Stoic, full of integrity, sorrowful, and of course ruthlessly violent towards the bad guys. The characters and the fighting are all the enjoyment you get. Since technology is scarce and knowledge has no means to be fruitful, it is not guns and missiles but martial arts and primitive weapons that decide the life or death of an individual. He's not an easy man to get rid of, and he returns - very angry. He never steps back and always pulls some weird trick in the last minute to save the day. The early 80’s gave room for a lot of war dramas that were before rather taboo. The events are presented in such a way that you always doubt Kenshiro’s certain victory. If you aren’t annoyed by the limitless filler episodes and stunts, this can be quite the enjoyable show. In fact, there is so much character interaction that is simply unparallel for its time. First of all, two things I despise in anime are filler episodes and shallow heavy-dude characters. Later instaments show all that a lot more realistically if you are so much annoyed by it. I haven't seen enough to comment on the main villians yet, but Shin seems like a worthy bad guy.OVERALL- Epic anime, any fan of martial arts or post apocalyptic stories has to see this. Unfortunately the dub is incomplete and absurdly difficult/expensive to find. Imagine a world devastated by nuclear war, where the strong oppress the weak and strength is the one thing that will ensure survival.

But it is wrong to believe that violence and raw force are proper ways to punish the crooked and achieve justice; as the prevailing theme in the story implies. So it is rather disappointing for a show that is otherwise about martial arts that require lots of motion. Also, it gets so violent and serious from time to time that it deserves the seinen instead of the shonen category. They all have a backdrop story but it is pretty simple most of the time and gets easily forgotten if they are killed. What were even harder to find are war dramas about humans vs humans and not some generic alien race which is just evil by nature. Everywhere you go, the world is an endless wasteland, with people being frail ones dressed in rags if they are commoners or muscular ones dressed in spikes and leather if they are fighters.

A world where even close friends can betray you for power, a lesson that Ken, the Fist of The North Star, learns when he is nearly killed by his closest friend and left for dead. All the characters can easily be divided into three categories.-The stunts. The messages the series promotes are quite cheesy. So this was an in-between stage of an explosion and guts splattering, so everybody was happy. The general plot is also quite predictable and repetitive. ART Let’s start with a simple warning in case you have no idea what you are getting yourselves into. Thumps up with both hands!Sound effects are equally cheesy and cool for similar reason. So, an applause to them.In general, the characters are acting too over the top most of the times, which translates to either fake or awesome, depending on how you see it. All later OVAs are just side stories and remakes of certain scenes which again feel unimportant in the longrun. Turns out he was just the tip of the iceberg. There never was such a violent series before and thus the readers/viewers were still used to the classic mecha shows where the defeated robots blow up. This title is basically a shonen adventure. SOUND Voice acting may feel silly or dry most of the time but this is quite cool if you dig how emotionless or imposing most try to act before we get buckets of manly tears during tragic moments. I seriously can't recommend it enough. Less serious and violent but with slightly better developed characters.Splatter galore series to watch are Gantz and Berserk. Passive and powerless, they exist to give the series a more humane nature and give excuses for some dialogue to come along. Not only that, it is the very first perpetual on-going fighting shonen ever made! It is one of the best-selling manga series in history, having sold approximately 100 million copies. You just won’t find any other retro series with such a vivid plethora of interactive and constantly changing main cast. They interact and affect the story of one another while several flashbacks flesh them out in a decent degree. He is on quest of vengeance, as his woman is kidnapped, the innocent people are tormented by heartless criminals and several martial artists want him dead for fame and glory. This anime is another one good example of such a case; a planet devastated by nuclear wars and where the right now belongs to the strong and the ruthless. The animation improves as well but in all it is always crude, choppy and generally fake. Everything has become an endless wasteland, where the survivors are trying to rebuild a safe place to live in. For example, I disliked Saint Seiya (an also old and famous shonen) because of its childishly presented violence. other anime fans just like you. Yes, it is that kind of story, typical, unimaginary and usually predictable from the start. Later OVA specials: Original series: It LOOKS realistic but doesn’t have variety nor does it explain much how people survive in such a barren world, filled with radiation and without flora and animals. SUGGESTION LIST The movies starring Bruce Lee , the character Kenshiro was based upon. Ok, it is a world in chaos and fists speak louder than words. Powerful martial artists who either torment the villagers if they are bad guys or help them if they are good guys. The movie version is a summary of the first series and takes out a lot of events while boosting the action. Powerless villagers who get killed and tormented by the bad guys and typical bad guy underlings. The series is over 100 episodes and yet it could easily be summed up in 1/3rd of those. The interest in the plot is a weird phenomenon. Kenshiro always mentions to the bad guys that they deserve to be punished if they are not good-willing and compassionate. They are, let’s say, cannon fodder.