Fist of the North Star (NES video game)
"Fist of the North Star" is a single-plane beat-'em-up in which the player (as Kenshiro) proceeds through the game by walking from left to right, using his martial arts of Hokuto Shinken to defeat enemies. Similarly to "Kung-Fu Master", jumping is performed by pressing the d-pad upwards instead of having a dedicated button, leaving the A and B buttons solely for attacks. To enter a door, the player must press the d-pad right while holding A and B simultaneously, which is a requirement to proceed through certain stages. In addition to the regular enemies, the player must also defeat sub-bosses and bosses to proceed in the game. Each boss in the game has a weak point that will result in massive damage if the player strikes it with the proper attack before hitting any other part of the body, along with a greater bonus after the stage is cleared.
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.