Anime Tokyo Station streams this Sunday, September 13 at 12:00 pm Japan time (5:00 am in France) the recording of a talk show held on its premises on September 6 to mark Hokuto no Ken Day. Shunsuke Takeuchi, the voice of Kenshiro, hosted the session with two colleagues from the anime Hokuto no Ken – Fist of the North Star: Yasuhiro Mamiya, who voices Diamond and a string of henchmen, and Jun Fukushima, who specialises in the same supporting parts. The organisers’ write-up offers a few glimpses behind the scenes of the production and an unexpected take on Raoh.
The second cour in production
That the second cour airs in 2027 was already known, and the Anime Tokyo Station visuals restate it without adding anything to the schedule. The evening did bring news of the work itself, though. Mamiya said production was moving along, Fukushima asked the audience to hold on until next year and recalled leaving the recording booth with his voice gone, and a video shot inside the studios was shown to the crowd, a sign that the dubbing sessions are well advanced.
Raoh as Hara sees him, a confidence relayed by Takeuchi
Asked how he first came to the series, Mamiya explained that his way in was the Toei anime and the PlayStation game, and that he only read the manga as an adult, with one surprise: Raoh was far better-looking than he had pictured. Takeuchi then recounted a conversation he once had with Tetsuo Hara. Where readers see Raoh as a colossus other men look up to, the author, in his own words, draws him as a strikingly handsome man. A reading his two colleagues greeted as a revelation.
The rhythm of a line
Takeuchi went over how he approached Kenshiro. A longtime enthusiast of comparing the character’s various voices, he observes that a settled image of Kenshiro has emerged over successive adaptations, with its own silences and tempo. Since this is a reboot, in his own term, his aim was to stay true to that image while showing a side of the character no one had seen. On the most famous line, he made a deliberate choice: rather than leaning on the end of the sentence, as is usually done, he placed the breath after the first word, out of respect for the manga’s panel layout and as a tribute to the 1984 anime.
Dividing up the henchmen
The most unexpected part of the evening concerned how the background voices are organised. Mamiya and Fukushima, who appear in every episode, split the roles by build, with Fukushima taking the leaner figures. Beyond that, the job is largely collective improvisation: the actors cannot confer before recording, and each has to find a voice nobody has claimed yet, which pushes the regulars to speak up early and set the tone for newcomers. Takeuchi saw something of a competitive sport in it.
Fukushima added a childhood memory: in the playgrounds of the 1980s, everyone wanted to be Rei rather than Kenshiro, because claw strikes hurt more than punches.
A character quiz and a wish for the long haul
The three actors took the personality quiz set up at the ongoing exhibition. The verdict: Shin for Takeuchi, a mohawked henchman for Mamiya, and Zeed for Fukushima.
Takeuchi closed by voicing his ambition to make Hokuto no Ken a work that lasts a century, hoping this adaptation proves only one step in a long story and that September 13 is still being celebrated a hundred years from now. The stream on the Anime Tokyo Station YouTube channel is available for a limited time, and further content, including a tour of the exhibition with the three guests, will follow over the coming days.
