Hokuto no Ken 2 (pilote)

Hokuto no Ken II (北斗の拳II) is a one-shot by Tetsuo Hara, published in the June 1983 issue of Shueisha's Fresh Jump. A direct sequel to the first one-shot published two months earlier, it features the same hero, Kasumi Kenshiro, this time on a mission to eradicate the Taizanji Kenpō, the assassin organization responsible for the death of his fiancee. Like its predecessor, the story took first place in the reader survey before the magazine ceased publication, and this double achievement led Shueisha to launch the serialization of Hokuto no Ken in Weekly Shonen Jump in the fall of 1983.

Synopsis

His vengeance accomplished, Kenshiro hunts down the leaders of the Taizanji Kenpō one by one. His path crosses that of Ryū and Yōko, a couple of deserters from the organization who dream of the normal life that he himself has lost. But the Taizanji lets no one leave, and its most fearsome warrior, Baiken, obtains the means of the State to capture the heir of Hokuto Shinken alive.

The son of death

The story opens with an escape. Ryū, a Taizanji assassin who refused to carry out a kill order, and his companion Yōko are cornered by the organization's executioners when Kenshiro appears. He has come to eliminate Saitō, head of the Taizanji's southwest branch, whom he condemns with a single strike to a secret meridian point. Exhausted from his pursuit, Kenshiro accepts the couple's hospitality and falls asleep. At the Taizanji's Japanese headquarters, the assessment is clear-cut: five B-class warriors have been eliminated, among them Gōda and Yazaki. Baiken then enters the scene. An A-class warrior whose body is harder than steel, capable of crushing a tiger with his bare hands, he secures the support of a minister's elite troops in order to capture Kenshiro alive, proof that the organization's corruption now extends to the highest levels of government. In their hideout, Ryū tests the stranger by attempting to stab him in his sleep. Kenshiro blocks the blade between two fingers before even opening his eyes. Yet he refuses to fight alongside this former assassin, convinced that a man who has lost his killer instinct would not survive. He confides that he too once dreamed of a peaceful existence before Yuki's death, then departs alone with the notebook in which Ryū has cataloged the members of the Taizanji's Japanese branch.

It is already too late. The city is placed under lockdown and Baiken takes command of the riot-control forces. The escape route leads through the sewers before hitting the roadblocks. Kenshiro commandeers a vehicle to allow the couple to flee, but Baiken deliberately lets the fugitives believe they are safe before ordering his men to open fire. Yōko collapses first. Ryū takes her in his arms, walks forward under the hail of bullets and urges Kenshiro to flee. The two lovers ultimately die hand in hand. Under the full moon, facing the southwest branch headquarters, Kenshiro swears that the men of the Taizanji will have no future as long as he lives. He infiltrates through the moat and presents himself before Baiken as the emissary of Hokuto, the star of the god of death, come to show him the path to hell. The colossus's phantom arms cover him in wounds until he catches them mid-flight. His jacket bursts apart, then comes the counterattack: the Hokuto Hyakuretsu-dan, a barrage of delayed-effect strikes that covers Baiken's steel body with cracks. Reinforcing one's body is useless against Hokuto Shinken, which destroys the opponent from within. When Baiken begs for mercy, Kenshiro answers with the memory of Ryū and Yōko. The warrior then disintegrates, saluting the art of the god of death. The story closes on Kenshiro walking away, now fully embracing his destiny as the son of death.

The amplified diptych

Published two months after the first one-shot, the second installment also took first place in the reader survey since the end of the magazine. This double success, rare for stories published at the end of an issue, led the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jump, Shigeo Nishimura, to approve serialization in the main magazine, launched in issue 41 of 1983 with Buronson as scriptwriter. In the afterword of the 1996 reissue of Tetsu no Donquijote, Hara recounts having drawn this second story with joy, buoyed by the reception of the first.

In both stories, those who aspired to a peaceful life are killed: Yuki in the first, Ryū and Yōko in the second. Everything else grows from one installment to the next: after the class B killers comes a class A warrior, after a corrupt police station a minister, after an ambush in a building the lockdown of an entire city. Certain scenes echo one another from one story to the other: Ryū shields Yōko with his body just as the father shielded his son, but he loses his life doing so, and Yōko is gunned down like Yuki, because the Taizanji leaves no witnesses behind. The story also introduces a new element that would be carried over into the serialized manga: Kenshiro's flurry of fists finally receives a name, the Hokuto Hyakuretsu-dan, already foreshadowing the most famous technique of the series.