Hokuto no Ken Gedoden HEART of Meet ~Ano Hi no Yakusoku~

HEART of Meet (北斗の拳 外道伝 HEART of Meet ～あの日の約束～) is a one-shot published in the issue released on December 25, 2012. Written by Kawata Yushi and drawn by Yukito, this story dedicated to Heart belongs to the Hokuto no Ken Gedoden block published for the series' thirtieth anniversary. It was subsequently collected at the end of the first volume of Ichigo Aji.

Synopsis

Alfred, fourteen years old, prefers the company of his birds to that of other children. The morning his sister asks him to become stronger, two men are lurking in front of the manor gate…

The boy with the birds

The one-shot opens on the canonical scene from the original manga, Kenshiro facing Heart, whose abnormal body absorbs all his blows. A photograph then falls to the ground and the story goes back in time. The title page inset announces it from the outset: this is Alfred, fourteen years old, Heart before the world burned. The boy is frail and gentle, hates quarrels more than anything and spends his mornings talking to his birds rather than going to class. His older sister Sara pushes him to toughen up, while their governess Emma comes to his defense. Their parents died in an accident.

Taking advantage of Sara's departure for school, two men show up at the manor, Hennel, who leads the operation, and Jack, his henchman. They assault Emma and kidnap Alfred. Seized by a bad feeling, Sara rushes back and tracks them down in an alley. Staff in hand, she brings Jack to his knees, but the man takes the hit, gets back up and strikes her fatally. Before dying, she leaves her brother these final words: "Grow up fast... become a man strong enough to protect yourself."

As Jack prepares to finish off the child, a stranger appears in the alley and takes down the two kidnappers. It is Shin. He turns to Alfred and delivers his own rule: whoever does not want what he possesses to be taken from him must acquire the strength to take things himself. The child rises to his feet and follows him, promising his sister he will become the strong man she wanted. The story then rejoins the scene from the original manga, where Kenshiro takes down Heart with the Hokuto Jūhazan. The final page shows the giant addressing his departed sister, asking her if he managed to become strong.

A promise turned on its head

HEART of Meet belongs to the series of Ichigo Aji gaiden, which take a secondary character from the original manga and dedicate a story revealing their past. The gamble here is particularly bold, since Heart is, in the original work, merely a laughing colossus who dies on a "hidebu," with no backstory or real motivation. The introduction page of the first volume even acknowledges this with self-deprecation; the one-shot, taken at face value, immediately sparked controversy upon its release and earned its authors a barrage of criticism.

The entire structure rests on a single promise, reprised then perverted. Sara's last words, to become strong enough to protect oneself, find their echo a few pages later in Shin's rule, where strength no longer serves to protect but to take. The Heart of the original manga is no longer merely a monster; he becomes a child who followed an instruction to the letter while losing its meaning. The story of the passage through that alley stages the founding encounter between Heart and Shin and provides an origin for the loyalty the former would devote to the latter.

The one-shot is also punctuated by numbered inserts, "Heart's Archives," which compile facts and anecdotes about the character from the original manga, from his physique inspired by the wrestler Abdullah the Butcher to the playing card tattoo on his forehead. This parodic counterpoint runs throughout a story that otherwise adopts a resolutely dramatic tone.