is a Japanese manga series written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump for 245 issues published from 1983 to 1988 and initially collected in 27 volumes under the Jump Comics imprint. Set on a post-apocalyptic Earth after a nuclear war, the story centers on a warrior named Kenshiro, the successor to a deadly martial art known as Hokuto Shinken, which gives him the ability to kill his opponents by striking their vital points, which often results in an exceptionally violent and gory death. Kenshiro dedicates his life to fighting against the various gangs, bandits, and warlords who threaten the lives of the defenseless and innocent, as well as rival martial artists.
The manga was adapted into two anime television series produced by Toei Animation, which together aired on Fuji TV and its affiliates from 1984 through 1988, comprising a combined total of 152 episodes. It has since expanded into a media franchise, including several anime films, a live-action film, original video animations (OVAs), video games, and a series of spin-offs centering on other characters from the original story. It has also spawned a number of video games and pachinko machines produced by Sega Sammy. A new anime television series adaptation, produced by TMS Entertainment, premiered in April 2026.
English adaptations of the manga were published by Viz Communications as a monthly comic book, and later by Gutsoon! Entertainment as a series of colorized graphic novels, although neither translation was completed. Viz Media published the manga in a series of hardcover editions from 2021 to 2025. English adaptations of other Fist of the North Star media have been licensed to other companies, including the TV series and the 1986 film.
The Fist of the North Star manga has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series. It is regarded as one of the most influential manga series of all time.
Plot
A worldwide nuclear war sometime in the 1990s has resulted in the destruction of most of civilization, turning the world into a desert wasteland. The remnants of mankind fight over whatever supplies of food and uncontaminated water still remain as the strong prey on the weak. Kenshiro is the successor to Hokuto Shinken, an ancient martial art of assassination that trains its practitioners to kill from within an opponent's body through the use of hidden meridian points. Kenshiro wishes to live his life in peace, but after he is separated from his fiancée Yuria by a jealous rival, he begins his journey to become the savior of the post-apocalyptic world, defending the weak and innocent from the many gangs and organizations that threaten their survival. Along the way, Kenshiro meets a young thief named Bat and an orphaned girl named Lin, who join him as his traveling companions and bear witness to Ken's many battles.
Kenshiro's many rivals and allies include the six grandmasters of Nanto Seiken, a rival assassin's art that split into two factions after the nuclear war, as well as his own "Brothers of Hokuto", who trained alongside him for the succession of Hokuto Shinken. Kenshiro's ultimate nemesis is his eldest brother-in-training Raoh, a warrior who broke the law of Hokuto Shinken by refusing to allow his fists to be "sealed", killing his master Ryuken and refusing to surrender the succession to Kenshiro. Raoh seeks to conquer the post-apocalyptic world as a warlord under the mantle of , by challenging every martial artist he sees as a threat. After a long series of battles, Kenshiro emerges victorious over Raoh, who dies peacefully, and peace arrives in the post-apocalyptic world, concluding the first half of the story.
The second half begins several years later after a tyrannical empire under the name of the Celestial Empress has risen to power, oppressing anyone who dares to oppose them. Kenshiro returns from seclusion, joining the now-grown Bat and Lin under the banner of the Hokuto Army. As they fight their way into the Empire's capital city, they discover that the Empire has been taken over by the Viceroy Jakoh, a usurper who is keeping the real Celestial Empress captive in his dungeon. The Hokuto Army free the Empress and Jakoh is vanquished shortly afterwards.
However, Lin is taken captive by the remnants of Jakoh's forces and is sent off to the mysterious Kingdom of Shura, a brutal land of warriors ruled by three overlords who have all mastered the ways of Hokuto Ryūken, a martial art which branched off from the same clan alongside Hokuto Shinken into the ways of darkness. Kaioh, the head of the three overlords, plans to conquer the post-apocalyptic world in the name of evil by wiping out the followers of Hokuto Shinken. Kenshiro uncovers the sealed testament of the Hokuto Shinken founder, Shuken, which holds the secret to overcoming Kaioh's ultimate technique. Kenshiro emerges victorious over Kaioh and rescues Lin, leaving her under Bat's care. During the final chapters, Kenshiro goes on a journey with Raoh's orphaned son Ryu, in order to lead him on the path to become the next Hokuto Shinken successor, encountering and battling various opponents along the way, before returning to Bat and Lin to protect them from a past enemy.
Production
In 1982, 21-year-old manga artist Tetsuo Hara was struggling with his career. His first serialized manga, the motocross racing-themed Iron Don Quijote, was discontinued after only 10 issues. A fan of Chinese martial artist and actor Bruce Lee and Japanese action film actor Yūsaku Matsuda as a teenager in the 1970s, he often drew depictions of them from memory. Hara had previously pitched the idea of a martial arts manga with a protagonist that combined the appearances and character traits of the two actors to his editor Nobuhiko Horie. But Horie instead convinced Hara to create Iron Don Quijote. He found an anecdote of a medical student in China, who, after overstimulating an acupressure point in order to alleviate an eye issue, had instead made the condition worse. For the new setting, Hara drew inspiration from the post-apocalyptic film Mad Max 2 (1981), the cyberpunk film Blade Runner (1982), Katsuhiro Otomo's post-apocalyptic Japanese cyberpunk manga Akira (1982), and the illustrations of artists Syd Mead and Frank Frazetta. Go Nagai's manga series Violence Jack (1973), which similarly had a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland setting with biker gangs, anarchic violence, dilapidated buildings, innocent civilians, tribal chiefs and small abandoned villages, may have been another influence; it has been argued that Mad Max itself may have been influenced by Violence Jack.
Buronson was astonished by the quality of Hara's art was from the first chapter. Hara struggled to draw 20 pages a week and described being so "burned out" that he would not bathe for three or four days. and was serialized until August 8, 1988, lasting 245 issues. Its chapters were collected in 27 volumes, published under Shueisha's Jump Comics imprint from March 9, 1984, to March 10, 1989. During the 1990s, Shueisha reprinted the series in a 15-volume hardcover edition from 1991 to 1992, as well as a 15-volume edition from 1997 to 1998. The Fist of the North Star copyrights would be transferred over to Coamix, a company founded in June 2000 by Nobuhiko Horie after he left Shueisha. A 14-volume edition was published by Shogakukan in 2006, under the Big Comics Selection imprint, featuring the original water-colored artwork from the Weekly Shōnen Jump serialization, as well as almost all of the original opening pages that were omitted in earlier editions, although it lacked the added artwork featured in previous collected editions that were drawn to replace ad spaces. To celebrate the series' 30th anniversary, Tokuma Shoten re-published the series in an "Ultimate Edition", comprising eighteen volumes that were published from September 20, 2013, to July 19, 2014. This edition features new cover illustrations by Hara and include an additional chapter in the 11th volume (see below).
English translations
In 1989, Viz Communications published the first sixteen chapters of Fist of the North Star in English as an eight-issue monthly comic. These were later reprinted in a single graphic novel collection in 1995. During the same year, Viz resumed publication of the series as a monthly comic until 1997, lasting eighteen issues (adapting chapters 17–44), divided into three parts. This second run was subsequently republished in three additional graphic novel volumes titled Night of the Jackal, Southern Cross and Blood Brothers. Viz's version featured mirrored artwork with translated sound effects and other retouched details.
In 2002, a second English adaptation was published by Gutsoon! Entertainment under the title of Fist of the North Star: Master Edition, which retained the original right-to-left orientation but featured digitally colored artwork. Each volume from the fourth one and onward featured new cover illustrations by Hara that were made specifically for the Master Edition. The Master Edition ceased publication only a year after its start in 2003, lasting only nine volumes due to Gutsoon!'s withdrawal from the North American market. These colorized editions were translated back to the Japanese market, but only four volumes were published.
In 2020, Viz Media announced a print and digital publication of the manga in hardcover editions, adapted from the 2013 ultimate editions. The first volume was released on June 15, 2021, and the eighteenth and last on September 23, 2025.
Follow-ups and spinoffs
Fist of the Blue Sky (Sōten no Ken), a prequel to Fist of the North Star written by Nobuhiko Horie and illustrated by Hara with supervision from Buronson, began publication in the premiere issue of Weekly Comic Bunch (dated May 29, 2001), a manga anthology published by Shinchosha and edited by Coamix. The title ran during the entirety of the magazine's run, initially as a regular feature and later as a semi-regular, until it ceased publication with issue #445 (dated September 10, 2010). During this period, various Fist of the North Star spinoffs by different authors were also serialized in the magazine (see Hokuto Gaiden), each focusing on a different character from the original manga. The first of these, Legends of the Dark King by Yowkow Osada, began publication in Comic Bunch #231 (cover dated March 24, 2006). It was followed by Sōkoku no Garō by Yasuyuki Nekoi in Comic Bunch #286 (May 11–18, 2007), Shirogane no Seija by Yuka Nagate in Comic Bunch #301 (September 7, 2007), Gokuaku no Hana by Sin-ichi Hiromoto in Comic Bunch #366 (January 16–21, 2009) and Hōkō no Kumo by Missile Kakurai in Comic Bunch #414 (January 22, 2010). Jibo no Hoshi by Akimi Kasai, a spinoff focused on Yuria, was also published as a limited series in Big Comic Superior for three issues in 2006, with a second run that lasted six issues in 2007.
In 2014, Buronson and Hara reunited to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the manga by producing a special two-part story for Coamix's subsequent manga anthology Monthly Comic Zenon. Titled Hokuto no Ken: Last Piece, it is set during the timeline gap between Chapters 136 and 137 of the original manga and focuses on Kokuoh, Raoh's former steed who ends up becoming Kenshiro's. The first part was published in the May 2014 issue of Comic Zenon, and the second part in the following issue. It was later included as an extra chapter in Vol. 11 of the Ultimate Edition of the original manga. Other Hokuto no Ken titles published in Comic Zenon include DD Fist of the North Star by Kajio, which started in the magazine's premiere issue (dated December 2010), Kin'yoku no Garuda, a side-story which started on Comic Zenon #29 (April 2013) and the currently ongoing Sōten no Ken: Regenesis, a sequel to the original Sōten no Ken manga drawn by Hideki Tsuji and written by Hiroyuki Yatsu which began serialization in Comic Zenon #85 (December 2017). Hokuto no Ken: Ichigo Aji written by Yūshi Kawata and illustrated by Yukito the Younger, began serialization in 2013 on Coamix's online manga anthology Web Comic Zenyon.
Dedicated e-reader
In 2018, a dedicated e-reader with 18 volumes of the manga was sold, without the option of loading anything else on to it. It had two screens that fold out like a book and sold for ¥30,000 in Japan. The read-only device was called an eOneBook and was powered by removable AAA batteries.
Anime
1984 TV series
Fist of the North Star was first adapted into an anime television series by Toei Animation. It aired on Fuji Television from October 11, 1984, to March 5, 1987, lasting 109 episodes. It was immediately followed by a sequel series, titled Fist of the North Star 2, which aired from March 13, 1987, to February 18, 1988, lasting an additional 43 episodes for a combined total of 152 episodes between both series.
The full series was never released on VHS in Japan, although three-hour-long compilation movies were produced by Toei Video covering the first, second and fourth story arcs in that order. On July 24, 2002, Universal Music released a Region 2 DVD box set containing all 152 episodes spread across 26 discs. These discs were later released as individual volumes from May 21, 2003, through January 21, 2004. Three "best of" DVD compilations were also released in 2005, each featuring seven key episodes from the series. On March 28, 2008, Avex released a 25th-anniversary edition box set featuring new video transfers of all 152 episodes remastered in high definition, once again spread across 26 discs. It features two additional discs of bonus content (including the aforementioned compilation movies).
The series aired with English subtitles on Nippon Golden Network in the late 1980s. The first 36 episodes of the first series were translated and dubbed by Manga Entertainment in 1999, although only 24 episodes were released on VHS (spread across eight tapes). All 36 episodes of the dub version were aired on Showtime Beyond in the United States and on Sci-Fi Channel in the United Kingdom, and were later released on DVD in 2003 (spread across six individual volumes). In 2008, the US subsidiary of Toei Animation produced an official subtitle-only translation of all 152 episodes, which were released on various paid download and streaming websites available only for North American customers. Discotek Media announced on October 2, 2009, that they had licensed the entire Fist of the North Star TV series. The first two boxsets were released in that year, and the latter two in 2011. The episodes use the same transfers from the 2008 DVD box set in Japan, although it did not contain any of the special features. The first set featured the first 36 episodes along with Manga Entertainment's English dub, and a Japanese audio option with English subtitles; these subtitles were adjusted from the translation of Toei's streaming episodes. Discotek later released all discs from all four boxsets (a total of 21 discs) together in one set, Fist of the North Star: The Series - The Complete Series Collection, on March 25, 2014. Discotek released the complete series as a standard definition Blu-ray set on October 31, 2017.
In 2009, William Winckler Productions produced six compilation movies dubbed in English. The movies cover major story arcs from the TV series, each one centering on a specific character (Shin, Rei, Toki, Souzer, Raoh, and Kaioh).
Crunchyroll added the series to its streaming platform on October 30, 2025.
2026 TV series
A new anime adaptation was announced on September 13, 2023. It was later revealed to be a CGI-animated television series produced by TMS Entertainment and directed by Hiroshi Maeda, with Kazuma Ogasawara serving as assistant director, Kazuhiko Inukai handling series composition, Naoki Hisatsune designing the characters, and Yuki Hayashi composing the music. It premiered on April 11, 2026, on Tokyo MX and BS11. The opening theme song is "Hallelujah" by Alexandros, and the ending theme is a cover of "Ai o Torimodose!!", the opening theme of the first Fist of the North Star anime, performed by Toshi. Amazon Prime Video streams the series worldwide; the platform distributes the series in its uncensored version, while a censored version is broadcast on Japanese television.