Fist of the North Star (NES video game)
The U.S. version was shown at the 1988 Summer Consumer Electronic Show under the title "Ken the Great Bear Fist", which is the localized title used by Toei's international sales department. The title was changed to "Fist of the North Star" for its release in order to tie in with Viz's English adaptation of the manga. The cover artwork for the U.S. version depicts Kenshiro sparring with Toki, who doesn't appear in the game and never actually appeared in the "Hokuto no Ken 2" anime series outside flashbacks (as the character was already deceased by that point of the storyline). The NES version has some slight differences from its Famicom counterpart, which cuts the appearances of side characters at the end of certain stages (such as Bat and Rin at the end of the first stage), as well as the kanji that appear at the top of the screen when Kenshiro defeats a boss after striking its weak point at the start of the battle.
Fist of the North Star
This show 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 have 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. They were released on a SD BD set (with a total of 3 discs) with the same name on October 31, 2017.