Hokuto no Ken Ichigo Aji

Hokuto no Ken Ichigo Aji is a parody manga written by Kawata Yushi and drawn by Yukito-imouto, with the cooperation of her older sister Yukito, based on an original concept by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara. Serialized on the WEB Comic Zenyon since March 1, 2013 and compiled into nine volumes, it makes Holy Emperor Souther the hero of a comedic reinterpretation of the world of Hokuto no Ken. The series has been on indefinite hiatus since September 2018.

Synopsis

In 199X, the world seemed to have been engulfed by nuclear flames. But in fact everyone is surprisingly fine. Deprived of his youth by merciless training, Souther intends to make up for lost time, and drags the Six Sacred Fists of Nanto, the Five Stars of the Chariot, and the brothers of Hokuto into birthday parties, sports tournaments, school life, and the idol careers that none of them ever experienced, while the kid in the turban tirelessly keeps stabbing him in the leg with his knife.

When Burlesque Meets Hokuto no Ken

Where DD Hokuto no Ken distorts the characters, Ichigo Aji draws its comedy from the opposite principle, with Yukito-imouto faithfully imitating the style of Tetsuo Hara. The characters retain their appearance, their poses and their famous lines from the original manga, and it is this intact graphic seriousness that makes the gags land, with the dead themselves coming back to life without explanation from one chapter to the next. Initially centered on Souther and the Six Sacred Fists, the series gradually shifts toward an ensemble narrative where its hero can disappear for entire chapters, giving way to the boy band Nanto DE 5MEN, with eight fictional singles to their name, the Five Chariot Stars or the land of Shura. The volume covers themselves imitate the design of the original Jump Comics editions.

From a little-known webmanga to a phenomenon

Launched on WEB Comic Zenyon in the Yahoo! Bookstore library, the series moved to a bimonthly schedule in January 2014 and in December 2013 was featured in a guest chapter in Jump Kai, a symbolic return of Hokuto to Shueisha thirty years after the birth of the original manga. Cumulative print run exceeded 1.7 million copies in April 2017. In 2015, the series was adapted into an anime of short two-minute episodes broadcast within the program DD Hokuto no Ken 2 Ichigo Aji +, with Ginga Banjo reprising the role of Souther. Each volume includes as a bonus one or more stories from the Gedoden galaxy drawn by Yukito, and volume 6 features a crossover with Shinseiki Evangelion Pikopiko Chugakusei Densetsu, the other parodic series by the same duo Kawata and Yukito, while volume 9 pits Souther against Kasumi Kenshiro in a special Souten no Ken Ichigo Aji chapter.

An indefinite hiatus announced

Since September 2018, the series has been on indefinite hiatus due to health reasons of its author. The official accounts have been frozen since the same period and no resumption has been announced to this day. The ninth volume, released at the time of the interruption, thus remains the last.

Volumes

The series was compiled into nine volumes between 2013 and 2018.

• Volume 1
• Volume 2
• Volume 3
• Volume 4
• Volume 5
• Volume 6
• Volume 7
• Volume 8
• Volume 9