Highlights
- Warner Bros. Japan announced a brand-new Fist of the North Star anime series to celebrate the franchise's 40th anniversary.
- The upcoming reboot, titled Fist of the North Star: Hokuto no Ken, will feature a new cast and staff.
- Fist of the North Star is one of the best-selling manga of all time and has had a significant influence on other popular titles in the genre.
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the franchise, a brand-new Fist of the North Star anime series has been announced. Warner Bros. Japan made the announcement of the upcoming reboot titled, Fist of the North Star: Hokuto no Ken. The announcement was made on Wednesday, September 13, which means the news arrives exactly 40 years after the debut of the Fist of the North Star manga.
The series logo and a new key visual were also released, and it is expected to have a brand-new cast and staff responsible for its production.
The Fist of the North Star manga was created by Buronson (story) and Tetsuo Hara (art) and made its debut in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1983, runnning for 27 volumes until August 1988. A spin-off series by Hiroshi Kurao called Fist of the North Star Apocalypse Drama Filming Arc ran on the Comic Zenon website, running for a one volume in February 2021.
VIZ Media began publishing hardcover volumes of the manga starting in June 2021. The anime adaptation was produced by Toei Animation, running for a total of 152 episodes from October 1984 to February 1988. A live-action film was released in 1995, and the franchise has also spawned a number of videogames, the most recent being a Fist of the North Star-themed version of Fitness Boxing for the Nintendo Switch.
With over 100 million sales, Fist of the North Star is one of the best-selling manga of all time, forming part of the legendary period in time known as the "Golden Age" of Shonen Jump magazine. It is one of the most influential manga, influencing a number of other great titles like Kentaro Miura's Berserk, Makoto Yukimura's Vinland Saga.
To illustrate the sheer significance of Fist of the North Star, Hokuto City, Hokkaido, is hosting an exhibition to commemorate the franchise's 40th anniversary, which started in August and will run through to the end of October. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world torn apart by nuclear war, in the cryptic year of 199X. Kenshiro is the successor to a dangerous martial art, but just wants to live in peace; however, his rival Shin has kidnapped Kenshiro's fianceé, Yuria. He wanders the wasteland and uses his strength to defend the helpless from bandits, but news of his actions spreads, and he ends up getting the attention of warlords, powerful martial artists, and various people from his past.
The Fist of the North Star anime series can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
Source: ANN