Fist of the North Star
"Isn't this a great time to live in? The strong can do what they want and take what they want." - Shin
release year: 1984
genre: animated martial arts/action TV series
viewing setting: home Bluray 1/13-19/23 (first 22 episodes) and home DVD 3/26-29/04 (first 7 episodes only)
synopsis: A post-apocalyptic wasteland is lorded over by thugs, who meet their ends thanks to an untra-powerful hero on a mission of revenge.
impressions: This isn't just one movie or episode, but rather the first 22 episodes of a very long series. In 1986 an animated "movie" of this was released, but now I realize that it was little more than bits and pieces of something much, much larger and complete. The movie was just some fragments of the overall epic strung together so that they could be viewed in one sitting. Butchery! Anyway...this review covers episodes 1-22, at about 23 minutes apiece. This was some of the first anime, and is probably still some of the most violent. Not more than a few minutes goes by without a fight and some messy, well-deserved deaths. The storyline is simple: good guy and girlfriend are ambushed by bad guy, who used to be good guy's best friend but wanted his girlfriend so bad that he beat good guy to within an inch of his life, then took the unwilling girlfriend in the hopes that she'd decide to love him. Why bad guy didn't just kill good guy is beyond me. There's more...they had the same teacher for their ultra-powerful martial arts techniques, and the bad guy also ended up taking over the world and establishing some semblance of structure. All of this was super-condensed in the "movie" version but is much more spread-out in this TV version. These episodes form small story arcs: 1-5 set things up and see the hero face the four lieutenants of the villain, 6-8 have him deal with a different gang, 9-10 involve a group of slavers, 11-13 had a gang that used trickery in addition to brute force, then there was some sort of undead-creating foe, a couple of rival gangs forced to team up, then several "armies" all under the rule of the main bad guy. And a fortress made out of a battleship. And a gigantic cannon that moves around on a train. All of these and more were defeated by the calm yet lethal force that is Kenshiro and his assortment of North Star martial arts techniques. This first plot arc wraps up after 22 episodes, which is kind of amazing considering there are over 100 more afteward. (I'll revise this review when we pick up with further episodes, after a break to watch other things.)
something this movie has that no other movie has: A guy who can touch you and cause you to explode.
acting: Not really applicable. I would like to point out that in typical anime fashion, there is an annoying kid who seldom takes the overall situation seriously, and should not have survived this long.
final word: On the surface, it's simple, bloody, and easily watchable. A deeper analysis reveals some interesting themes of martial arts, betrayal, revenge, and hope. My viewing of it falls somewhere between these two points.
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