"Well how sweet. His name is the last word out of your mouth before it fills with your dying blood. You had a throne your highness, but now you're flat on your back like a good little bitch for me! Now on, til I let you die, that's all there is. I can hurt you for as long as I want. All the while Kenshiro upstairs, and you can't even say goodbye. Does that hurt? Think about that!"
— Jackal, 1995 live-action film
Fist of the North Star is filled to the brim with villains who prey upon the innocent, from evil warlords to power-mad martial artists. When these bad guys and their minions inflict suffering upon others, it is little wonder that the arrival of Kenshiro is often considered the arrival of a savior — and why it is so satisfying to see him deliver unto these villains what they very much deserve. But even among this bad lot, there are those who qualify as being the very worst of the worst.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
open/close all folders
Examples
- Golan arc:
- The nameless Colonel was a patriotic soldier before he saw his old superiors for the decadent pigs they were. When he survived the nuclear apocalypse, the now-Darwinistic Colonel embraces his worst impulses and decides to recreate the world as is his "God-given" right. The Colonel abducts women and children from all over the wasted countryside to use as breeding stock, having their families murdered in front of them while simultaneously encouraging his soldiers to rape a new generation out of their prisoners. The Colonel also applies these standards to his own men, putting them through lethal training gauntlets that slaughter anyone too weak to pass them. Kenshiro affords the Colonel no sympathy for his grandiose goals, and by the time the Colonel throws a knife at a little girl for a cheap shot on Kenshiro, it's become clear the Colonel is exactly as bad as the very men who plunged the world into nuclear war.
- Chapter 15—"Deadly Boomerangs": The nameless General, while only appearing in a brief flashback, is one of the Colonel's old superiors, and one of the men responsible for the present-day setting. An obese hedonist, the General mocks the Colonel, taunting him that he and his men, for all their training, are no match for the nukes, which the General then launches, leading to the death of billions.
- Warriors arc: Jackal is a particularly brutal bandit leader. Having a seven-year-old orphan killed for trying to collect water, Jackal and his men proceed to slowly murder the other children from the orphanage, mortally stabbing their caretaker to force her to watch as one kid is hanged. When Kenshiro interferes, Jackal straps dynamite to the remaining orphans' backs to keep the hero at bay. His own men don't fare much better, with Jackal cowardly sacrificing his own right-hand man to slow Kenshiro down, and soon after slaughtering the rest of his followers when they rebel due to his mistreatment. When cornered by Kenshiro, Jackal tricks the massive, dangerous murderer Devil(s) Rebirth/Reverse into thinking Jackal is his long-lost brother, and when this fails to stop Kenshiro, turns on the giant to claim he had captured Jackal, encouraging Kenshiro to kill Devil Rebirth after having used him.
- Jagi arc: Jagi, despite being a comparative wimp to most martial artists, makes up for it with his heartlessness and sadism. When he and his brother disciples were trained in the art of Hokuto Shinken, Jagi believed in winning however he could and tried to kill Kenshiro when Kenshiro was announced as the successor. Escaping with hideous disfigurement, Jagi became the leader of a roving gang of brigands that murdered families while taking the women to rape and sell into slavery. Jagi manipulated Kenshiro's good friend Shin into betraying Kenshiro, leaving him for dead and kidnapping Kenshiro's love Yuria as well. Among his many brutal murders, Jagi dedicated himself to ruining Kenshiro's good name by impersonating him, and thanks to a serious brother complex he had, when a little boy defended his elder brother, Jagi took the younger brother into the desert, chained him to a cinder block and left him there, solely because "no younger brother should surpass the elder!" He also had a tendency to kill at random if someone's facial features reminded him of Kenshiro and showed a habit of slaughtering his men at the drop of a hat.
- Amiba arc: Amiba is a martial arts prodigy turned Mad Scientist who performed hideous experiments on innocent people. Having townspeople brought to him, Amiba would experiment by pushing their pressure points in ways that would inflict hideous agony or even bring lingering death, or just make their limbs or bodies explode; Amiba showed no hesitation performing these experiments on children He impersonated Kenshiro's elder brother disciple Toki in these actions, in order to ruin Toki's name, knowing Toki was a kind man who dedicated his life and talents to helping others. His motivation was that he couldn't stand Toki receiving praise for his healing abilities and when Amiba carelessly injured an old man to show he was better, Toki accidentally struck Amiba out of the way to save his victim. Amiba is willing to kill countless people, inflicting emotional and physical trauma on everyone he encounters solely to satisfy his own ego as a "genius".
- Cassandra arc: Uighur is the sadistic warden of the prison-city Cassandra, dumping ground for the warlord Raoh's few living enemies. Cassandra is nicknamed the "City of Wailing Demons" due to the unimaginable hardships its inmates endure, hardships that Uighur is so delighted by that he alters prisoner treatments to get just the right pitch and timbre of lamentation. He is extremely proud of his prison's reputation as The Alcatraz, stating that "the legend of Cassandra is my legend as well", and maintains its zero-escape record by gruesomely killing any prisoners who try to escape, as well as anyone from outside who tries to break them out—along with a cell of randomly-selected prisoners, just to make a point. His own staff fare little better. For example, his gate guards, Raiga and Fuuga, are kept in line by the threat that if they disobey him, their younger brother will be pecked to death by Uighur's pet eagle. The only people he tries to avoid killing are those willing to die, because that spoils half the fun, and he'd much prefer to instill the appropriate fear of death in them before murdering them really horribly.
- Celestial Emperor arc: Jakō is the Evil Chancellor of the Celestial Empire and Falco's adoptive brother. After Raoh's death created an Evil Power Vacuum, Jakō moved to fill it, using the young Celestial Emperor Rui as a Puppet King and manipulating Falco, her oath-sworn bodyguard, into doing his dirty work by using her as a hostage, keeping her in such unpleasant conditions that she eventually went blind. Making the Celestial Empire exceptionally repressive, rewarding the wealthy and brutalizing the poor, regularly executing people on the streets, Jakō eventually ordered the reluctant Falco to obliterate the nations formed under the Hokuto Shinken and Nanto Seiken martial art schools. As a result of his fear of the dark, which was created after his encounter with Raoh, Jakō worked thousands of slaves, old and young alike, to death in keeping the capital of the Celestial Empire brightly-lit.
- Kōketsu arc: Kōketsu is a former horse feeder from Raoh's army turned cruel tyrant. After Raoh's death, Kōketsu enslaves many of his generals by threatening to starve their children, working countless men to death to expand his agriculture business. Casually killing those no longer needed and using their corpses to further fertilize his land, when his serfs revolt, Kōketsu spitefully plans to starve them all to death, along with their children. Confronted by Kenshiro, Kōketsu reveals his ultimate soldier: a man pumped full of muscle-enhancing and mind-dulling drugs to the point he can do nothing but kill on Kōketsu's command.
- Bolge arc: Bolge is the final enemy faced by Kenshiro. Once nothing more than a vicious thug leading a brutal group out to rape and pillage through the wasteland, Bolge was blinded and mutilated by Kenshiro but was one of the few to survive a Hokuto Shinken assault. Building a bigger army, Bolge carves out his own domain and is known for his love of torture. Brutally crucifying, blinding, and torturing an entire army to death, Bolge is made to believe the adult Bat is Kenshiro and tortures him with a power drill, intending to kill Lin out of spite before he dies.
- Bloody Wolf's Darkness Blue: Fist of the North Star Rei Side Story: Zan, one of Lord Yuda's top-ranked servants, is a misogynistic warrior out to tear the powerful city of Asgathul down in order to easily allow Yuda to take it over. Leader of the Westside gang who kills as he pleases, Zan also runs a club where men can drink and force themselves onto drugged-up women. Taking advantage of the chaos surrounding Queen Eva's death by sending his own men out to murder and rape as they please, Zan has Eva's Valkyries imprisoned to be hanged the next day, but not before allowing his men to beat and rape them before their proper execution. After suffering an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Rei, Zan promises to kill all of his men for laughing at him, before joining Yuda in his attempt to take over the city. Holding a petty grudge against Rei, Zan has a woman pose as Rei's long-lost sister Airi, threatening to kill her should Rei not give himself up.
Anime & OVAs only
Examples
- 1985 anime:
- "King's Disciples" arc's "Count to Three! - You're the One Who'll Die! / Try Counting to Three! You're the One To Die!!": Zaria is a mind controlling martial artist who demands women to rape and food as tribute while starving his people. Assigned to kill Kenshiro, Zaria hypnotically turns his citizens into rabid attackers and takes Kenshiro's young companion Lin captive, turning his own dead men into tortured zombies, and attempts to murder Lin himself when cornered.
- "Southern Cross" arc: General Balcom is Shin's vile military leader who lacks any of his boss's sympathetic qualities. Responsible for training Shin's army, Balcom's underlings torture recruits into bloodthirsty murderers he boasts think of nothing but killing. Overseeing Southern Cross's expansion, Balcom has countless towns and cities overtaken to be plundered with women raped and citizens casually killed, while young men are taken as slaves to work on Southern Cross. When Balcom believes he's killed Kenshiro, he tries to overthrow Shin himself out of anger for him ordering less pillaging, intending to rape Shin's lover Yuria after killing him.
- 1986 film's English dub (Streamline Pictures): Jagi is Kenshiro's older brother, who hated his younger brother for surpassing him in everything. Manipulating Shin into torturing Kenshiro and taking Kenshiro's bride, Julia, away from him, Jagi managed to convince his older brother Raoh to become the Fist of the North Star, which led to Raoh killing their father and embarking on a quest to conquer the world. Becoming the leader of a gang that raided villages, torturing and killing many innocent people, Jagi at one point invaded Rei's village, killing everyone there and turning Rei's sister, Airi, into his personal slave, whom he blinded, abused, and raped. Traumatizing Airi to the point that she refused to open her eyes when her vision was returned to her, Jagi tried to force Rei to kill Kenshiro by threatening to kill Airi. Jagi's hateful nature was so strong that even while dying, he decided to taunt Kenshiro about how he managed to ruin his life.
- The Legends of the True Savior's Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Death in Love: Souther, the self-proclaimed Holy Emperor, maintains all of the evil deeds of his manga counterpart but lacks the care for his dead mentor. Devoted to building a mausoleum to his own greatness, Souther runs a brutal empire that enslaves children by the thousands to be worked to death and responds to a planned theft of his supplies by a rebel group fighting to free his slaves by poisoning the food, knowing the rebels will give it to their own children first. Meanwhile, Souther enjoys luxurious banquets from his palace and enjoys whimsically throws away much of the food, while ordering any of the slaves who dare to eat any of the abandoned scraps beaten. Confronting and cutting the tendons of his former subordinate and Rebel Leader Shu, Souther threatens to kill all his slaves lest the wounded Shu carry the final piece of Souther's pyramid to the top without dropping it. Even when Shu does make it to the top, Souther orders his archers to fire on him before personally finishing Shu off with a thrown spear to amuse himself.
Other Media
Examples
- 1995 live-action film: Jackal is Shin's scarred and far more sadistic right-hand man. Ordered by Shin to capture the villagers of Paradise Valley as slaves, Jackal takes the opportunity to slaughter and torture many before taking the others back to Shin's city, casually killing one in a moment of irritation for trying to suck up to him. When the little girl Lynn mouths off to him, Jackal attempts to have her executed by guillotine, only relenting when Lynn reveals she knows the whereabouts of hero Kenshiro. When Shin orders Jackal to guard his wife while he faces down against Kenshiro, Jackal takes the opportunity to try to rape and kill her, revealing he neither knows nor cares if either Shin or Kenshiro dies as long as he gets to have his way with her.
- Lost Paradise: Targa is the second-in-command of the Army of Ruin. Using his position to slaughter the innocent, even killing helpless hostages, Targa tricks several high-ranking memebrs of Eden into helping him get revenge, only to betray and attempt to murder them. Eluding Kenshiro to reach Sphere City, Targa intends to set off the nukes therein to raze the world in purifying hellfire to reign over the rest like a god and to keep Yuria to forcibly bear him a child to preserve his legacy.
