Fist of the North Star

Overview

Fist of the North Star (also goes by the name of Hokuto No Ken and Ken and the Great Bear Fist) started out as a manga with Buronson as the main writer and Tetsuo Hara for the drawings. It started out in 1983 and ended in 1988 with a total of 245 chapters created.

Story

The story is set in an apocalyptic world where a nuclear war started out in the year 199X which as a result, damaged the world. This had meant that the earth has been reduced to a broken wasteland that is on the edge of surviving, food is scarce, the oceans have been dried up and life itself is about to fade away. Because the world is now in turmoil, a new age has been created, where no laws are governed, the only law, is that only the strong survive and people have taken advantage of this by preying on the weak. The story is set around the main protagonist, Kenshiro, who is the successor to the 1800 year old assassination fist known as Hokuto Shinken. He decides to use those fists for the greater good by protecting the innocent from evil. Throughout the series, he is confronted with many trials and tribulations, from finding his fiancee, Yuria to confronting different martial artists and also to see his other four brothers.

Games

As well as the manga and anime being produced, there were also games that were released under the license in Japan with some titles released in North America and Europe. Apart from its main genre of side scrolling beat-em-up, there's also been different types of Fist of the North Star games ranging from RPG and typing games, to slot machine and fighting games. Although for some games, the licence was removed and the games were changed completely in terms of title name as assets in the game have been reworked.

The first title was released on the PC-88 called: "Hokuto No Ken" which was an adventure released by Enix.