Tetsuo Hara

Tetsuo Hara (原哲夫, Hara Tetsuo, born September 2 1961) is a Japanese manga artist famous for drawing the series Hokuto no Ken, known in English as Fist of the North Star, which he wrote with Buronson. He also did the character designs for the arcade game Saturday Night Slam Masters.

Career

Tetsuo Hara was born in Shibuya, Tokyo on September 2, 1961 and raised in Koshigaya, Saitama. As a child he was a fan of manga especially Fujio Akatsuka's Tensai Bakabon and Naoki Tsuji's Tiger Mask. Hara attended Hongō Junior and Senior High School and worked as an assistant to manga artist Yoshihiro Takahashi after graduating. As an amateur, he won the first prize of the 33rd Fresh Jump award for his one-shot Super Challenger. Hara's professional career began with his first published work: Mad Fighter in 1982. His first serialized work in the Weekly Shonen Jump was the Iron Don Quixote, which lasted only ten weeks in serialization. He did not achieve fame until the publication of Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) in 1983, which he co-wrote with Buronson and ran for six years. After the completion of Hokuto no Ken, he worked on shorter series and one-shots, including three different adaptations of Keiichiro Ryu's novels (Hana no Keiji, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Sakon). In 2001 he did a prequel to Hokuto no Ken called Souten no Ken, which was serialized in the Weekly Comic Bunch.
His influences include Neal Adams. His cousin is "Rocketman" Ryo Fukawa.
He suffers from an eye condition called keratoconus which left him blind in one eye, so all his work must be fixed by his assistants due to errors in perspective and he can no longer ink his own work.

Works

Manga

Title	Japanese	Romaji	Year	Collected
Super Challenger	スーパーチャレンジャー	Super Challenger	1982	One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote tankoban)
Mad Fighter	マッドファイター	Mad Fighter	1982	One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote tankoban)
Clash Hero	クラッシュヒーロー	Clash Hero	1982	One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote tankoban)
The Iron Don Quixote	鉄のドンキホーテ	Tetsu no Don Quixote	1982-1983	2 tankōbon
Fist of the North Star	北斗の拳	Hokuto no Ken	1983	2 one-shots (featured in Tetsu no Don Quixote Vol. 2)
Fist of the North Star	北斗の拳	Hokuto no Ken	1983-1988	27 tankōbon, later reassembled as 15 aizoban/bunkokan editions and 14 kanzenban editions.
Cyber Blue	サイバーブルー	Cyber Blue	1988-1989	4 tankōbon
Maeda Keiji	花の慶次 ―雲のかなたに―	Hana no Keiji: Kumo no Kanata ni	1990-1993	18 tankōbon
The Hitman	職業兇手	Zhí Yè Xiōng Shǒu	1993	One-shot
Doppelganger Tokugawa Ieyasu	影武者徳川家康	Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu	1994-1995	6 tankōbon
The Blazing Palm	火焔の掌	Kaen no Shō	1995	One-shot
The Mighty Ryūsei	猛き龍星	Takaki Ryūsei	1995	3 tankōbon
When The Pyroxene Burns	輝石燃ゆる時	Kiseki Moyuru Toki	1996	One-shot (featured in Aterui Nisei Vol. 1)
Chase	チェイス ―追跡―	Chase: Tsuiseki	1997	One-shot
Sakon: Record of the Upheaval of the Warring States	左近 -戦国風雲録-	Sakon: Sengoku Fūun Roku	1997-2000	6 tankōbon
Hydra	九頭龍	Hyudora	1997-1998	1 tankōbon
Misappropriation Investigator Rintarō Nakabō	公権力横領捜査官 中坊林太郎	Kōkenryoku Ōryō Sōsakan Nakabō Rintarō	1998-2000	2 tankōbon
Aterui II	阿弖流為Ⅱ世	Aterui Nisei	2000	1 tankōbon
Fist of the Blue Sky	蒼天の拳	Souten no Ken	2001-2010	22 tankōbon
Child of War: The Legend of Oda Nobunaga	いくさの子 織田三郎信長伝	Ikusa no Ko: Oda Saburō Nobunaga Den	2010-	3 tankōbon

Novels

• Kōryū no Mimi (黄龍の耳) - (2 volumes, 1993-1994)
• Hokuto no Ken: Jubaku no Machi (1 volume, 1995)
• Miyamoto Musashi (7 volumes, 2013)

Non-manga works

• Saturday Night Slam Masters (Muscle Bomber, 1993 arcade game) - illustrations.
• Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II (Super Muscle Bomber, 1994 arcade game) - character designs
• Itadaki Muscle! (いただきマッスル! 2006 TV series) - illustrations for the opening intro.
• Mori no Senshi Bonolon (森の戦士ボノロン, 2006 anime series) - producer, character designer
• K-1 World Grand Prix 2007 Final pamphlet cover

Tetsuo Hara artwork

• 

  Indiana Jones

• 

  Eddie Murphy

• 

  Lum

• 

  Guts

Rank Kingdom

In 2014, Tetsuo Hara was a guest on the ranking show Rank Kingdom (ランク王国, Rank Ōkoku) and listed his personal Top Five Hokuto no Ken characters, villains and death cries (断末魔, danmatsuma).

Top Five Characters:

1. Kenshiro
2. Rei
3. Toki
4. Juza
5. Raoh

Top Five Villains:

1. Uighur
2. Heart
3. Jagi
4. Amiba
5. Devil Rebirth

Top Five Danmatsuma:

1. HIDEBU! (ひでぶっ!!)
2. TAWABA! (たわば!!)
3. ABESHI! (あべし!!)
4. DOEHEPU! (どぉえへぷ!!)
5. UWARABA! (うわらば!!)

External links

• Hara Tetsuo Official Website
• wikipedia:ja:原哲夫
• 原哲夫先生は熱い！
• Tetsuo Hara's works (in Italian)