Hokuto no Ken RIGHT ON KING

RIGHT ON KING (北斗の拳 イチゴ味 シン外道伝 RIGHT ON KING) is a one-shot published in October 2016 in Monthly Comic Zenon issue 71. Written by Kawata Yushi and drawn by Yukito, this story dedicated to Shin's childhood is part of the series of end-of-volume gaiden from Ichigo Aji. It was subsequently collected in the sixth volume of Ichigo Aji.

Synopsis

Shin as a child is raised by a father who demands that he lead the Nanto Koshūken to the top. When he meets a boy his age who came from the Hokuto dojo...

A forbidden friendship

The one-shot opens with the confrontation between Gishaku, father of Shin and heir to the Nanto Koshūken, and Ōgai, heir to the Nanto Hōōken, a duel from which Gishaku will emerge deprived of his right arm. At the Koshūken dojo, he then drives his son relentlessly, despite the disciples begging him to stop. A son of his own blood who would be weak would be nothing but a buffoon dishonoring the name of the Koshūken, and if he does not have what it takes to lead the school to the summit of Nanto, he does not deserve to be raised.

Shin crosses paths with a boy his own age, a student from the Hokuto dojo, and challenges him to a duel. The other refuses, personal duels are forbidden, but offers him the ointment of his elder Toki to treat his wounds, and a bond is formed. In the cave that becomes their hideout, Kenshiro and Shin discover that neither of them has a family in the ordinary sense: one has never known the face of his parents, the other has only seen his mother in a photograph. Shin leads his friend to his secret spot, a fruit tree, making him swear to tell no one.

Gishaku discovers the photograph and the portrait ends up in flames: all attachment dulls the fist, and the youngest of Hokuto whom his son has been seeing in secret is nothing but an enemy to one day stain with blood. Around a campfire, Kenshiro promises Shin that he will never fight against him, not out of respect for a rule but because they are friends. A time skip brings the two boys into adulthood. Kenshiro appears alongside Yuria, the world is engulfed in nuclear flames, and the story replays the founding scene of the original manga, Shin striking Kenshiro down and tearing Yuria away from him.

Before the betrayal

RIGHT ON KING is the gaiden that the duo Kawata Yushi and Yukito dedicate to Shin, modeled after those that close the volumes of Ichigo Aji. It uses the same familiar approach: a childhood that retrospectively sheds light on a character from the original manga.

The main invention of the story is to trace back to childhood the bond between Shin and Kenshiro, of which the original manga shows nothing before the betrayal. The gamble consists of preceding it with a sincere camaraderie, and placing in the mouths of children a promise that the reader already knows is broken. The campfire scene, where Kenshiro preemptively refuses the fight that Shin's father announces, only takes on its full meaning for those who know what comes next.

Everything rests on Gishaku. A character unique to this gaiden, absent from the original manga, he exists only to foreshadow what Shin will become, and he carries the heaviest revelation of the story: the admission that his feelings for Shin's mother may have cost him his arm and his defeat at the hands of Ōgai. The lesson he draws from it and imposes on his son turns every bond into a weakness to be burned away.