YMMV / Fist of the North Star (1986)

• Awesome Music: Really, the whole damn soundtrack, courtesy of Katsuhisa Sattori.
  • Rei’s theme, ''Nanto Suichoken'' is both badass and surprisingly sexy.
  • Lin’s theme, ''Beautiful Eyes'', is just lovely. This was actually re-used from a previous album by Sattori, which means he must’ve been really proud of it!
  • ''HEART OF MADNESS'' by KODOMO BAND is easily one of the franchise’s most BADASS songs.
  • ''PURPLE EYES'', also by KODOMO BAND, is fittingly soothing and bittersweet. The instrumental version used for the English dub is downright haunting in a beautiful way.
• Broken Base:
  • Is the movie the pinnacle of the series’ animated adaptations because of its top-notch animation and violence that’s more faithful to the manga or is it a bad adaptation because of the sheer amount of important characters it cut out like Toki and Mamiya and how it messes with the story? Some people don’t mind it since the movie is still cohesive enough that you’d only notice that if you’re familiar with the original (and most people in America who watched it for the first time weren’t) but others feel that it doesn’t do the original story justice and thus it suffers from it.
  • The English dub. Is it a laughable attempt or is it actually one of the better ones produced in the 90s? While most will agree that it can be cheesy and it makes quite a few questionable changes to the characters and story, other will say that the voice cast is pretty strong (helped by a mix of unexpected celebrities and people who would go on to make a name for themselves in the voice acting industry) and the performances are pretty solid, especially for the time it was made.
  • Which is the better ending? The original theatrical one where Raoh wins or the one made for early home media releases where Raoh and Ken end on a stalemate? Some argue the former is better due to playing with expectations (if you’re not familiar with how the story goes) and being more faithful to the manga but others feel that the latter makes for a more satisfying ending since it shows both characters on equal terms, though the worse TV-quality animation does knock it down a bit.
• Cant Unhear It: Due to the English dub being how most people in the West were introduced to the series, it’s very common to see fans saying that whenever they read the manga or other written media based on the series, they always read it with the dub’s voices, like John Vickery as Ken, Michael McConnohie as Shin, Dan Woren as Jagi, Gregory Snegoff as Rei and especially James Avery as Fang, which is impressive given that the characters would later be voiced by more popular voice actors.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Dave Mallow voiced Heart in the dub, who’s known as the “Destroyer of Fists.” Years later, he’d voice Akuma, who’s known as the “Master of Fists.” Which one is it, Dave?
  • Nowadays, it's hard to look at Ken with his badass Beard of Sorrow and NOT think of Hot Ryu.
• Memetic Mutation: From the English dub, Ken saying “Say your goodbyes, lard-ass, because you’re already dead!” is sometimes used as a way for someone to express their personal displeasure towards someone overweight.
• Narm Charm:
  • The English dub as a whole. Sure, it sounds pretty cheesy a lot of times and some performances are a bit weak, not to mention how the localization made some questionable changes... but a lot of the voice actors really do a solid job (especially for an early 90s anime dub) and the dub itself contains a lot of gems, sometimes even considered upgrades compared to the original Japanese.
  • The fact that a whole ship somehow managed to get stuck in a skyscraper after the nuclear bombs were dropped and just stayed there for years without the whole thing collapsing onto itself. Sure, it’s silly, but God damn if it doesn’t make for a striking image.
• One-Scene Wonder: Kiba Daioh, aka Boss Fang, because of his unexpected badassery compared to the manga and anime and because he’s voiced by James Avery in his only anime role.
  • As usual, Heart, and again, because he’s the first non-major villain who gives Ken a hard time and manages to make him bleed when he was an unstoppable badass up until then.
• Retroactive Recognition: Quite a few from the English dub:
  • Yup, that is indeed Lupin the 3rd himself, Tony Oliver, as Bat.
  • Heart is voiced by Dave Mallow, who would then become more well-known as the English voice of Akuma.
  • Ken himself is voiced by John Vickery, who would later on voice Lucifer in Dante's Inferno, perform as Scar in the original version of The Lion King and play the auctioneer in Pirates of the Caribbean: Tales of the Code: Wedlocked.
  • Airi is voiced by Barbara Goodson, who a few years later would become famous for her role as Rita Repulsa.
  • Jagi's voice actor, Dan Woren, is nowadays more known for his roles as Byakuya Kuchiki and Arthur.
  • The Headbanger (aka the guy who gets his head sawed by Rei) is voiced by Kirk Thornton, who would then go on to voice Shadow the Hedgehog and Saix.
• Signature Scene:
  • Like in the original manga and the anime, Ken using the Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken on Zeed to save Lin. Only this time with significantly better animation and gory details.
  • The scene where Ken rises from the earth as some kind of earth golem to save Lin and Bat, mostly because of the moment where he punches a skyscraper and walks through it.
  • The HEART OF MADNESS sequence.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The absence of major characters like Toki and Mamiya means that they weren’t given the same upgrade in terms of artstyle and animation as the rest and thus people feel they missed on some potentially entertaining fight scenes, especially with Toki. Not to mention the story importance they could’ve had, though then again it could be argued that the movie’s short runtime meant that there were already too many characters and plot points.
  • Airi is sadly underused in this movie as after her rescue she basically vanishes from the story, not even being shown to witness her own brother’s death which would’ve made it a lot more emotional, like in the manga.
  • Characters like Jackal and the Golan Colonel being reduced to basically cameos and are quickly killed off without putting up a fight, especially if you’re familiar with how they were portrayed in the manga and anime.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Since the movie messes a bit with the timeline of the original manga (and to an extent the anime), it means that Shin actually gets to meet Raoh. Since this was something pretty unprecedented, you’d think they would’ve taken this opportunity to give them a cool fight that was obviously impossible to happen in the original, and, in fact, the trailer does actually promise a fight... but while both of them do meet and are shown getting ready to fight (after exchanging some cool one-liners), the movie then cuts away and doesn’t actually show the fight. Needless to say, a lot of fans feel this was a pretty huge missed opportunity.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Thanks to the beefier budget compared to the TV show, the movie has some of the best animation to ever come out of Toei.
  • As Bat and Lin are trying to escape from Zeed's goons on their car, there's an overhead shot of the chase but instead of the characters being animated on a static, painted background, they instead animated the background as well. While it's mostly just fairly simplistic and featureless blocks meant to represent destroyed buildings and to make it a bit easier for the animators, the fact that it all stays on-model alongside the action is impressive.
  • After Ken gives Lin the seeds and walks away, the camera focuses on Ken's legs as he turns around and his legs are so smoothly animated they almost look rotoscoped.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Owing to it being based on a manga featured in Shonen Jump, thus, having a very young male audience in mind, the sheer amount of gory violence and nightmarish images of a nuclear apocalypse can a bit head-scratching if you're not familiar with Japanese demographics.

---