Just a little trivia here: "Hokuto No Ken" is currently one of the 20 most lucrative properties of all time (maybe the 17th?). It has already amassed something around 21.8 billion dollars. That's bigger than James Bond, Toy Story or Lord of the Rings. One of the reasons for such a huge profit: pachinko!

Lol Ed's Deus Ex Machina Magic sound effects, "Da da da da da da!"

I really appreciate the connection you made between Fist of the North Star and Rob Liefeld. It puts Liefeld's art into the context of the time and explains why his work would have looked so different form what was going on in mainstream North American comics at the time.

You don't know how much I'm looking forward to this coming back into print here.

Been buying the Viz Hardcovers very happily. Love the insight these videos give still. RIP Ed.

The manliest character of all time, love the anime and now I will have to hunt down the manga

The OG of OG manga. The inspiration for almost every action MANGA from Jojo to Gatsu. HOKUTO NO KEN.

A neat detail about these prints is that eventhough Viz mirrored the pages to read from left to right, they kept the direction of the Big Dipper on Ken's chest the same. (But then you have characters saying "left arm" while pointing at their right lol, i'm glad that's not a practice anymore)

King Raoh is right up there with Darth Vader and Khan Noonien Singh as one of the great villains of fiction. Heck, that speech about death that he delivers to Rei before they fight is enough to win my vote. I am overjoyed to hear there might be plans to return this great series to print. I just hope it gets here soon, before I'm already dead.

My mom got me the Fist of the North Star Game Boy game for my birthday (probably bc it was on clearance) and I found the comics after. It was way different than what I thought, but I still have those comics.

I really love when you guys go over this stuff. I was a freshman in HS in 1988, and the stuff Eclipse and Viz were putting out was blowing my mind at the time. Those books really shaped how I still illustrate today. Can't wait for Red Room. And I actually bought a black light just to look at my Octobriana.

Can we make Ed imitating Kenshiro's battle cry a regular 'Kayfabe' thing? I'm gonna need a lot more of that.

Thanks for sharing this, I've been a Fist of the North Star fan for decades and watched everything that I could find in every dark corner of the web throughout the years, including the modern* spinoff series(*no longer modern), but tragically I've never explored the books. It stands alone amongst anime of this genre for me, none of them even begin to appeal to me like Hokuto No Ken does, despite the many derivative IPs who methodically applied an almost identical story/plot structure. I've never been a comic/manga collector but since discovering your channel you guys have really impressed your love of the craft and the creators and the community onto me. I hugely admire the reverence and respect and passion and candor of the stuff you guys do. I'm an artist as well, so it's been super illuminating and INSPIRING to hear nuanced, articulate examinations of so many great (and sometimes not-so-great) works of art. I've missed out on SO many incredible things in the comics world, I'm grateful that you guys have given me a practical, concise and entertaining way to bridge that gap and expand my pool of creative influence. I wish you guys the best and will continue to look forward to future videos!

Fist of the North Star made a big impact in Japan especially manga in the 80’s with books after North Star like Super doctor K , Riki Oh , Sakei Gakei Otokojuku, cyber blue and even Jo Jo’s Bizarre adventure.

“Omaiwa mo shindeiru!” Thank you for guys for doing this one! I first heard about this when my friend got back from visiting his family in Matsuyama. I found the Viz first issue that spring in Japantown, SF in ‘89! I still have my early copies of the Viz book. The anime was constantly floating around between our mutual friends houses until the VHS tape finally snapped.

I’m pumped for the reprints!! Hopefully you guys will take a look at Devilman, Blade of the Immortal, Berserk, and Vagabond.

This book, and the cartoon were amazing to behold as a kid. Still amazing.

Sheeeeetttt! I didn’t know they were reprinting this, thanks for the heads up and the kayfabe deep dive, especially love your manga vids

Ed almost blew a hole in the drawing table at 10:44 ...

Fist of the North Star is my fav anime/manga series of all time. Truthfully, it is very simplistic in its presentation of good vs evil. Grotesque violence and hyper machismo. COTDAYUM does it do it SO DAMN GOOD! That infused into the characters and the world is so alluring.

I just picked up the new Viz hardcover with this in it. Pretty spectacular and highly recommended

We need to talk about the amazing English lettering - there must be a lot of redrawing - hope you guys can do a side-by-side comparison. Lettering in these early manga reprints are pretty amazing. Also the flipping of the art.

Banned from all bars, the man with 7 scars!

A goddamn classic! So brutal! Ed, thanks very much for the sound effects, adds a lot to the whole experience...

I discovered this comic when I was a little kid on the very same day I discovered Faust. Game changers.

oh my gosh absolutely oozing with style LOVE this

Every year I go through all of Hokuto No Ken in its entirety.

I picked up the original Viz series in the early 90s in quarter bins and it blew my 12 year old mind. Glad to hear they're reprinting it. The Amazon entry says its hitting in June.

I'm really surprised an entire English run hasn't been released. There are a lot less popular mangas that have been released here. The mind boggles...

FINALLY! still have my original copy of this issue. Scenario you described was me- bought it because the cover looked cool and had no idea how awesomely violent it was going to be! Was super stoked when "Last Battle" came out on Sega Genesis but then super pissed when they edited out the blood (still played it a ton though)

one of the greatest manga comics ever . it was one of the first i ever read .

I've seen bits of the anime, and of course I know vaguely about the existence of Fist of the North Star because it's so famous, but I really didn't realize that the manga had suuuch insane art

i filled in all my gaps in this VIz series last summer! so dope and they have yet to print the whole thing in english.

" You're already dead. "

Just preordered the Viz hardcover a few days ago. Never understood why this didn’t get the same love as something like Berserk managed to in the states.

Of you're doing Fist of the North Star then I'd love to see you guys tackle Berserk. Could also do a comparison of Kentaro Miura's early drawing style compared to his later more perfected drawings.

Hokuto no Ken!! Omae wa mou shindeiru!!

Can feel your excitement, Ken still top notch 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Oh hell yeah love this series!

I literally just watched this on vhs this morning.

Love it!

nothin better than drawing power from a crotch shot.....😅😆

HNK is the shonen GOAT. I think you can draw a straight line from this to Dragon Ball, and then every other fight scene after that.

This is awesome! Ive been playing the video game recently which is killer. I whatched the animes and even that goofy western live action movie too. I would love to get my hands on a physical of the manga. Ive been only able to read a few of them online.

Oh hey I know the guy who did most of the scanlation for this manga. Shout out to my boy Spamdini for getting work done when no one else would.

This reminds me of the artist of one punch man. The action in those comics is also really cool

How did you two meet and then decide to create this channel? Amazing work.

My favorite IP ever. I'm still hunting down the master edition vols 6, 8 and 9 for a decent price.

Legend

I still have a chunk of these viz north star comics

Read this whole way through with only scanlations at hand. It can get tedious at times (as per usual with any serialized shonen) and a bit predictable but the payoff is huge. I was very satisfied with it. One of my favorites and I can't wait to see when Viz pulls out the clean reproductions of the later arcs because the draftsmanship gets insane.

YOU WA SHOCK!

YEAS Hyped.

You guys should look into Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Hirohiko Araki’s long running epic. If you do, it would be great to show the evolution of his style over the of working on it.

Bio-Booster Armour Guyver is another series that never got finished, much to my continuing disappointment. Never read any FOTNS, but will definitely being picking up the new Viz editions when they come out.

This is really making me want to play the Yakuza crew's game adaptation of Fist of the North Star. But first gotta finish Yakuza 0... 5 or 6 years late. But better late than never!!!!

I have that.

You will need to do the evolution of Jojo’s bizarre adventures at some point !

Omae wa mou shindeiru!

Amazing!!!!-this kinda ruined my day...

Before this issue there is a short stand-alone story. What the shonen jump audience voted to see serialization. Like: editors " Hey folks, do you want this stuff? " people " YES! " In my humble opinion, after Raoh's death, history loses its way. I love a couple of characters, but the whole second arc is lacking in ideas and the new pre-bomb series compares the first one is junk.