haratetsuo.com Gallery (2020-2021)

From 20 November 2020 to 15 February 2021, Tetsuo Hara’s official website published, almost every week and exclusively, a previously unseen ink drawing from Fist of the North Star, under the title “原哲夫ギャラリー！”. Hara drew them on his own initiative, without any commission, in the middle of the pandemic. “In these troubled times, on a whim, I tried drawing Kenshiro and the others again for the first time in a long while”, he wrote with the first instalment, noting that the result no longer quite had the flavour of his younger years, more or less “Hokuto” depending on the drawing. Each of the eleven instalments comes with a short comment.

Kenshiro

Kenshiro appears in six of the eleven instalments. Hara gives him the compassionate gaze of Kannon watching over all beings (no. 3, 4 December 2020), a fist “as hard as stone”, the sign of an unbending will (no. 4, 11 December). He also gives him the bearing of a man who wanders above the affairs of the world without ever lowering his guard, under the title “一世の上を逍遥し、天地の間を睥睨する” (no. 8, 22 January 2021), then that of a man who lived only for love and endures because he bends, like a tree several centuries old (no. 9, 29 January). The last instalment, on 15 February 2021, presents itself as a provisional ending. Hara writes about the moment a man must step aside, quotes Cao Cao, “the hero keeps his ardour even in his twilight years”, and admits that his feelings will be mixed when his own turn comes.

Raoh

Raoh appears three times. In 2020, Hara finds him fatherly, as if the times called for a strong paternal figure, and remembers the safety he felt as a child in his own father’s arms (no. 2, 27 November 2020). No. 5 (18 December) prompts a remark on his craft, the difference between characters showing in the eyes, and black and white forming a world of its own. No. 7 (15 January 2021) shows the King of Fist wrapped in his cape, a conqueror who, in Hara’s words, keeps a measure of chivalry and, buried within, a point of purity.

Yuria and Rei

For Christmas 2020 (no. 6, 25 December), Hara draws Yuria and turns the idea of weakness around. The beauty protected by a strong man is the strongest of all, while the strong man, a target for others, is in fact vulnerable, and softness overcomes strength. Rei makes his first appearance in the gallery in no. 10 (8 February 2021), with these words: a life may burn out, but the fire it lit never goes out.