Anime: Souten no Ken

Fist of the Blue Sky (BlS) is the prequel of the famous Fist of the North Star (NoS), showing the feats of the previous holder of the most lethal martial art in the world. Since I already made a review about the core series and because many elements are similar, I will focus mostly on comparing the two titles rather than starting from scratch.

- The artwork in BlS is definitely a lot better than NoS. It is still very realistic when it comes to body figures and does focus a lot on cool fighting poses, just like the original did. Plus, thanks to computer technology, the amount of deformed or poorly drawn characters is a lot smaller.
- The backgrounds also have much more variety in details and the colour palette is broader. NoS was taking place in a devastated world and almost everywhere it was just a brownish desert and some grey ruins of buildings. On the other hand, BlS takes place back when the world was still at its prime, and thus you see a much greater variety in uniforms, building decorations, street lights, and general the world looks a lot richer and interesting; albeit less scary because it is not devastated.
- The animation is unfortunately not better than NoS. The characters are still standing too still most of the time and even battles use speed lines and simple blurs to make you think they are moving. It is a very cheap method that makes it boring.
- Lightning/ Visual Effects are also not better. Although they are now computer generated, they still feel artificial to the most part. Blood spills in a very generic way and the impact punches have on a body just looks lifeless.
- Voice acting is pretty much as it was before; mostly macho-talk. It’s just that the amount of humor is higher and many minor goons constantly make really bad remarks with a retarded tone of voice. Takes away the serious feeling of the original.
- Music themes are nothing much. NoS had really awesome and memorable OST, but here it is just average.
- Sound effects are as cheesy as they were in the original.
- The overall story in BlS is far less exciting than in NoS. It is no longer an epic struggle for who gets to control the world but a simple local war amongst yakuza members. The Kenshiro of this series just wants to avenge the death of his fellow yakuza. He is also looking for his woman as well but that part seems to have very little importance.
- BlS has far less filler airtime than NoS, which means far more actual plot. So here the hero will not spend 20 episodes fighting weak goons before he finds the big shots and has a decent battle with them. It is far less predictable and repetitive too.
- On the other hand, BlS also stretches each event to last as much as possible, which means that things that could have been told in one episode, now last two. It is much easier to get bored as the pacing of the actual storyline is too slow, even compared to the old.
- Character interaction amongst the main players is very loose. While in NoS you would have each strong fighter to know the other strong fighters for many years and somehow affect their lives, here it feels like most of them are separate from one another and are thrown in the story when the plot requires for it.
- The cast of BlS feels a lot less exciting than that of NoS. The most powerful fighters are hardly as ambitious or imposing as those in the original.
- On the other hand, they also feel more humane and colourful. This series’ Kenshiro is a lot weaker and sometimes makes mistakes. Plus he doesn’t rush into killing everything that stands in his way and even shows compassion for some minor villains. His variety in special attacks is also far narrower which in effect makes him not almighty every time. On the other hand, many of the original’s special attacks are now used by his opponents, which makes them far more dangerous and varied in the way they fight.
- Most key characters in BlS can easily be seen as counterparts of those in NoS. They are not too boring and you even think they are more complicating than their originals.
- Most mooks in BlS don’t look like gay punk clowns; they are typical black-suited yakuza members. That makes them too generic.
- Unlike NoS, BlS, was not fully adapted to anime. That means that there is no conclusion and you are left with a gap of what follows. You just need to go read the manga.
- BlS has definitely much less value and novelty to offer than NoS simply because it feels boring for the time it came out. NoS was the first long martial arts shonen and for its time it was way too brutal and cool. BlS came out when the market was full of other shonen, most of which look cooler. Not always better but definitely cooler.
- BlS is overall less enjoyable than NoS. It has less imposing characters, less memorable scenes, and for the time it came out feels too boring. Plus, it is incomplete.

ART SECTION: NoS: 6/10, BlS: 8/10

SOUND SECTION: NoS: 7/10, BlS: 5/10

STORY SECTION: NoS: 5/10, BlS: 3/10

CHARACTER SECTION: NoS: 6/10, BlS: 4/10

VALUE SECTION: NoS: 8/10, BlS: 4/10

ENJOYMENT SECTION: NoS: 7/10, BlS: 3/10

VERDICT: NoS: 6.5 / 10, BlS: 4.5 / 10