Reviews

Souten No Ken, or Fist of the Blue Sky, is one of the most adventures and creative takes on the original manga of Hokuto No Ken. Many authors were inspired by Brunson, and made their own work trying to surpass Brunson's work. However, I do believe Brunson surpassed Hokuto No Ken with Souten No Ken. When I think of Souten, I also include Regenesis, which is the sequel to Souten No Ken. Instead of the "Mad Max" type setting, this takes place back in the 1930s, several decades before the nuclear warfare of 199X, a.k.a. when Fist of the North Star takes place. If you enjoyed JoJo's part 5, you'll enjoy this new setting in Shanghai and many areas in Asia, with the mafia as well. The setting evolves from this of course, and we end up getting introduced to characters that go further than Asia, as this takes place when WWII was starting to become a thing. The art, is much better than the original release of Fist of the North Star. I'm not counting the remastered version. Souten No Ken: Regenesis has some of the best artwork ever seen and is up there with some of the best artistic mangas. The characters are more fleshed out and have more of a presence than what they did in Fist of the North Star. In the original manga, the process felt a little repetitive with the villains, however, with Souten, you get to learn more about the villains and you get to enjoy them more. With story has a fantastic flow, it can really be seen as 2 separate parts I suppose. The first part being a little bit more "mafia" related, similar to how Fist of the North Star was in the beginning. And the 2nd part, is more so the "martial arts" aspect, where Kenshiro Kasumi is learning the origins of Hokuto Shinken, and what it means to be a fighter. I will say, unlike Fist of the North Star, Souten incorporates the villains with the original theme of what the manga was. In Fist of the North Star, after the first main villain, it was very obvious the manga had taken a shift in focus and what the story would be about. Fist of the Blue Sky, doesn't have that shift as the whole "first part", has many characters and villains who play a role in the mafia or are related to the conflicts within the mafia we see with Kenshiro. Even though people point out "2 parts", the whole story flows together and has a natural occurrence, where each event leads up to another. This definitely contrasts with the story structure in Fist of the North Star, as you can point to many occasions where another villain or character is thrown into the story out of the blue. This isn't really a problem with Fist of the Blue Sky/Souten No Ken. Regenesis is a great continuation to Souten, and is a ton of fun, but it hasn't finished yet due to the artist being ill. Although I compared this manga to Fist of the North Star, I still find both mangas extremely well done, I just find myself enjoying Souten more. I overall, find this manga very enjoyable, and I think Souten along with Regenesis is the best in the franchise.