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Spade (スペード) is the first of the four lieutenants of the KING organization to appear in Hokuto no Ken. Named after the suits of playing cards (Spade, Diamond, Club, and Heart), these four generals serve Shin and rule over the remnants of the former Kantō region from Southern Cross. Spade is the brutal archetype among them: a violent and cowardly marauder who terrorizes survivors in the name of KING, before becoming the first of Shin's men to fall at the hands of Kenshiro. In the 1984 anime, he is voiced by Tesshō Genda; in the 2026 anime, by Taketora.
Spade is the very first named antagonist faced by Kenshiro, in chapters 2 to 4 of the manga (episode 2 of the 1984 anime and episode 2 of the 2026 anime). He hunts down Misumi, an old farmer who is preciously carrying a few grains of rice, determined to steal them from him. Attempting to kill Kenshiro with a wrist-mounted crossbow (his visual signature), Spade sees his own bolt returned to his face thanks to the Nishi Shinkū Ha (二指真空把, "Two-Finger Vacuum Catch"), a secret technique of Hokuto Shinken that consists of catching the arrow between the index and middle fingers to send it back at the shooter, which tears out his right eye.
Humiliated, Spade returns with his men to attack Misumi's village. Kenshiro arrives too late: the old man is killed and his seeds devoured. Cornered after his henchmen are eliminated, Spade attempts one last offensive before Kenshiro breaks his arms and finishes him off with the Hokuto Zankai Ken (北斗残悔拳, "Fist of Remorse of Hokuto"), a technique that strikes the Tōi pressure point on the temples with the thumbs and grants the victim three seconds (seven in the 1984 anime) to reflect on his crimes before his body explodes. Kenshiro then buries Misumi and scatters the rice seeds over his grave, declaring that from his resting place the old man will watch them grow.
Spade dies begging for his life: the first iconic illustration of Hokuto Shinken's merciless justice. He is also the only one of Shin's four lieutenants whose real name was never revealed. His appearance differs depending on the medium: white mohawk in the manga, red hair in the 1984 anime.
The one-shot Hokuto no Ken Gedōden - LIFE is OFFSIDE (北斗の拳 外道伝 LIFE is OFFSIDE, 2013) in which Spade is the protagonist reveals his pre-apocalyptic past: before the nuclear war, he was an ambitious professional football player whose career was shattered by the collapse of civilization. This ironic backstory brings an unexpected human dimension to the minor antagonist of chapter 2, transforming his gratuitous brutality into the nihilistic reaction of a man who has lost everything.
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