[[RapidFireFisticuffs http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Atatatatata!2.gif]]
[[caption-width:250:'''''If you can read this, you're already dead.''''']]

-->'''The time of retribution... DECIDE THE DESTINY!'''

-->''And I'll take down anyone who gets in my way with a single finger!''\\
-'''Ai wo Torimodose''' (opening)

-->''[[CatchPhrase You're already dead.]]''

''Fist of the North Star'', or ''Hokuto no Ken'' in Japanese, is the quintessential "[[BruceLeeClone guy who looks and sounds like Bruce Lee]] [[TheDrifter wandering]] the [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic wasteland]] [[MadeOfPlasticine makes people explode with his fists]] and cries lots of TenderTears" anime. A staple of 80s {{shonen}} manga, and subject to many parodies, seen in sources such as ''SetoNoHanayome'', ''ExcelSaga'' and ''SchoolRumble''. The manga lasted 27 volumes in its standard tankobon edition, with two TV anime series (covering the different portions of the series) spanning a total of 152 episodes.

The story is set in a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic future]], after a nuclear war in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture the year 199X]] has leveled civilization. The world is now covered with bands of [[{{Mooks}} mohawked ruffians]] who prey on the weak. Enter our hero Kenshiro, who [[WalkingTheEarth wanders from town to town]], searching for his kidnapped girlfriend Yuria, vowing [[ItsPersonal revenge]] on his rival Shin (her kidnapper), and helping those who cannot help themselves. Fortunately for Kenshiro, he is the rightful successor to the Hokuto Shinken style (the "Divine Fist of the North Star"), an assassination art which utilizes pressure points to make people explode. Body counts are often in the dozens per episode. As the series progresses, the focus changes to Kenshiro's fight against his eldest brother Raoh, another Hokuto Shinken student who refuses to surrender the succession and seeks to conquer the post-apocalyptic world as the Ken-oh (the "King of the Fist").

The second half of the series (aka ''Fist of the North Star 2''), [[TimeSkip set several years after the end of the original series]], has Kenshiro rejoining his former sidekicks Bat and Lin, now grown up and leader of the [[RagTagBunchOfMisfits North Star Army]], as they fight off the now corrupt Celestial Emperor's army led by Falco. Kenshiro and friends rescue the real Celestial Emperor ([[spoiler: who is really an Empress and to top it all off, is Lin's twin sister, Lui]]), which causes Falco to do a HeelFaceTurn and kill the real mastermind, the Viceroy Jakoh. Shortly after though, Lin is kidnapped and taken to the Land of Asura, catapulting Ken into a war with the rulers of Asura, the three Rasho, who are all masters of Hokuto Ryuken (the "North Star Shining Stone Fist"), a martial art which branched off from the same clan that developed Hokuto Shinken.

While the anime series ends with Kenshiro's final fight against Kaioh, the manga continues with a few additional story arcs involving Kenshiro's adventures into new frontiers with a young boy named Ryu ([[spoiler:Raoh's orphaned son from an [[MissingMom unknown woman]]]]), as well as a true resolution to [[spoiler:the love triangle between Ken, Lin, and Bat]].

Any major fight is usually followed immediately by Kenshiro shedding ManlyTears for the fallen, having discovered that his opponent was noble all along, but just misguided. Even if he had been, for example, [[MoralDissonance kidnapping children and laboring them to death in order to build himself a giant pyramid.]]

Note: There are major differences between the manga and anime that affect tropes, from major ones like ThePowerOfFriendship (The Musou Tensei works differently in each version) right down to minor ones like [[PrecisionGuidedBoomerang Precision Guided Boomerangs]] (in the manga, Colonel's not psychic, so the trope's even sillier). The anime is far and away more popular and more easily available, so most entries will be based around that even though it's not the original. Ultimately, these are details and should not necessarily be considered mistakes on the pages. The big stuff, the buckets of blood and manly tears and Road Warrior clothing, are inalienable.

Notably, the anime series has until now not been legally available for purchase or viewing in the United States and Canada, aside from the first 36 episodes of the series which MangaEntertainment released on home video during the late 90's. In 2008, the US division of Toei Animation began selling officially subtitled episodes of the series via various paid download services such as [[http://www.direct2drive.com/Search.aspx?SearchTerm=Fist%20of%20the%20North%20Star Direct 2 Drive]] and [[http://www.amazon.com/Fist-North-Star-Chapter-1/dp/B001MA525K Amazon]]. Additionally, the whole series is available to see for free (streaming only and only for viewers in the United States) on [[http://www4.funimation.com/video/?page=show&b=273 FUNimation's video streaming site]]. In 2009, {{Discotek}} announced it had licensed the whole TV series.

In addition to the TV series, there has also been various anime films and [=OVA=]s.

* ''Fist of the North Star: TheMovie'' - A 1986 anime film by Toei that (''very loosely'') adapts the manga's storyline from Kenshiro's origin story on how he got his seven scars to his first battle with his elder brother and rival Raoh. Many English-speaking anime fans were first exposed to the franchise in the form of its [[YourMileageMayVary infamous]] English dub by [[{{Streamlined}} Streamline Pictures]] released during the early 90's.

*''New Fist of the North Star'' (''Shin Hokuto no Ken'') - A three-part OVA series released between 2003 and 2004 set years after the end of the original manga. The story is actually an adaption of a ''Hokuto no Ken'' novel which Buronson and Hara published in 1995.

*''Legends of the True Savior'' (''Shin Kyuseishu Densetsu'') - A five-part movie/OVA series produced between 2006 and 2008 that serves as remakes and side-stories of the original manga.
** ''Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Love in Death'' (2006 movie)
** ''Legend of Yuria'' (2007 [=OVA=])
** ''Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Fierce Fighting'' (2007 movie)
** ''Legend of Toki'' (2008 [=OVA=])
** ''Legend of Kenshiro'' (2008 movie, serves as a prequel to the series)

There's also been {{spinoff}}s centering around certain popular side-characters from the original series.
* ''Souten no Ken'' / ''Fist of the Blue Sky'' - Ongoing prequel series starring Kenshiro's uncle and namesake, Kenshiro Kasumi. Adapted into a short-lived anime series.
* ''Ten no Haoh'' / ''Legends of the Dark King'' - 5-volume spinoff starring Raoh that was adapted into an anime series.
* ''Soukoku no Garou'' / ''Bloody Wolf's Darkness Blue'' - 6-volume spinoff starring Rei.
* ''Shirogane no Seija'' / ''Silvery Savior'' - 6-volume spinoff starring Toki.
* ''Jibo no Hoshi'' - 1-volume spinoff starring Yuria.
* ''Gokuaku no Hana'' - 2-volume spinoff starring Jagi.

There has also been countless video games, as well as a LiveActionAdaptation.

[[Characters/FistOfTheNorthStar A massive Character Sheet of the cast is currently under construction.]]

[[WMG/FistOfTheNorthStar Wild Mass Guessing Just-For-Fun Go Here.]]

----
This show provides examples of:
* AdaptationDecay
** The [[LiveActionAdaptation live-action movie]]. Where do we begin? The obviously low-budget special effects made Kenshiro's martial art look cheesy rather than threatening and Kenshiro's scars were obviously condoms glued over Gary Daniels' chest; Ryuken gets killed by Shin (rather than Raoh) not after fighting him, but after shot, only to come back from the dead before Ken... as a rotting zombie; Jagi, who is for some reason called Jackal and working for Shin, gets killed when the contraption on his head is removed by Yuria; and although Ken and Yuria are reunited at the end, Bat dies, [[{{Sarcasm Mode}} just like in the manga]].
**The original anime movie, while better than the live-action version, suffered a bit of this as well. Essentially its a cliff notes version of the first ten volumes of the manga and starts off with his origin story on how he lost to Yuria to Shin and got his seven scars. It deviates completely from there, as the Colonel and Jackal are DemotedToExtra, Toki and Mamiya are never seen nor mentioned, and Shin gets mortally wounded off-screen by Raoh after Ken spends much of the movie searching for his lair, as the plot decides to shift focus on the more iconic Ken vs. Raoh rivalry (but with no real build-up other than "[[SaveThePrincess I got your girl]]" and "[[YouKilledMyFather I killed our father]]"). Rei sort of hangs around with Ken and friends until he dies without his climatic final battle with Yuda and the movie ends with an ambiguous GeckoEnding in which Kenshiro does not win the final fight, but his life is spared anyway as his protegee Lin is revealed to be TheMessiah. Then he wanders off to continue his search for Yuria, who disappeared during the final battle for no reason.
** ''The Legends of the True Savior'' movies are decent for most part, but also glosses over plot elements much like the original movie did such as Souther's tragic back-story and Raoh's fight with Juza.
* AdaptationDistillation - The Sega-produced FightingGame is considered to be an exceptional capture of the spirit of the series. The high ShoutOut quotient helps.
** The NES version, though not one of the system's greatest games, came over to America with the [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar head-exploding intact]] at a time when Nintendo was very heavily censoring games.
* AfterTheEnd - The series takes place after a nuclear war, with a few characters being affected by radiation poisoning. The prequel, ''Fist Of The Blue Sky'' takes place in pre-World-War-II Japanese-occupied China.
* AGodAmI - The ''invariable'' mental illness that strikes martial-arts masters in this wasteland world who ''don't'' walk the path of righteousness.
* AirJousting - Ken and Shin engage in a splash panel's worth this in their first fight, and it became the most famous single panel of the series. Anime parodies of ''Fist of the North Star'' frequently refer to this panel, with Ken and Shin's legs crossed in midair. Also, Ken and Raoh jump straight up to do a little air jousting later. Usually, though, jumping attacks are carried out against opponents on the ground.
* AllThereInTheManual - The specific ''Nanto Seiken'' style of Shin is never actually mentioned in the original manga and anime (partly due to the fact that Buronson and Hara wrote the story as they went along and the other ''Nanto'' warriors were introduced later in the series). Shin's fighting style was first declared as ''Nanto Koshuken'' (the South Star Lone Eagle Fist) in the 1986 mook ''Hokuto no Ken Special: All About the Man''.
* AloofBigBrother - Raoh, although this is eventually subverted.
* {{Anvilicious}} - The most subtle thing to happen in this series is the movement of Ken's eyebrows, and even those look like caterpillars.
* AnyoneCanDie - Right up there with Gundam or The Sopranos for riding this trope hard. Colorful, unique, intriguing characters are introduced only to die horribly soon (or not so soon) afterwards. A demoralizing borderline MindScrew that pushes the setting's nihilism and terror right in your face. Of course, seeing how few in number the main protagonists are, this may not necessarily be true.
** Prequels and sequels take this to KillEmAll level. [[spoiler: The only character still breathing by the end of ''Legend of Kenshiro'' is Kenshiro himself!]]
* ArcFatigue: Hurry up and die, Raou.
* ArcWelding: Shin, Jagi, Amiba? Working for Raou.
* AssPull - Quite a few due to the fact that Buronson and Hara wrote the story as they went along.
**The most obvious being the "UD" mark on Mamiya's shoulder. How come nobody noticed it when she was undressed in front of everyone by Rei?
** Or how about Raoh and Toki coming to Japan along with an infant Kenshiro as refugees from Asura in ''Hokuto no Ken 2''. Didn't we see the ruins of Raoh and Toki's home village in the original series?
* AwesomeByAnalysis - Amiba.
* BadAss - Ken is one of anime's first and foremost examples. Of course, there's also Raoh. Rei may also come under this.
**Ken is so BadAss he doesn't even need to hit you. He just beats the shit out of the wall next to him, and the fucking ''ceiling'' [[RocksFallEveryoneDies will fall on]] '''''YOU'''''.
* BadAssNormal - Jackal. In a world of flesh-melting kung fu megapowers, he becomes an important villain by throwing dynamite and remembering where the prison is. Maybe Ein and the adult version of Bat.
* BattleAura - ''Hokuto Shinken'' allows its practitioner to increase their strength by using an inner energy called "touki", which literally means "battle aura".
* BerserkButton - Hurt innocent people in front of Kenshiro and heads ''will'' pop. Though in many cases it seems he lets innocent people die just so he can have an excuse to chuck a psycho. See MoralDissonance below.
** Mr. Heart flips out and attacks people indiscriminately if he sees his own blood (BloodUpgrade). One of the other villains uses this fact to his advantage during Heart's fight with Ken.
* BFS - A couple of mooks team to swing one. They fail and get horribly killed for their trouble. Arguably, Uighur's whips account for the whip equivalent of this.
* BigOlEyebrows
* BittersweetEnding - [[spoiler:The first series ends with Kenshiro defeating Raoh and riding off with Yuria...who is dying of radiation poisoning.]]
* BlackBlood - Being made before the days when violent anime is screened during midnight, desaturated, black or white blood was the ''only'' way that ''FistOfTheNorthStar'' could air on television ''at all.''
* BloodUpgrade - Mr. Heart
* {{Born Lucky}} - [[{{Fridge Logic}} Curiously enough]], the {{Big Bad}} Raoh of the series. He should have been dead several times over before the end of the series but survives long enough for his final battle with Kenshiro. Oh, what the hell, let's count all of the lucky breaks he got.
** First of all, [[{{Ass Pull}} his improbable emigration]] from the Land of Shura.
** A chance encounter with [[{{Crazy Awesome}} Juza]] in his childhood which gives him just the right {{Aesop}} that he uses to avoid a fatal ass-kicking.
** The second person who could stop him, his father Ryuken, suffers [[{{Diabolus Ex Machina}} a fatal heart attack]] right before he stopped Raoh from assuming the mantle of {{Big Bad}}.
** The third person who could stop him, Toki, suffered crippling radiation poisoning and was just shy of having enough strength of finishing Raoh off for good.
** A trap meant as a last-ditch resort to finish off Raoh actually ends up allowing Raoh to escape ''and'' kidnap Yuria.
** All said, Kenshiro is lucky that he didn't slip on a banana peel or something and break his neck on the way to the final battle.
* {{Bowdlerize}} - The violence from the manga was toned down considerably in the TV series, with many of the violent deaths and blood being rendered in black and white and scenes involving children's deaths (such as Bat's adoptive brother Taki or the kid who ate poisoned bread in Shuh's hideout) were rewritten to have Kenshiro save the child at the last minute. In spite of this, the show still attracted the negative attention of {{moral guardians}} in Japan.
* BrattyHalfPint - Bat is practically the Ur-example of this.
* {{Brown Note}} - Inversion: {{Complete Monster}} [[spoiler: Fudoh of the Mountains]] instantly experiences a {{Heel Face Turn}} after holding a warm puppy in his hands.
* BruceLeeClone - Kenshiro, ''especially'' his battle cry.
* ButNotTooForeign - Inverted somewhat. Many of the characters have Japanese names, but they're spelled in katakana, the Japanese writing used to spell foreign names and words, since the series takes place in a future where many races were mixed after the apocalypse.
* CallingYourAttacks - Complete with the kanji for the attack name printed on screen, which is subject to lots of parodies.
* CampGay - Juda. Also very harshly subverted when [[MoralEventHorizon we get into his backstory]].
* CatchPhrase - ''"Omae wa mo shinderu"'' ("You're already dead")
** Many of the villains Kenshiro kills have a tendency to utter an onomatopoeia such as "ABESHI" and "DAWABA" when they die. The most notable is "HIDEBU", a corruption of "ite yo!" (it hurts) which was first uttered by Mr. Heart in the manga and was uttered very often in the anime adaptation (even by Zeed, who precedes Heart in the story).
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower - Even though being an Asian martial arts series somewhat obviates this trope (i.e., the genre demands it of everyone anyway), there's still Ein. This American-flag clad bounty hunter employs no fancy techniques, defeats enemies (and barriers) by simply punching them, and claims to know the vaguely named Kenka Kenpo ("brawling martial art"). One could argue that being so strong, despite a lack of formal martial art skills, puts him in this category in a setting where Chinese martial arts generally lead to superpowers.
* ClothingDamage - Kenshiro lives in a world where you sometimes must ''literally'' give an arm and a leg for basic necessities like food and fresh water, and yet can still afford to shred his expensive jacket '''every''' singel episode '''and''' get a good-as-new replacement the next episode.
** Episode 23 shows Ken repairing a shoe so perhaps Ken uses what limited resources he can find to repair his outfit. Though then again, most of the time they're seen not just ripping but outright disintegrating...SoYeah.
* ColonelBadass - The Colonel of God's Army. [[TheKingOfFighters Heidern]] and [[StreetFighter Rolento]] took notes from him.
* CompleteMonster - Lots and lots. Jagi and Amiba are, perhaps, the most concentrated examples of this trope, but most of the other villains also qualify. A LITERAL example of Complete Monster would be Devil's Rebirth, a HUGE HUGE HUGE creature who practices a fighting style called Rakan Niohken, a very brutal and very cruel style.
** What makes ability to shoot compressed air waves so cruel compared to blowing people up from the inside?
** When Kenshiro blows someone up, they don't even realize it's happened until he tells them it's about to. When you get cut in half with a RazorWind, you get to linger on it.
** Or it could be the history of the technique that has tarnished its reputation.
* CoolHorse - Raoh's horse [[spoiler:and later, Kenshiro's horse]] Kokuoh-Go, who is a black stallion the size of an elephant.
* CourtlyLove - In spite of not being an actual nobleman, this is the the honorable and gentlemanly way that Rei shows poor Mamiya his love: he never even gets to embrace, much less kiss her [[spoiler: before his tragic death at the hands of Raoh.]]
* CrackingUp - Part and parcel of Kenshiro's BruceLeeClone nature.
* CrapsackWorld - If you're everyone but the protagonist, your life will be one of miserable squalor and highly-probably death. If you're the protagonist, even more miserable, but less death.
* CrazyAwesome - Juza of the Clouds, definitely. The HumiliationConga he delivers to Raoh and repeatedly shaming the [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower crazy thousands-year old martial arts schools]] with a [[GoodOldFisticuffs style he just made up]] is just the tip of the iceberg.
* CrazyPrepared - Kenshiro's martial art is older than most of the nations of the Earth and appears to have a specific attack for every occasion. For example, the correct application of pressure points is exactly right for making someone garrote themselves. (Or behead themselves with a razor wire in the manga)
* CurbStompBattle - The entire series is based on this. There is only rarely such a thing as an equal battle, even amoung the various martial artists(Be it Kenshiro or anyone else)-one side will invariably dominate the other heavily. Sometimes this is a setup for a fight-back, sometimes not.
** It actually becomes a plot twist when Kenshiro actually has to fight on equal ground with an opponent.
** Curiously enough, the first {{Big Bad}} of the series, Raoh, has the smallest ratio of participating in these kinds of battles of any kind of character. He was on pretty even footing with Toki (both occasions), Jyuza, Fudoh, and Kenshiro in their second confrontation.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome - This happens a lot in the anime, some notable examples are: During the first storyline Kenshiro destroys a tank... by punching and kicking it till it explodes (after taking a direct hit from it without a scratch and then trapping the mook driving it in there while it explodes with a body controlling blow when the mook tries to escape). Then in the second storyline Kenshiro taking a huge chunk of out of a hill to plug a breached dam that was blown up by three mooks of Yuda (as high of the dam) and bitch-slapping two mooks who blew up the dam with it (after causing the Elite Mook leader of the group to asplode a short while before) then plugging the breach with said chunk of hill. See the Crazy Awesome entry above for a 3rd example.
* CrowningMomentOfFunny: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUlFqL72iV0 One Mook fails Hokuto Shinken forever]].
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8vEyiOYGB8 On the other hand, Bart is downright deadly]]...
** Let's not forget the HumiliationConga that Jyuza dealt to Raoh and his army. Outsmarting Raoh with a fighting style he literally just made up, stealing Raoh's horse and just to rub salt in the wounds, Jyuza ''slaps his own ass'' telling Raoh that he can "kiss his ass".
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: When Fudoh absolutely ''demolishes'' Raoh and sends the fearsome and tyrannical ''The King of Fists'' reeling back in ''terror'' with the strength given by the love and courage of his (adopted) children.
** When ''Lynn-chan'', but a ''nine-year old'' little girl, inspires an entire village to fight back against '''Raoh's''' Army through sheer bravery alone, which also doubles as her CrowningMomentOfAwesome.
*** The manga's ending:
--> '''Kenshiro:''' "I won't let you die [[spoiler: Bart]]!! [[TenderTears Because you're my irreplacable little brother!!"]]
* DarkMessiah - [[spoiler: Raoh]]
* DeadlyUpgrade - Hokuto Shinken knows a series of pressure points that will cause one's muscle power to increase greatly but irrevocably shortens one's lifespan. Interestingly, there's a variation where a different series of pressure actually extends one's lifespan...but the pain is so great one might die from it while it takes effect. Also, the entire Hokuto Ryuuken martial art is arguably a DeadlyUpgrade from Hokuto Shinken, since it drives its users insane with evil.
* DeathIsCheap - The series actually averts this for the most part, but there is one major exception in [[spoiler:Yuria]]
* DeceptiveDisciple - Inverted with Souther: his master tricked him into killing him in order to pass along the succession of ''Nanto Hououken'' to Souther. Souther went AxCrazy and decided to build a shrine to his master in the form of a massive pyramid built by child slave labor.
* DirtyCoward - Very, very many, and very prominent due to the fact, that Kenshiro just loves to inflict slightly-delayed painful deaths on villains caught red-handed and then explain to them what he just did. Practically all minor villains break down and panic or plead for their life pathetically. On the other hand, most of the major antagonists face death with courage and dignity, [[HeelFaceTurn because they are usually revelaled to be tragic characters]] [[RedemptionEqualsDeath right after the deathblow is struck]].
** The most obvious AND unrepentent example though is Jagi.
* DisabilitySuperpower - Shu's loss of eyesight allowed him to "see" with his "heart." Souther's heart is on the wrong side of his chest, which symmetrically reverses all his pressure points. Akashachi's eye, hand, and leg have been replaced by weapons.
* EnsembleDarkhorse - There's dozens of named, well-designed characters with fascinating and bizarre martial arts abilities who get brutally killed within a few chapters (or panels!) of their introduction. The fandom is littered with them. The biggest is probably Mr. Heart, who was made a playable character in the recent fighting game, despite the cast being only 10 characters large; he's that well loved!
* EvilCannotComprehendGood: If Shin really knew and loved [[TheMessiah Yuria]], he '''really''' shouldn't be surprised that she was DrivenToSuicide by the curelty and genocide committed in the name of earning her love. WhatAnIdiot.
* ExcitedEpisodeTitle - "God or Devil?! - The Mightiest Man Who Appeared in Hell!" [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fist_of_the_North_Star_episodes and many others]]
* {{Expy}} - Kenshiro gets an {{Expy}} in ''SuperRobotWars OG'' in form of Folka Albark. From the same game, Shura King Alkaid might also be an {{Expy}} to Raoh in his "Ken-oh" persona, while Folka's AloofBigBrother might be an amalgamation of Toki and Raoh in his non-Ken-Oh persona.
**Clone Zero in ''TheKingOfFighters 2000'', who is an expy of Rasho Han, and has special moves named after ones used by Kaioh and Hyoh.
**Sakuya from the ''Raoh Gaiden'' anime series, who is an expy Demona from ''{{Gargoyles}}''.
* EyepatchOfPower - The Colonel. Akashachi. Shachi. Inversion: Spade loses his eye to Ken and gets quickly killed in their next encounter. Eyepatch of Shame?
* FanNickname - The Jesus Beam, for one of Toki's attacks. Also, the opening theme ''Ai o Torimodose'' is often shortened to its GratuitousEnglish phrase below.
* FashionVictimVillain - ''and how''. Most of the bad guys dress like ''Conan the Barbarian'' characters, only more colourful.
* FauxActionGirl - Mamiya and to some extent Reina from the ''Legends of the True Savior'' movies.
* FinalFirstHug - When Raoh, broken-and-defeated by Kenshiro, holds the younger warrior's face for the first and final time [[GracefulLoser like a big brother]]:
--> '''Raoh:''' Come, let me see the face of the man who has defeated Raoh... You are magnificent, my little brother.
--> '''Kenshiro:''' [[{{Tearjerker}} Big brother...]]
* FinishingMove - Practically everything the Hokuto Shinken users do is one of these, some of which go as far as involving an on-screen countdown until the victim dies a horrible death.
** The Fighting Game made by Arc System Works made the more notable and flashy moves into instant kill moves or ''Fatal KO's''
* FightingSeries
* {{Filler}} - The first season of the anime was notorious for being a strange amalgam of a canon arc and a filler arc. The anime begins with Ken fighting Zeed and Shin's "Four Jacks" just like the manga and afterward it deviates by putting off the fight between Ken and Shin for more than a dozen episodes. It proceeds to the Golan and Jackal arcs, with both villains being rewritten as underlings of Shin's and from that point on its all filler villains (which includes everything from a wig-wearing witchdoctor who turns villagers into zombies to a swordsman whose fighting style consist of launching himself from cannon) until the final fight between Ken and Shin actually occurs. Thankfully, the series moves back to manga-adapted episodes from the second season and onward, with the frequency of fillers is mercifully reduced (aside from a five-episode recap arc tacked at the end of the third season). Unsurprisingly, when they flashback to Ken's battles with Shin's army in the Shin tribute episode, they only show the Four Jacks and none of the later villains.
* FillerVillain - Shin's henchmen Joker and General Barcom, as well as well as the renegade Gento Kouken masters Taiga and Boltz (who are {{Jonas Quinn}}s of Jakoh's sons from the manga, Jask and Sheeno).
**Inverted in the second series, which actually introduced a Filler Hero in a form of Rock, the leader of a {{Magnificent Seven}}-esque band of cowboys who was the central focus of a three-episode arc before he and his men were killed fighting Hyoh.
* FourIsDeath - Four words that will always lead to death: "''Omae wa mou shindeiru''"/"You are already dead."
* FreudianExcuse - Done very ineptly in the cases of Souther and Yuda. Souther's was somewhat understandable since yes, it is traumatic when you accidently kill your own teacher, but what Souther did then wasn't a good way to pay his respects to him. But Yuda's on the other hand is just plain silly.
** This troper likes to think, that the insane motivations of many villains can be partly explained by the fact that the series take place AfterTheBomb: when you're already on the edge from the sheer, mind-blasting horror of nuclear apocalypse, even relatively minor things can push you over the brink and turn into all-consuming obsessions.
* GagDub - Famous GagDub situation. While doing the official French language dub of the anime, all the French people working on the show were disgusted by the insane levels of violence - especially since they knew it had been bought for a morning cartoon show aimed at kids and would air alongside SailorMoon. As most of the dubbers didn't think much of [[TheNewRockAndRoll anime]] anyway, they demanded to be allowed to do whatever they wanted and therefore got to narm up the dialogues and add jokes.
** Basically, the French dub is an [[TheAbridgedSeries Abridged Series]], only not fan-made.
* GentleGiant - Fudoh
* GlowingEyesOfDoom - For a ''hero'', Kenshiro has a seriously ''evil'' looking pair of ''red-glowing-eyes'' whenever a villains [[TooDumbToLive gets him]] [[WhatAnIdiot SERIOUSLY angry.]]
* GoodScarsEvilScars - Kenshiro, the hero, has seven scars on his chest in the shape of the Big Dipper, put there by Shin during the latter's FaceHeelTurn. Jagi, a CompleteMonster, has a brutally scarred face he keeps behind a helmet, and deliberately matched Kenshiro's scars in order to pass as him.
* {{Gonk}} - Physically incapable villains tend to be this.
* {{Gorn}} - Probably the most ridiculous example occurs in the fight against the Colonel, where Kenshiro uses a technique that makes his opponent's muscles ''eject the intact skeleton from the body''. To paraphrase SF Debris, the {{Gorn}} in this series is [[{{Nausea Fuel}} just sickening enough...]] [[{{Nightmare Retardant}} to be hilarious]].
* GracefulLoser: Raoh, and to a lesser extent Souther.
* GratuitousEnglish - The opening song. '''YOU wa SHOCK!!!'''
** Doesn't matter. The song is just so fucking awesome, it's okay.
** Don't forget other opening themes, with Silent Fighter's "DO SURVIVE!" and Tough Boy's "Welcome to this crazy time!"
* GreenLanternCorps - Nanto Seiken, the rival school of Hokuto Shinken, has over 108 sects. And that's the number of sects '''survived''' the Nuclear War according to WordOfGod.
* GuiltyPleasure - Oh screw anger management classes, THIS is the show to watch on a bad day!!
** Are you sure about that? Because just watching the opening makes me want to punch a hole through my screen (in a good way, that is).
* HannibalLecture - Fudoh delivers one to Raoh so crushing that it [[{{Villain Decay}} destroys his confidence for the rest of the series.]] Also probably the only {{Hannibal Lecture}} that doubles as a {{Crowning Moment of Heartwarming}}.
* HeelFaceTurn - A good number of villains perform these some moments before their death. Though once in a while, you get a villain who not only does this to atone for their sins, but lasts long enough top help Ken and gang along the way. The most obvious examples would be:
** Raiga and Fuuga, the gatekeepers of Cassandra Prison, who, after their supposedly unstoppable fighting style is beaten, they pledge loyalty to Ken, long enough to fight and defeat their master and assist Ken, Rei and Mamiya in freeing Toki from the prison. Sadly, [[spoiler:they die keeping a crushing ceiling held up long enough for Ken and gang to escape]].
** Falco, who fights for Jakoh at first, though its revealed that he is working for Jakoh against his will due to the fact that Jakoh is holding the Tentei (or Celestial Emperor (Or Empress since [[spoiler:its a woman]])) hostage. Once Ken and the Hokuto Army frees the Tentei, its open season on Jakoh and Falco kills Jakoh in such an awesome way by [[spoiler:incinerating Jakoh's head]]. Falco then jumps at the chance to help Kenshiro clean up the world...but sadly doesn't last long [[spoiler:as he is viciously killed by a Shura Mook]]
* HeWillNotCrySoICryForHim - When Asuka, Ein's little girl, was asked why she is not crying at her father's funeral, she replies "If I cry, Daddy won't be able to rest." Kenshiro promptly hugs her with warmth and kindness and weeps TenderTears of sadness in her place.
* HonorBeforeReason: To be even a ''fundamentally'' decent person in a post-apocalyptic wasteland is to be this trope; and that's without going into the '''actual''' heroes of this universe.
* {{Hope Spot}}: Played for dark comedy in the Jagi/Kenshiro face-off. Kenshiro usually lets the {{Mooks}} he's about to deliver a thrashing to get in a couple before cruelly crushing their hopes.
** A much more tragic version occurs in the [[spoiler: Jyuza / Raoh fight]], whereupon he gets no less than '''three''' of these.
* InformedAbility: There are villains who brag about their unstoppable fighting styles, though we never see their power onscreen, though a good load of them do manage to show it off. The most ubiquitous example has to be Souther's Tensho Jyuji Ho attack, which supposedly can cut through stainless steel, but only scratches Ken's shoudlers a bit. Granted Ken's MadeOfIron, but still.
* 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.
* {{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.
* 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.
* 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.
* HighPressureBlood - One villain, the Mad Sarge, even has a fighting style based around this, as he throws narrow, hollow needles. Although in real life these shouldn't be all that efficient at removing blood (he makes no attempt to hit any major veins or arteries), it is accepted that the main danger of this attack is the resulting catastrophic blood loss rather than being stuck full of needles.
* KiAttacks
* KillerYoyo - Mamiya uses two of them, and looking ''damn'' fine while doing so.
* 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.
** Hey, this ''was'' back in the day when anime really was cheap, just like the stereotype.
* 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 uses pushups.
* 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 - Shuu. Yuria, to an extent. Lin might get there someday.
* 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 transform his skin into steel 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}}, 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.
** Episode 23 shows Ken repairing a shoe at one point so perhaps Ken's an expert tailor?
* MagnificentBastard - Shin. Perhaps Souther as well.
* 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.
* MartialArtsDoNotWorkThatWay - The martial arts featured are not exactly realistic, but they are certainly [[RuleOfCool cool]].
* 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. [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome Meaning he is at the root of all Nanto schools, as the emperor.]]
* 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 states that practitioners of his style can duplicate the attacks of any other style.
** Also, Raou 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 Raou's strongest suit.
* MenDontCry - ''Completely'' and ''wonderfully'' averted in this franchise: violence and brutality be damned, ''FistOfTheNorthStar'' is frankly one of the most sensitive and warm-hearted anime franchises of the 1980's.
* 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.
* 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.
* MoralDissonance - Is it too much to ask, Kenshiro, to pop the heads of the bad guys BEFORE they kill innocent people rather than ''watch it happen'' and THEN chuck a spastic psycho over it?
** The anime series did manage to rectify several cases of this simply by having Kenshiro only ''arrive'' in time to witness the aftermath. Problem solved.
** This problem seems to exist only in anime version to begin with. In manga, Kenshiro is quick to lay smackdown on the bad guys (unless they use hostages to stop him). For example, he goes to wipe out the Army of God immediately after witnessing their behavior the first time, as opposed to sitting on his ass for an extra episode and allowing them to raid the town once again. He still tends to arrive too late, though.
* MoralMyopia - Kiba Daioh, PlayedForLaughs.
* 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.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone - Several times, especially Raoh with Yuria. Arguably Shin. Certainly Kaioh.
* MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours - Tons of it.
* {{Narm}} - The show plays a whole mess of tropes that are seen as fully subverted these days ''completely straight'', so to a modern viewer [[SeinfeldIsUnfunny the show can practically seem like parody at times even though it's trying to be totally serious]]. For a great number of people, though, [[{{Troperrific}} the series couldn't possibly function any other way.]]
**Sometimes the villain's acts are so over-the-top it becomes hilarious, such as when Jagi knocks a kid out and leaves him in the middle of the desert with a cinder block chained to his leg... for no reason.
** Let's not forget Amiba, who, after impersonating Toki and killing dozens, claims he did it because "Toki slapped me in the face!"
** To be as honest as [[MightyKombat this troper]] can be, though, he did only want to certainly help people. The shock of Toki whacking him in the gob and telling him off for using an art he didn't know about may have made him go {{Ax Crazy}}
** I wouldn't say Amiba actually wanted to help people, but rather steal Toki's thunder.
*** How the '''hell''' can Kenshiro afford to ''shred'' AND get a new shirt ''every episode'' when even basic things like food and water are impossible to come by?
*** Justified in [[http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/Cartoons/FistOfNorthStar-23/StormyTImes.htmlEpisode 23]],which shows Ken repairing one of his shoes. So its likely he uses what limited resources there are to repair his clothes. Of course, taking into account that they usually look like they're disintegrating and...
** How about Yuda, though? He imprisons various women in his kingdom, one of which was Mamiya, forces them into his servitude and betrays the Nanto Six Stars....all because [[spoiler:Rei was more beautiful than him]]. Now THAT is a borderline retarded reason to go AxCrazy.
* 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.
* 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 TheGoonies...the list goes on and on.
** And Kenshiro looks ''exactly'' like Mel Gibson in ''Mad Max 2: Road Warrior.''
*** Except the anime however makes him resemble Bruce Lee (at least for the early episodes of the first series).
** ''Fist of the Blue Sky'' continues this trope, which features a Chinese gangster named Two Pistol Ye who looks the obscure film hero Darkman, and Goran, a boxer who resembles MikeTyson.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown - These situations provide the majority of the story's motivations and plot devices.
* 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.
* NotWorthKilling: Not in ''Fist of the North Star'', but in ''Fist of the Blue Sky'', the reason why "Nazi Raoh" Liu Zong-Wu did not kill Adolf Hitler despite having an opportunity to do so was because he felt Hitler was an unworthy prey.
* NuclearWeaponsTaboo - Subverted right from the start.
* OnlySixFaces - The men alone make this trope damned near literal. Try shaving the Nanto Seiken guys and see how many you can tell apart. When you get the women, holy crap. The fact that all the important women in Kenshiro's life look identical actually becomes a plot point.
* PapaWolf - Kenshiro. Not a very good idea to threaten Bat or Lin, unless you have a death wish.
** Fudou is also this. Basically, protecting children is one of the serie's go-to methods for characterizing good guys (it fits in with the "Tomorrow is more important than today" theme that's established early).
* 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.
* 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.
* PsychopathicManChild - The Fang Bandits, which are an entire ''group'' of animal themed Psycopathic Man-Children.
* RapidFireFisticuffs - The ''Hokuto Hyakuretsuken'', one of the main character's signature moves.
* RatedMForManly
* RazorFloss - A God's Army Major wields this. At one point he stretches it taut and runs past a man, which cuts the man in half. Raiga and Fuuga also used these.
* RazorWind - Sometimes difficult to tell. The art of Nanto Seiken cuts with the fingers and hands, as well as a subset of longer range techniques that fall under this. They both cut like swords, so in close combat it's hard to tell whether it's their hands or the wind from their hands. Yuda's long range ground slashes and Rei's attack against the fire breather are explicitly classed here. Hyuui, the wind-themed member of the Nanto Gohasei, has a similiar style that uses these attacks exclusively with no close combat at all.
* ReallyDeadMontage - [[spoiler:Rei, Fudoh and Ein.]]
* RescueArc - Pretty much the entirety of the first season.
* RummageSaleReject - Even if the 1980's ''did'' have pretty awful clothing, is ''this'' the best that the cast can come up with?
* SamusIsAGirl - When we find out that the [[spoiler:Last General of the Nanto Roku Seiken is Yuria.]]
** Don't forget when we learn that [[spoiler:the Celestial Emperor is actually an Empress, and is in fact Lin's estranged twin sister, Lui.]]
* SayMyName - Invoked (whether deliberate or not remains to be told) by DirtyCoward Jagi, whose CatchPhrase is actually "Say my name!" Shotgun pointing is optional. This was even made into a super move in the Atomiswave fighting game.
** "KEEEEEEEEEEN!!" - Lynn
** "YUUUUUUURIAAAAA!!" Kenshiro and Shin both
* ScheduleSlip - ''Fist of the Blue Sky'', the {{Prequel}} to ''FistOfTheNorthStar'' can only enjoy sporadic and unannouced releases since 2005 due to Harada, its illustrator, becoming blind in one eye from a condition suffered by one in a ''million.'' Having lost depth perception, '''all''' his panels have to be re-drawn and inked by an assistant; the fact that his instisted style is realistic and intricately detailed does '''not''' help to alleviate the problem.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple - The only prominent female combatant in the original manga is Mamiya, and she's not exactly a powerhouse like the other men. The Arc System Works fighting game made her the sole female playable character.
* {{Shonen}} - The archetypal example.
* ShoutOut - The whole darned franchise is one to the Australian cult classic ''MadMax 2: The Road Warrior''.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Unapologetically idealistic and morally righteous in spite of being set in a post-apocalyptic CrapsackWorld. The heart and soul of the series seems to be "It is easy to do good in times of prosperity, but it takes a true '''hero''' to be a good person when the entire world is ''screaming'' for you to be otherwise."
* SoBadItsGood: This Troper infinitely prefers the English dub of the series over any other version as a result of the cast ramping up the cheesiness factor with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
* SpaghettiWestern - Replace the gunplay with Martial Arts, and the grim violence punctuated with bursts of heroic idealism will fit right-in the world of Sergio Lone.
* TheStoic - Kenshiro, Raoh, and Souther.
* StoutStrength - Mr.Heart and, to a lesser extent, Fudoh.
*{{Streamlined}} - The English dub of the movie produced by Streamline Pictures excised most of the back-story involving the Hokuto and Nanto schools, had some of the names anglicized or mispronounced (particularly Kenshiro is only addressed as "Ken" in the dub and never as "Kenshiro", while Raoh pronounces Ryuken's name as "Rye-uh-ken" instead of the proper "Ree-ooh-ken"), and even changed the cause of death of one character. On the plus side, it had James Avery ([[FreshPrinceOfBelAir Uncle Phil]]/[[TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles Shredder]]) as the voice of the Fang King.
* SpamAttack - Hokuto Hyakuretsuken is a classic example.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS - Is it Thouzer, or Souther?
** Hell, on that note, is it Juda or Yuda?
*** His name [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic comes from the Japanese pronunciation of the name Judas]], which is actually based on the Hebrew form of the name, Judah/Yehudah.
** Don't even get STARTED on Bart/Bat/Batto.
*** Its actually Bat. Batto is just a direct transliteration from Japanese to romaji, while Bart was just an unnecessary anglicization that sounds nothing like the Japanese name.
** Julia or Yuria?
* {{Squick}} - Not for the weak of stomach, this franchise is.
* {{The Combat Pragmatist}} - Jagi made a career out of doing this. And him using a gun arguably isn't even the worse thing he did.
* TearJerker - Somewhere around half the cast is composed of tragic heroes. Whether you know this from the get-go or not, if you don't get misty-eyed at least once, you're reading it wrong.
** This troper found [[spoiler: Fudo's death]] to be particularly heartbreaking.
** [[spoiler:Shuh's]] death was made into an even greater TearJerker in the first ''Raoh Den'' movie, as it's accompanied by SoundtrackDissonance with the song "Where The Lights Are".
* TenderTears - Despite their appearance, men of the FistOfTheNorthStar series are actually very warm-hearted and do this a lot, maybe even more than ManlyTears. [[spoiler:Even Raoh does this to grieve for Toki and Yuria's suffering, and those are the only times he ''ever'' sheds tears.]]
* TheDrifter - Ken and Toki. And Rei. And Jyuza. And...well, if you're not running a corrupt empire, you're wandering around looking for one to crush, basically.
* TheMessiah - Not Kenshiro, but Toki. Think of him as an ass-kicking Jesus. It isn't very hard.
* 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 able to learn the 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!]]
* TheProblemWithLicensedGames - Mostly averted with more recent titles (the Atomiswave fighting game by Arc System Works being one of the better ones), but there has been a fair share of crappy ones over the years. The original ''Hokuto no Ken'' [[BeatEmUp beat-em-up]] for the [[NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]] is a well-known "kusoge" in Japan, featuring sub-standard graphics and stages that would loop infinitely unless you know how to enter the doors marked by Bat and Lin.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech - Shin delivers a magnificent, textbook speech to Ken during a flashback, right down to having him pinned down underfoot. The topic was obsession, and Ken took it to heart.
* ThereCanBeOnlyOne - Once Kenshiro's brothers are introduced, it is revealed that the law of Hokuto Shinken states that only one successor may be alive at a time. All others are to be either disabled or euthanized.
* TheRival - Shin, at first, and later Raoh.
* TheSpartanWay: DEFINITELY the Land of Shura. Law there states to be a true man, you need to have killed 100 men.
* ThemeNaming
** Shin's four henchmen in the manga (Spade, Diamond, Club, Heart). The anime adds Joker to the mix.
** The members of Golan are addressed only by their military ranks (Colonel, Mad Sarge, Major).
** Jackal and his men (well, just Fox and Hawk at least) are all animal-themed.
** The martial arts of the Nanto Seiken school are mostly named birds (Lone Eagle, Waterfowl, Crimson Crane, White Heron, and Phoenix).
** The Five Chariot Stars are named after elements (Hyui of the Wind, Shuren of the Flames, Juza of the Clouds, Rihaku of the Ocean, and Fudoh of the Mountains).
** In the anime, the Gento Koken successors are ranked after colors (Falco the Gold, Purple Light Solia, Red Light Shohki, Green Light Taiga, and Blue Light Boltz).
* TimeSkip - The second series begins several years after the first one, with Bat and Lin now grown up.
* TokenMotivationalNemesis - Shin in the manga, whose only reason of existence is to give Kenshiro his signature scars and take Yuria away from him before being killed in the begining of the '''second''' volume. The AdaptationExpansion of the anime {{Filler}} episodes actually give both him and Yuria actual character development, and give Shin more gravitas as a warlord who can ''convincingly'' be a threat to Kenshiro and the world, rather than just some thug who got a lucky jump-kick at our hero.
** This troper disagrees, as the anime also made Shin look like a coward, who ran away from Kenshiro repeatedly. And most of the {{Filler}} episodes, used to expand Shin's arc, were godawful.
* ToThePain - Ken usually describes just what he did to an opponent before it finishes them off.
* TouchOfDeath - Hokuto Shinken is basically an entire martial art based around this.
* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth - Toki. Yuria. Shuh. Fudoh. Ein. Countless hordes of innocent, well-meaning bystanders. The planet itself.
* TrainingFromHell - Even in a series notable for its lack of gratuitous training scenes, there are a few glaring examples. At one point, Ken flashes back to when the adolescent students of his school had to fight the students in another school...where the fights were apparently to the death. Another time, there's the memory of the Hoktuo Shinken final test, where Ken and Raoh have to face a tiger and are expected to make the tiger back down through sheer badassness (killing the tiger instead is considered a major screw-up). And Souther's final test for his Phoenix-themed martial art [[spoiler:was to kill his beloved teacher, which itself drives to forsake love and become a crazy child enslaver.]]
* {{Troperrific}} - Yes, it starts in the year [[ExtyYearsFromNow 199X]]. Yes, it features absurd villains with absurd haircuts. Yes, it features a martial arts style [[CrazyPrepared that seems to have a counter for everything]]. Yes, there's a lot of pans and people explaining what they just did. Yes, it features [[SortingAlgorithmOfEvil a linear progression of threats to our heroes]]. Yes, it defined basically everything we know and make fun of as a "Shonen" show, and yes, it plays ''every single one'' of those tropes utterly, completely straight without irony. The show wouldn't ''possibly'' be as effective if it did otherwise, however. If the show made light of Kenshiro's abilities or had the villains act in any other way or any number of subversions that viewers are now perhaps used to, it would be a fundamentally different show.
** [[BoboboboBobobo Yes, yes it would]]
** [[UnbuiltTrope Of course, when it first came out, most of these tropes weren't solid enough to be subverted anyway.]]
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture - The war that trashed the world took place in 199X.
* ThisIsUnforgivable - When Kenshiro growls this phrase at you, it goes without saying that you're pretty much fucked.
* TooDumbToLive - A ''lot'' of glaring villain examples in the filler episodes, in particular a boss who has just witnessed Kenshiro ''demolish his fifteen-feet tall henchman with ONE hand'' and '''then''' murdered said-giant in cold-blood after Kenshiro gives him a second chance to be a good person, '''then''' taunts the dying man for being a weakling complete with EvilLaugh in front of the horrified-and-angry STILL PRESENT Kenshiro. WhatAnIdiot.
* TwoGuysAndAGirl - Ken, Shin, and Yuria, at least in the flashbacks and the beginning of the series.
* UnstoppableRage - Ken does this almost every episode, usually illustrated when his battle aura [[ClothingDamage causes his shirt to disintegrate]].
** This is even more amusing once you discover that it's actually a part of Hokuto Shinken - the move is called Tenryu Kokyu Ho, or "Art of the Dragon Breath", and enables the practitioner to tap into the 70% of the human body's power that is not normally used. This editor finds the show even more amusing because of it.
** Better(Worse?): anyone who witnesses the above MUST, apparently, be killed to keep the secret a secret. One assumes Lin and Bart only live through Ken's forbearance.
*** It's AdaptationDecay. In the manga, the narration says that anyone who finds out the secret BEHIND the technique must die.
** There's actually an exception. When Rei first appears and says he's looking for the man with seven scars on his chest, the plot requires that Kenshiro not show his chest. Accordingly, Kenshiro's battle aura never does this until that plot is resolved.
* VillainDecay - Happens to Raoh post-{{Hannibal Lecture}} and {{Curbstomp Battle}}. The sting is slightly put off by his last-minute conversion to {{Anti Villain}}
* {{Wasteland Elder}} - Kenshiro encounters quite a few elderly village leaders during the series.
* TheWestern - Think David Carridine's ''Kung Fu'' directed by Sergio Leone on a '''very''' bad day and you get this classic Sci-Fi Kung-Fu Western.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: The villain Yuda is named after Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus in the New Testament. Yuda's role is betraying the Six Stars of Nanto by siding with Raoh in a time of chaos, and all because [[spoiler: he was jealous of Rei's elegance]].
* WhipItGood - Uighur. Uighur is a huge, huge man running a prison, so the theme of control and enslavement is still there but without any of the usual vampiness associated with whips. He's presented as a serious martial artist.
* WhiteHairedPrettyBoy - Averted, majorly. Although one of the white-haired characters, [[spoiler:near-death Rei]], is not quite as morally pure as Ken, the other white-haired character is Toki, who is pretty much the best person in the series and too good to live.
* {{The Worf Effect}} - Done masterfully with Raoh in the second half of the original series. And then it's all undone by a {{Curb Stomp Battle}}. [[{{They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot}} Sigh.]]
* WorthyOpponent - Golden Falco.
* {{Wuxia}} - One of the earliest forrays of this genre to use the ''future'' (albeit a primitive one) rather than the past as a setting.
* {{Yandere}} - In the manga, Shin is just a garden variety victim of {{Love Makes You Evil}}, but in the movie and anime filler he gets enough character development to be revealed as one of these types - complete with an {{Alas Poor Villain}} at the end.
* YouDidntAsk - Often, Ken will only save someone after being told for the 1,000th time about how evil the captor/tyrant is.
* YourHeadASplode - Watch out if you have a mohawk!
** Sometimes subverted in which even without a mohawk, doesn't mean you're safe. Look at Jakoh's death scene for one thing.


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