some redeeming moments on Souther. But his entry (especially the Character Sheet) really made me doubt that and makes him look like a non-cowardly Jagi. Was he really like that? What's his [[DracoInLeatherPants leather pants]] that makes him likable? (That editor also think Creator/YukoGoto a fucked-up female fan because she happens to like Souther... Wow.)
** As he's dying, he realizes that he was wrong in the horrible things he did. Kenshiro seems to forgive him, which suggests that he must be worthy of forgiveness to some degree.
*** Begging your pardon, but ''what'' remorse? Unless Hara is a VERY bad artist (which he isn't), Souther was too busy happily crying that he gets to die next to his father in the last 3 pages of his long and evil life to convey '''any''' remorse for all that he's done. Sorry Souther, you won't get to reunite with daddy in Heaven 'cos you'll be dragging pyramid stones alone ''forever'' and rotting in Hell, and serves you right too!!
*** The newer anime films sweeten the pill for viewers by having Souther kill himself instead without showing remorse, and that Kenshiro's use of a merciful finishing blow was more of an insult to Souther's merciless way. Well, it was either he becomes a much nicer guy or an even worse scumbag, so...
*** You're all forgetting what makes a person "good" in Fist of the North Star: love and sadness. Every good character has some sort of love and sadness; Ken with Yuria and the state of the world, Rei with Airi/Mamiya and their fate, Raoh with Toki/Yuria and their fate, etc cetera. Souther has his love for his master and sadness over his death. He's a "good" person. ...besides, he's also totally hilariously awesome, so he gets a free pass.
*** Except that Souther specifically stated that the reason he commits his atrocities is because he firmly believes he has no need for love, and deliberately discarded such emotions after the death of his master. The Holy Cross Pyramid was supposed to represent that, as it was there he would bury his love forever.
*** Part of the "shiny" is that he not only didn't go down (originally) like a chump but incapacitated Kenshirou in their first fight, then hurt Kenshirou at least twice more in their second fight. I'd also say that it comes from his reaction to the secret being uncovered: he reveals the existence of ''Tenshou Juuji Hou'', which at least in the anime is RIDICULOUSLY hyped to the point of giving him MagnificentBastard undertones, and finally when the jig is up he decides to go out fighting:
---->'''Souther:''' "I see. Now I've lost my protection and my wings. But... I'm the Saint Emperor, Souther! Emperor of the Six Stars of Nanto! No retreating! No begging! No quitting! The Emperor will never flee!" *vaults off of a step... either punching along the way (anime), or just straight leaping into Hyakuretsuken-Ujoumoushouha (2006 OVA/''Hokuto Musou'')*
*** Also, it's rather hard to believe Souther when he says he feels no love whatsoever after hearing the story about his dead master. By being so vocal about discarding love he seems to be still feeling it to some degree - as the characters really like mentioning in his Dream Mode in ''Hokuto Musou''. Also, preserving and toting your master's corpse around, even through a nuclear apocalypse and life in a wasteland, for what appears to be roughly 15 years (guessing since he was 15 when he succeeded Ho-ou Ken and looked older in Kenshirou's flashback to fighting Shuu which was likely a decade before the present) doesn't really make a good case for the complete abandonment of all love.
*** That's really what makes Souther kind of a tragic character; when his Master makes Souther kill him as a result of the rule of "there can only be one successor", he undergoes a complete mental breakdown and rebels against love (which he sees as being directly linked to sadness). As Kenshiro reminds him, love doesn't always result in pain.
** Souther has the same appeal as any other Draco In Leather Pants; he's hot, has a mildly sad backstory and drips a few crocodile tears before expiring. Fans of this kind of character dont care about the monstrous crimes they committed because all they care about is their emotional attraction to the character. Sure, he essentially built a massive torture camp for kids, but they want to bone him so its okay.
* What bugs me is why almost all of the Nanto Roku-Seiken are playable in most games (Example: Shin, Souther, Rei and Yuda are in the [=PS2=] game) and yet the Nanto Goshasei (Jyuza, Fudo, Shuren, Rihaku and Hyui) rarely are. I know Jyuza was playable in a SNES game and I could understand if Rihaku isn't playable since he wasn't shown to fight much but Jagi was playable in the [=PS2=] game and beyond his Hokuto Rakan-Geki move, he hasn't shown much fighting ability in the source material. The Nanto Goshasei need more game time.
** True, but there wasn't much to work with. Most of them got absolutely butchered after demonstrating one technique, and my favorite of the group who spent the longest fighting, Fudo, spent an episode and a half getting knocked over and getting back up and getting knocked over and getting back up and so on and so forth...and then he keeled over and died, without landing so much as one attack, or even throwing anything more than simply punching and a bearhug. Yeah, that bugs me too.
*** There wasn't much to work with in Heart's case either, but he still made it into the Arc System Works fighting game.
*** It looks like Fudoh and Juza might be playable in ''Hokuto Musou''.
*** Nope, they're "unique" [=NPCs=]. Fudou's actually the only of the Five Chariot Stars to appear at all I think.
*** They're all playable in Shin Hokuto Musou, so you can enjoy kicking butt with Shuu (romanized as Shew, for some reason) and Fudo (who gets an instant kill special R1 ability!).
* I get pissed that the games never include the second saga (the Land Of Ashura). I mean, come on! Ein, Falco, Hyo, Kaioh, I wanna use those guys!
** ''Hokuto no Ken 6'' for the Super Famicom had Falco, Kuroyasha, and Kaioh.
** Not to mention ''Punch Mania 2'', which was a Japan-only upgrade to the original ''Punch Mania''/''Fighting Mania'' that had most of the major ''Hokuto no Ken 2'' characters, including the adult Bat.
** I guess the lack of love for ''Hokuto no Ken 2'' has more to do the fact that the creators Buronson and Tetsuo Hara pretty much wrote that portion of the original manga out of contractual obligations than for creative reasons, since the manga originally intended to end with Ken and Raoh's final battle, and supposedly they don't exactly hold the post-Raoh arcs in high regard. I'm not sure if its true, but it does explain why most of the recent remakes and spinoffs don't even acknowledge the ''Hokuto no Ken 2'' portion of the original manga and anime.
*** I think part of the issue is that the "contractual obligations" reason kinda showed -- for many, all the "soul" of ''Hokuto no Ken'' was in the original series, and some of the stuff in the post-Raoh era is just plain convoluted. Fortunately the manga recovered some of the essence at the very end, but most of the stuff before it was just unnecessary.
*** Lucky for everyone who likes the Gento/Shura arcs, Hokuto Musou 2 will now be covering these arcs, and perhaps even to the end of the Manga.
* Where does Kenshiro gets his replacement shirts (and single shoulder pad) whenever it gets ripped?
** Maybe there's a Hokuto Shinken skill that allows you to repair your clothes? After 1800 years of ripping off clothes, the masters should have thought of something.
** He loots the nearest Wal-Mart or shirt store for a new shirt when he is off-screen. That's the only possible explanation I can think of. After all, the show ''does'' take place after a nuclear apocalypse.
** Episode 23 (Rei's debut episode) shows Ken repairing a shoe so my guess is he uses different materials to patch his shirt back together. Except half the time they look like they're outright disintegrating as opposed to just getting ripped off.
** Perhaps making clothes fast is one of the first things taught in Hokuto Shinken. Meaning his brothers had the same "skill" as well. Imagine Raoh with a needle...
* Why does nobody see a problem with Rei [[ClothingDamage ripping Mamiya's clothes off]] and claiming he's going to marry her (creepy enough in its own right, but everybody seems to follow it up with "you remind him of his sister"). [[BrotherSisterIncest WHY DOES NO ONE SEE A PROBLEM WITH THAT.]]
** At the time, you could make the case that Rei wasn't in his right mind (just one episode before that, he was talking about eating mud until he found "the man with the seven scars") due to grief over the death of his parents and disappearance of his sister. His erratic behavior was clearly intended to put the idea in the heads of readers/viewers that he was a possible antagonist for Ken, before revealing that the man Rei was looking for was actually Jagi. An even bigger headscratcher in this case would be: having seen Mamiya in nothing but her panties, how did he not notice Yuda's brand on her skin until months later?
* Okay, here's a big one...as he was dying, Shin tells Ken that his girlfriend J/Yulia is dead, due to her being DrivenToSuicide over Shin committing atrocities in her name. But it gets revealed later that J/Yulia actually survived and that Shin not only knew it but he handed her over to his generals because he finally got that she would never love him. So...did Shin actually ''lie'' to Ken about what happened? Did he regard her as dead? Was he trying to give Ken the middle finger as he died?
** At one point in said flashback with the Goshasei (And not his own army men BTW) Shin reckons that if Raoh thinks Yuria is dead he won't go looking for her. He's also pretty sad over her unconsciously saying Ken's name and not his own proving she loves Ken instead of him, which hastens Shin's decision. Raoh was on his way there too apparently. Shin decided that if Ken believed Yuria to be dead, Raoh would most likely believe it too, especially if he found Shin's beaten body in a grave Ken dug for him, wherein Raoh would come to the obvious conclusion. So it was partly spite for Ken but also hiding Yuria from Raoh. Of course there's also that Yuria doll...
* Which reminds me, where DID Shin get the materials for a perfect mannequin of Yuria's likeness in a post-apocalyptic future?
** I would wager it's something he possessed BEFORE the apocalypse.
* Motorcycles and other types of cars are seen pretty damn often...where the Hell is everyone getting all the gas to keep those things running?
** Either they are using vehicles that already had the gas in them and discarding them for others once they run out, siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles for their own use, or there are lots of unharmed gas cans just laying around. Most likely it is all three in varying degrees. After a nuclear apocalypse the population is very small compared to what it once was, and almost all of the vehicles we see are used by bad guys who are constantly moving to other places to rob and pillage. The other places are either oasises or struggling so badly for food that using vehicles is the least of their worries. At one point we see Kenshiro exchanging a can of gasoline for food. Not sure how much he actually exchanged it for, but considering there was a whole pile of food in front of the guy he wanted to exchange with he probably got it all just for that one can. It's doubtful any thug would be doing anything to screw with anyone while carrying a five gallon can of gas, so Kenshiro most likely didn't kill someone to get it, meaning he just happened to stumble upon it.
*** Its also not unthinkable that some faction has set up shop in a salvaged oil rig somewhere ala ''Film/{{Mad Max 2|The Road Warrior}}''. You just don't get to see it because its not something Kenshiro would care about.
* Kenshiro is shown to fissure rocks by punching them. Earlier in his life, he ''beat up a goddamn tank''. So why is he incapable of taking down a mere steel grid?
** The first thing to understand is that the anime contains loads of {{Filler}}. That scene with Kenshirou destroying the tank was just anime Filler and it never happened in the original manga. Also, Creator/ToeiAnimation, which created the TV series and the 1986 movie, is notorious for overlooking details and creating inconsistencies from that. In other words, this is an example of AdaptationInducedPlotHole.

* Anyone else perplexed as to why Kaioh decided to become evil in the first place? I mean, it's a pretty lame excuse for becoming evil that your mother makes a HeroicSacrifice to save somebody. If anything, he should be ''proud'' of her sacrifice, and be pushed to do ''good'' rather than evil. Instead he is all "My mother that I love willingly sacrificed herself out of love so I'm gonna be evil to avenge her". If I must say, that is really the ''lamest'' FreudianExcuse in the entire series. At least Souther had a decent justification for being evil, which Kaioh simply didn't have.
** He was rebelling to his destiny as a "neglected star". The reaction of the monks to his mother sacrifice was about "no big deal, that's what servants are all about". He did not find so fair that his role and that of his beloved mother was to suffer for the upperclassmen, and if he did not start an evil and demonical cult he would have also been right. Kenshiro gets his point, it could be the reason why [[spoiler: he adopts Raoh son after Raoh death]].
*** There's also the ugly story of their [[spoiler:entire family, where, millennia before, the monks of the Hokuto Soke clan got worried about China tearing itself apart during the Three Kingdoms period tearing itself apart, and needed someone of their clan to invent a martial art that will strike fear into China, thus uniting it. Two women of the Hokuto Soke clan, Shume and Ouka, gave birth to two sons, Shuken and Ryuoh respectively. To prevent a SuccessionCrisis, the monks decided to feed the infants to wolves, and which infant survived, is the man to invent the martial art. Ouka averted this, and offed herself to save her son and nephew because Shume, who was ill, wanted Shuken to invent the martial art before she bit it. As a result, both Shuken and Ryuoh were spared, with the former inventing Hokuto Shinken. Whereas Ryuoh grew up with a mother's love, and his descendants will wind up losing their mothers at the earliest of ages, which Kaioh, Raoh, Toki, and Sayaka have done so]].

* Is there some cultural reason to why a villain is apparently redeemed just by crying a little before he dies? Souther is the most blatant example, even if hes not forgiven per se they try to tack on some vaguely sympathetic Freudian Excuse, even though the monstrous things he's done would make his master shun him, but damn near EVERY major villain seems to have one of these. Doesnt matter if they've genocided thousands, just cry a little, and Kenshiro will be sad that you're dead.
** It's basically that a tearful apology means a lot more in Asian cultures.

* How exactly did Kenshiro's limbs recover after Shin cut them clean with Nanto Gokuto Ken?
** He only cut the tendons, not the whole limbs.
* Does anybody know the name of the track that plays when Kenshiro destroys the tank or when he fights Mr. Heart?
* Why does nobody ever bother to question Toki's use of Hokuto Shinken when he isn't even supposed to be allowed to use it? It's supposed to be passed down from one father to one son. Kenshiro was the son to inherit, Raoh still used the fighting side of it to chase his ambitions and that is wrong, but Toki also still used the art to cure the sick even after he was supposed to stop, which would be just as bad as Raoh's actions according to the laws of Hokuto. I'm not saying he should let people die, nor am I saying that upholding the rule is more important than saving lives. But why does no one even acknowledge like they do with Raoh? "That man, he isn't supposed to be using the art of Hokuto Shinken. Then again, he is using it only to heal people so I guess it's ok." I mean something like that would have been nice.
** At the time Toki went on his "healing tour", he was already terminally ill with radiation poisoning. And for much of that time, both the true successor (Ken) and the false one (Raoh) were otherwise engaged. With Ryuken dead, it was Ken's call to make. He probably thought, why ruin what's left of Toki's life at a point when the world needed all the good men it could get. It should be pointed out that when Ken found out someone assumed to be Toki (actually, it was Amiba) was conducting experiments on people using Hokuto Shinken, he investigated immediately.
** I agree with the above poster. Technically, Toki should have stopped using the art altogether. However, at the end of the day I think it comes down to a simple choice on Ken's part. He makes it clear multiple times how much he admires Toki, even saying shortly before Toki's death that Toki is the one he was chasing after in terms of skill. Toki always treated Ken with respect, gave up his chance to inherit the position of successor, which Ken acknowledges would have gone to Toki otherwise, to save Ken and Yuria, and is really just walking around as a Christ-like figure, performing good deeds before he inevitably dies from radiation poisoning. From a writing standpoint and an in-universe standpoint, the subject is probably never broached because people would find it ridiculous for Ken to bother fighting Toki when you've got people like Roah and Jagi actively abusing the art for power or to harm others. Rules are rules, but it's up to Ken to choose whether or not to actually enforce those rules.
* Something about Kenshiro's first fight with Souther confuses me. When Kenshiro firsts tries to kill Souther, he uses the Hokuto Hyakuretsuken on him. And when that doesn't work, tries ''again''. My question is, how was Souther able to just laugh that off? Even if he is "immune" (and by that I mean "has a trick to defeat him") to Hokuto Shinken, shouldn't he have been somewhat injured by being punch 50+ times in the chest with enough force to ''wreck a tank''?
** You forget that Souther is one of the inheritors of the South Dipper styles, and thus possesses the same kind of MadeOfIron abilities as Ken. Without being able to use Souther's pressure points against him, Souther can just weather the blows, because his reverse biology means that he's basically brought Ken down to normal in regards to their fight.
* This one is two questions, both related to [[YourHeadAsplode Hokuto Shinken]]:
** First, how does striking a pressure point make someone explode? Does the heart just pump blood in to the head until they explode?
** Second, why do so many pressure pints cause explosive death? When Kenshiro kills Sabato, he makes him smell like blood... and explode. When he kills Geira, he stops him from inhaling... and also makes him explode. When he kills Dante, he makes him walk forward into an active volcano... [[RuleOfThree and explode in midair]]. Why? What's the point of the other effects if they'll just explode anyway?
*** What the Fist does is manipulate your opponent's chi. By striking their pressure points, you disrupt the body's natural energy flow, and can manipulate it in a variety of ways, the explosion thing is just the most common one. Think of it as a kind of RealityWarper power revolving around nerves and cells.
* In the second part, it's told that Kenshiro can't save Asura because he can't defeat Hyo, his older brother. But why are they so sure that Raoh could defeat Kaioh, his older brother?
** Kenshiro is a compassionate man, while Raoh's ambition would override his feelings for an older brother that he never knew.
* The Land of Shura: Only one percent of males reach adulthood due to being required to kill the other 99%. How does this not lead to a complete population collapse and cause the whole kingdom to wither away?
** RuleOfDrama, it doesn't make sense in any logical world, but this is a world with magical kung fu and everyone not being dead after years in a nuclear hellscape, you kinda have to take their word for it.
** Also, they breed like rabbits.
* The whole "one successor only" thing seems like a monumentally bad idea, yet EVERY ONE of the martial arts schools seem to use it. Considering that the majority of the fighters seen over the series are now dead, including all of the South Dipper practitioners, haven't they basically doomed themselves to extinction?
** I think the idea is that there can be more than one user of the style, but only one can be out in the field. Ken has no problem with Toki going around using their style since Toki uses sparingly, whereas Raoh and Jagi were abusing their style and had to be dealt with.
** I think it's a Japanese thing; martial arts schools (at least traditional ones, not "modern" arts like judo or karate) are often treated as heritable property, and while the "successor" isn't the only one to practice the art, they are responsible for developing the curriculum and licensing others to teach, and have discretion to expel students. In the manga, Kenshiro and Falco (possibly others as well), occasionally use techniques called "ougi" (translated to "succession technique"), presumably these are secrets taught *only* to the successor of the art in question.
* OK. It makes sense as to why Shin told Kenshiro Yuria was dead. He gets to spite Kenshiro by keeping him away from Yuria, perhaps for the rest of Kenshiro or Yuria's life, and it'll make it that much less likely that Raoh will ever find Yuria if Kenshiro isn't searching for her or with her. Fine. However, why did Yuria not ever send Kenshiro a message through someone in the Nanto Goshasei? It's not as if they were keeping her prisoner. Furthermore, why did she not tell Juza that she was alive either? Her death is specifically what caused him to go down the hedonistic road he did and made it that much easier for Raoh to eventually find her. Even if she didn't tell him right away, once Raoh was actually on the way to her and Juza was ignoring the pleas of others to step in, she easily could have told him then. What sense does it make to wait to the last minute, when Raoh has already passed by Juza to then tell Juza?
* How in the world did that giant boat end up impaled through a skyscraper?
** It's likely that it was sent flying from a nuclear blast and a skyscraper just so happened to be nearby.
* If Kenshiro is this ultimate badass that always wins, how was it that Shin was able to beat him the first time at the beginning of the story?
** As Shin pointed out, Ken lacked the drive needed to survive in the devastated world. Even Jagi noticed that Ken was more ruthless then when they fought. It wasn't until after Shin nearly killed him that Ken had gained that drive, fueled by revenge.
** As the above proper put it, plus Ken held back a lot of his more lethal techniques against Shin (a man who, mind you, was his friend up until the whole "stealing your girlfriend and leaving you for dead" thing). Pay attention during their rematch: Kenshiro flat out tells Shin that he's not using any lethal pressure points. He only tries to kill Shin once he think's Shin has killed Yuria, and once he does, Shin goes down ''fast''.
* Why do all those Mooks rush at Kenshiro once they find out how dangerous he is? Mooks of random gangs wouldn't know that Hokuton is an Invincible Martial art, but at the very least Jagi's and Toki's Mooks don't have that excuse. They have seen Hokuton's effects repeatedly from their own bosses. Even if they believed that Kenshiro's skill with Hokuton was less effective than their Bosses', their behavior still counts as suicidal in the context. It doesn't make any sense, why they'd just laugh and charge Kenshiro armed only with ordinary clubs.
** TruthInTelevision: How many criminals do you see on TV still continue to fight police even after a SWAT team is called and they are surrounded by over 50 blue men behind cars around their building. TooDumbToLive is sadly common irl.
*** And going on another end, the mooks with some actual brains understand that Jagi and Amiiba would kill them brutally for retreating or disobeying orders. So its either die fighting a glorious and relatively quick last stand or get tortured by your boss to death in an even far more gruesome manner. And some of these folks with brains realize by association with Souther or some other lethal martial artist ringleader, they'd be killed by the mooks of other powerful warlords like Raoh and Yuuda or even just local peasant villagers they stumble across during their retreat from Kenshiro. And thats not countinghte other tons of heroic warriors who would kill them on site such as Rei and Toki. So they essentially are exiled from other humans and they'd be doomed in the desert as they're open season for other factions. So sticking with their current bossis their best chance at survival even if slim and dying at the hands of Kenshiro is a merciful death compared to the alternatives.

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