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alt title(s): Hokuto No Ken 
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)
Fist of the North Star, or Hokuto no Ken in Japanese, is the quintessential " guy who looks and sounds like Bruce Lee wandering the post-apocalyptic wasteland makes people explode with his fists and cries lots of Manly Tears" anime. A staple of 80s shonen manga, and subject to many parodies, seen in sources such as Seto No Hanayome, Excel Saga and School Rumble. The manga lasted 27 volumes in its original collected editions (later editions vary), with two TV anime series (covering the different portions of the series) spanning a total of 152 episodes.
The story is set in a post-apocalyptic future, after a nuclear war in the year 199X has leveled civilization. The world is now covered with bands of mohawked ruffians who prey on the weak. Enter our hero Kenshiro, who wanders from town to town, searching for his kidnapped girlfriend Yuria, vowing 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), 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 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 ( who is really an Empress and to top it all off, is Lin's twin sister, Lui), which causes Falco to do a Heel Face Turn 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 ( Raoh's orphaned son from an unknown woman), as well as a true resolution to the love triangle between Ken, Lin, and Bat.
Any major fight is usually followed immediately by Kenshiro shedding Manly Tears for the fallen, having discovered that his opponent was noble all along, but just misguided. Even if he had been, for example, 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 The Power Of Friendship (The Musou Tensei works differently in each version) right down to minor ones like 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 Manga Entertainment 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 Direct 2 Drive and Amazon. Additionally, the whole series is available to see for free (streaming only and only for viewers in the United States) on 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 OVAs.
- Fist of the North Star: The Movie - 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 infamous English dub by 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 spinoffs 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 / Merciful Mother Star - 1-volume spinoff starring Yuria.
- Gokuaku no Hana / Flower of Carnage - 2-volume spinoff starring Jagi.
- Houkou no Kumo / Way of the Clouds - New spinoff scheduled for 2010 starring Jyuza.
There has also been countless video games, as well as a Live Action Adaptation.
A massive Character Sheet of the cast is currently under construction.
Wild Mass Guessing Just-For-Fun Go Here.
For a 2010 Race Lift adaptation with Kenshiro as a Scary Black Man played by Denzel Washington, see The Book Of Eli.
This show provides examples of:
- Adaptation Decay - The live-action movie had several issues going against it: it suffered from Mighty Whitey syndrome by casting Caucasian actors (Gary Daniels, Costas Mandylor,Malcom McDowell) as lethal martial artists, had some cheesy special effects that were somehow less convincing than the anime version, and made some unnecessary changes to the story like having Shin use a gun to kill Ryuken instead of fighting him hand-to-hand.
- Adaptation Distillation - The Sega-produced Fighting Game is considered to be an exceptional capture of the spirit of the series. The high Shout Out and Mythology Gag quotient helps.
- After The End - 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.
- A God Am I - The invariable mental illness that strikes martial-arts masters in this wasteland world who don't walk the path of righteousness.
- Air Jousting - 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.
- All There In The Manual - 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.
- Aloof Big Brother - 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.
- Anime Theme Song - Ai Wo Torimodose, the theme song for the original anime series is one of THE most well-known anime theme songs EVER, and it is absolutely synonymous with the series. Any adaptation of the series in other media that uses ANY song from the anime will use Ai Wo Torimodose.
- It is also considered by many to be THE most hot blooded anime theme song ever. Hard to disagree.
- Anyone Can Die - 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 Mind Screw 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 Kill Em All level. The only character still breathing by the end of Legend of Kenshiro is Kenshiro himself!
- Arc Fatigue: Hurry up and die, Raou.
- Arc Welding: Shin, Jagi, Amiba? Working for Raou.
- Ass Pull - 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?
- Awesome By Analysis - Amiba.
- Bad Ass - 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 Bad Ass he doesn't even need to hit you. He just beats the shit out of the wall next to him, and the fucking ceiling will fall on YOU.
- That's nothing. Watch this.
- Bad Ass Normal - 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.
- Battle Aura - Hokuto Shinken allows its practitioner to increase their strength by using an inner energy called "touki", which literally means "battle aura".
- Beauty Equals Goodness - Attractive Villains are treated with sympathy when they die even if they aren't actually sympathetic(looking at you Juda and Souther). Ugly villains are killed with no remorse.
- Berserk Button - 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 Moral Dissonance below.
- Mr. Heart flips out and attacks people indiscriminately if he sees his own blood (Blood Upgrade). 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.
- Big Ol Eyebrows
- Bittersweet Ending - The first series ends with Kenshiro defeating Raoh and riding off with Yuria...who is dying of radiation poisoning.
- Black Blood - Being made before the days when violent anime is screened during midnight, desaturated, black or white blood was the only way that Fist Of The North Star could air on television at all.
- Blood Upgrade - Mr. Heart
- Born Lucky - 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, his improbable emigration from the Land of Shura.
- A chance encounter with 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 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.
- Bratty Half Pint - Bat is practically the Ur-example of this.
- Brown Note - Inversion: Complete Monster Fudoh of the Mountains instantly experiences a Heel Face Turn after holding a warm puppy in his hands.
- Bruce Lee Clone - Kenshiro, especially his battle cry.
- But Not Too Foreign - 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.
- Calling Your Attacks - Complete with the kanji for the attack name printed on screen, which is subject to lots of parodies.
- Camp Gay - Juda. Also very harshly subverted when we get into his backstory.
- Catch Phrase - "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).
- Charles Atlas Superpower - 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.
- Clothing Damage - 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...So Yeah.
- Colonel Badass - The Colonel of God's Army. Heidern and Rolento took notes from him.
- Complete Monster - 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 Razor Wind, you get to linger on it.
- Or it could be the history of the technique that has tarnished its reputation.
- Another interesting confliction of this is when Leia is talking to Kenshiro about how Sachi's style is the cruelest martial arts and he must be stopped...when Kenshiro's is all about literally blowing people up. In fact the Rasho Kaioh's reason for excitement is that men of Hokuto no Shinken have been considered saviors despite it being "the exact same as Hokuto Ryuken" according to him, giving him a chance to balance this inequality by ending Kenshiro's savior status.
- Of course, in the next episode the Hokuto Ryuken master Jukei explains that the style is evil, which "possesses the user with an evil power," the users of which are made to wear armor to restrict their evil "touki," so the difference between evil and good is whether or not you are fully cognizant of how many guys you are blowing up, not the fact you are blowing guys up.
- Cool Horse - Raoh's horse and later, Kenshiro's horse Kokuoh-Go, who is a black stallion the size of an elephant.
- Courtly Love - 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 before his tragic death at the hands of Raoh.
- Cracking Up - Part and parcel of Kenshiro's Bruce Lee Clone nature.
- Crapsack World - 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.
- Crazy Awesome - Juza of the Clouds, definitely. The Humiliation Conga he delivers to Raoh and repeatedly shaming the crazy thousands-year old martial arts schools with a style he just made up is just the tip of the iceberg.
- Crazy Prepared - 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)
- Curb Stomp Battle - 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.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome - 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.
- Crowning Moment Of Funny: One Mook fails Hokuto Shinken forever.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: 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 Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- The outcome of Kenshiro and Raoh's final battle, in the 2007 film version:
Raoh: Impossible... how did you defeat the Fist of My Soul...
Kenshiro: Your heart is alone, but in my heart I hold the love I feel for Raoh, Toki and Yuria. Even a mighty fist that can shatter Heaven and Earth can never destroy a heart that holds these small but precious feelings.
Raoh: Come, let me see the face of the man who has defeated Raoh... You are magnificent, my little brother.
- Dark Messiah - Raoh
- Deadly Upgrade - 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 Deadly Upgrade from Hokuto Shinken, since it drives its users insane with evil.
- Death Equals Redemption - Played with several villains, notably Shin, Souther and Raoh.
- Let's also not forget Kaioh whose atrocities include murdering his sister, who doubles as his comrade's fiancée, and blaming it on Kenshiro. Yet for some reason Kenshiro still defeats him with a coup de grâce.
- Death Is Cheap - The series actually averts this for the most part, but there is one major exception in Yuria
- Deceptive Disciple - Inverted with Souther: his master tricked him into killing him in order to pass along the succession of Nanto Hououken to Souther. Souther went Ax Crazy and decided to build a shrine to his master in the form of a massive pyramid built by child slave labor.
- Dirty Coward - 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, because they are usually revelaled to be tragic characters right after the deathblow is struck.
- The most obvious AND unrepentent example though is Jagi.
- Disability Superpower - 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.
- Ensemble Darkhorse - 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!
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: If Shin really knew and loved Yuria, he really shouldn't be surprised that she was Driven To Suicide by the curelty and genocide committed in the name of earning her love. What An Idiot.
- Excited Episode Title - "God or Devil?! - The Mightiest Man Who Appeared in Hell!" and many others
- Expy - Kenshiro gets an Expy in Super Robot Wars 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 Aloof Big Brother might be an amalgamation of Toki and Raoh in his non-Ken-Oh persona.
- Clone Zero in The King Of Fighters 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.
- Eyepatch Of Power - The Colonel. Akashachi. Shachi. Inversion: Spade loses his eye to Ken and gets quickly killed in their next encounter. Eyepatch of Shame?
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:The Motivation for Kaioh's evil.
- Also Devil's Rebirth seemed to be quite fond of his mother.
- Fan Nickname - The Jesus Beam, for one of Toki's attacks. Also, the opening theme Ai o Torimodose is often shortened to its Gratuitous English phrase below.
- Fashion Victim Villain - and how. Most of the bad guys dress like Conan the Barbarian characters, only more colourful.
- Faux Action Girl - Mamiya and to some extent Reina from the Legends of the True Savior movies.
- Final First Hug - When Raoh, broken-and-defeated by Kenshiro, holds the younger warrior's face for the first and final time like a big brother:
Raoh: Come, let me see the face of the man who has defeated Raoh... You are magnificent, my little brother.
- Finishing Move - 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
- Fighting Series
- 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.
- Filler Villain - Shin's henchmen Joker and General Barcom, as well as well as the renegade Gento Kouken masters Taiga and Boltz (who are Jonas Quinns 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.
- Four Is Death - Four words that will always lead to death: "Omae wa mou shindeiru"/"You are already dead."
- Freudian Excuse - 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 After The Bomb: 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.
- Gag Dub - Famous Gag Dub 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 Sailor Moon. As most of the dubbers didn't think much of anime anyway, they demanded to be allowed to do whatever they wanted and therefore got to narm up the dialogues and add jokes.
- Gentle Giant - Fudoh
- Genre Turning Point - It was NOT okay for men to cry in anime before Fist Of The North Star. Afterwards, however, tears became a symbol of honorable masculinity tempered by a kind and gentle heart.
- Glowing Eyes Of Doom - For a hero, Kenshiro has a seriously evil looking pair of red-glowing-eyes whenever a villains gets him SERIOUSLY angry.
- Good Hair Evil Hair - People with mohawks are evil 100% of the time. One Giant Mook actually turned his mohawk into a buzzsaw.
- Good Scars Evil Scars - Kenshiro, the hero, has seven scars on his chest in the shape of the Big Dipper, put there by Shin during the latter's Face Heel Turn. Jagi, a Complete Monster, 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 just sickening enough... to be hilarious.
- Graceful Loser: Raoh, and to a lesser extent Souther.
- Gratuitous English - 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!"
- Green Lantern Corps - 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 Word Of God.
- Guilty Pleasure - 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).
- Hannibal Lecture - Fudoh delivers one to Raoh so crushing that it destroys his confidence for the rest of the series. Also probably the only Hannibal Lecture that doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
- Heel Face Turn - 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, 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 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 incinerating Jakoh's head. Falco then jumps at the chance to help Kenshiro clean up the world...but sadly doesn't last long as he is viciously killed by a Shura Mook
- He Will Not Cry So I Cry For Him - 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 Tender Tears of sadness in her place.
- Honor Before Reason: 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 Jyuza / Raoh fight, whereupon he gets no less than three of these.
- Informed Ability: 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 Made Of Iron, but still.
- Jabba Table Manners - 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.
- Kick The Dog - 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.
- Kung Fu Jesus - 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.
- High Pressure Blood - 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.
- Ki Attacks
- Killer Yoyo - Mamiya uses two of them, and looking damn fine while doing so.
- Limited Animation - 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 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.
- And let's not forget when Ken kills Devil Rebirth: It just shows him from the back as he punches, while Devil's body goes past up. It's the funniest Green Screen effect ever.
- Hey, this was back in the day when anime really was cheap, just like the stereotype.
- Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards - 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.
- Look What I Can Do Now - Long training sequences are generally avoided, but this does not stop characters from suddenly unleashing new abilities that they either learned spontaneously, or perhaps had known all along.
- Love Freak - Shuu. Yuria, to an extent. Lin might get there someday.
- Love Makes You Evil - Recurring theme for several villains. Most notably Shin and Souther.
- Lowered Monster Difficulty - The population of the land of Shura. Especially notable in filler.
- Made Of Iron - 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 struck a pressure point which effectively canceled the effect, allowing Ken to break Kiba's spine during the second try.
- Made Of Plasticine - On the other hand, if you're a mook, prepare to have your body remolded like play-doh.
- Magic Pants - 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?
- Magnificent Bastard - Shin. Perhaps Souther as well.
- Manly Tears - 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 Tender Tears, contrary to popular belief.
- Martial Arts Do Not Work That Way - The martial arts featured are not exactly realistic, but they are certainly cool.
- Meaningful Name - 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.
- Mega Manning - The first clue that Ken is running on The Power Of Friendship is when he starts to 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 Awesome By Analysis, but analysis really doesn't seem like Raou's strongest suit.
- Men Dont Cry - 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.
- Mighty Glacier - Mr. Heart practically defines this, in both the show and the PS 2 fighter. Another large character, Fudou, does basically nothing but ride this trope.
- Mood Whiplash - 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.
- Moral Dissonance - 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.
- Moral Myopia - Kiba Daioh, Played For Laughs.
- Muscles Are Meaningless - 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), but their giant size usually does not help them much, even though some of them are accomplished martial artists in their own right.
- My God What Have I Done - Several times, especially Raoh with Yuria. Arguably Shin. Certainly Kaioh.
- My Kung Fu Is Stronger Than Yours - 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 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, 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 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 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 Rei was more beautiful than him. Now THAT is a borderline retarded reason to go Ax Crazy.
- New Old West - 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.
- Nice Hat - 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).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed - 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 The Goonies...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 Mike Tyson.
- No Holds Barred Beatdown - These situations provide the majority of the story's motivations and plot devices.
- Norio Wakamoto: 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.
- Not Worth Killing: 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.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo - Subverted right from the start.
- Offscreen Teleportation - Ken, the first time he's against Jackal, does this a lot. Some characters are explicitly shown to teleport, like Joker.
- Only Six Faces - 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.
- Papa Wolf - 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).
- Person Of Mass Destruction - Pretty much all the main fighters throughout, from Kenshiro to Shin.
- Playing With Fire - 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.
- Plot Tumor - The original manga focused primarily on martial arts (some hardcore, some zany) and the Ki Attacks were a rare occurrence. In the manga's second run, we are introduced to Gento Kou Ken - a martial art based entirely on Ki Attacks.
- Precision Guided Boomerang - 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.
- Pre Mortem One Liner - "You are already dead." (but if that's true, is it really pre-mortem?)
- Psychopathic Man Child - The Fang Bandits, which are an entire group of animal themed Psycopathic Man-Children.
- Rapid Fire Fisticuffs - The Hokuto Hyakuretsuken, one of the main character's signature moves.
- Rated M For Manly
- Razor Floss - 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.
- Razor Wind - 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.
- Really Dead Montage - Rei, Fudoh and Ein.
- Rescue Arc - Pretty much the entirety of the first season.
- Rummage Sale Reject - Even if the 1980's did have pretty awful clothing, is this the best that the cast can come up with?
- Samus Is A Girl - When we find out that the Last General of the Nanto Roku Seiken is Yuria.
- Don't forget when we learn that the Celestial Emperor is actually an Empress, and is in fact Lin's estranged twin sister, Lui.
- Say My Name - Invoked (whether deliberate or not remains to be told) by Dirty Coward Jagi, whose Catch Phrase 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
- Schedule Slip - Fist of the Blue Sky, the Prequel to Fist Of The North Star 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.
- The Smurfette Principle - 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.
- Shout Out - The whole darned franchise is one to the Australian cult classic Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man - Despite all the violent warlords wanting Yuria's affection, she forever loves Ken for his kind and tender nature.
- Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Unapologetically idealistic and morally righteous in spite of being set in a post-apocalyptic Crapsack World. 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."
- So Bad Its Good: 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.
- Spaghetti Western - Replace the gunplay with Martial Arts, and the grim violence punctuated with bursts of heroic idealism will fit right-in the world of Sergio Leone.
- The Stoic - Kenshiro, Raoh, and Souther.
- Stout Strength - 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 (Uncle Phil/Shredder) as the voice of the Fang King.
- Spam Attack - Hokuto Hyakuretsuken is a classic example.
- Spell My Name With An S - Is it Thouzer, or Souther?
- Hell, on that note, is it Juda or Yuda?
- 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.
- Stock Shout Out: Hokuto Hyakuretsuken is one of the big ones in anime. Any Spam Attack accompanied by an "ATATATATATATA!" shout is giving a nod to Kenshiro.
- 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.
- Tear Jerker - 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 Fudo's death to be particularly heartbreaking.
- Shuh's death was made into an even greater Tear Jerker in the first Raoh Den movie, as it's accompanied by Soundtrack Dissonance with the song "Where The Lights Are".
- Tender Tears - Despite their appearance, men of the Fist Of The North Star series are actually very warm-hearted and do this a lot, maybe even more than Manly Tears. Even Raoh does this to grieve for Toki and Yuria's suffering, and those are the only times he ever sheds tears.
- The Drifter - 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.
- The Messiah - Not Kenshiro, but Toki. Think of him as an ass-kicking Jesus. It isn't very hard.
- The Power Of Friendship - In his climactic battle against Raoh, Kenshiro reveals that he has the power of all his friends behind him. Subverted earlier when Rei, attacking Raoh, tried to invoke it. Really bad timing, Rei.
- The Power Of Love - Raoh, meanwhile, is able to learn the ultimate technique, Musou Tensei, through his love of Yuria and sorrow over her sad fate.
- Which was My Kungfu Is Stronger Than Yours by Kenshiro when 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 Problem With Licensed Games - 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 beat-em-up for the 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.
- The Reason You Suck Speech - 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.
- There Can Be Only One - 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.
- The Rival - Shin, at first, and later Raoh.
- The Spartan Way: DEFINITELY the Land of Shura. Law there states to be a true man, you need to have killed 100 men.
- Theme Naming
- 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).
- They Just Didntcare: Jagi Gaiden practically contradicts everything written in the manga and anime. Ryuuken Gaiden is similar and says Jagi and his biker gang caused the apocalypse!
- This one troper hopes they never let Sin-ichi Hiromoto near the franchise again.
- Time Skip - The second series begins several years after the first one, with Bat and Lin now grown up.
- Token Motivational Nemesis - 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 Adaptation Expansion 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.
- To The Pain - Ken usually describes just what he did to an opponent before it finishes them off.
- Touch Of Death - Hokuto Shinken is basically an entire martial art based around this.
- Too Good For This Sinful Earth - Toki. Yuria. Shuh. Fudoh. Ein. Countless hordes of innocent, well-meaning bystanders. The planet itself.
- Training From Hell - 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 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 199X. Yes, it features absurd villains with absurd haircuts. Yes, it features a martial arts style 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 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.
- Twenty Minutes Into The Future - The war that trashed the world took place in 199X.
- This Is Unforgivable - When Kenshiro growls this phrase at you, it goes without saying that you're pretty much fucked.
- Too Dumb To Live - 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 Evil Laugh in front of the horrified-and-angry STILL PRESENT Kenshiro. What An Idiot.
- Two Guys And A Girl - Ken, Shin, and Yuria, at least in the flashbacks and the beginning of the series.
- Unstoppable Rage - Ken does this almost every episode, usually illustrated when his battle aura 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 Adaptation Decay. 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.
- Villain Decay - 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.
- The Western - 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.
- What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids: Was broadcasted in the 80s in France in a KID PROGRAMM.
- What Measure Is A Mook:Kenshiro kills mooks without remorse but will often try to spare their boss because of a freudian excuse.
- What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: 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 he was jealous of Rei's elegance.
- Whip It Good - 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.
- White Haired Pretty Boy - Averted, majorly. Although one of the white-haired characters, 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. Sigh.
- Worthy Opponent - 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.
- You Didnt Ask - Often, Ken will only save someone after being told for the 1,000th time about how evil the captor/tyrant is.
- Your Head A Splode - 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.
- Your Princess Is In Another Castle - Kenshiro meets this trope after storming one of Raoh's castles in search of his kidnapped fiancée. It also happens in the first season of the TV series, except substitute Raoh for Shin.
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