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

A native of Tokyo, Hara attended Hongo 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 Fist of the North Star, he worked on shorter series and one-shots, including three different adaptations of Ryu Keiichiro's novels (Hana no Keiji, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Sakon). His current series is Souten no Ken, which has been serialized in the Weekly Comic Bunch since 2001.
His influences include Naoki Tsuji (Tiger Mask). His cousin is "Rocketman" Ryo Fukawa.
He suffered 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	Year	Collected
Super Challenger	スーパーチャレンジャー	1982	One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote tankoban)
Mad Fighter	マッドファイター	1982	One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote tankoban)
Clash Hero	クラッシュヒーロー	1982	One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote tankoban)
Tetsu no Don Quixote (The Iron Don Quixote)	鉄のドンキホーテ	1982-1983	2 tankōbon
Hokuto no Ken	北斗の拳	1983	2 one-shots (featured in Tetsu no Don Quixote Vol. 2)
Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star)	北斗の拳	1983-1988	27 tankōbon, later reassembled as 15 aizoban/bunkokan editions and 14 kanzenban editions.
Cyber BLUE	CYBERブルー	1988-1989	4 tankōbon
Hana no Keiji	花の慶次 ―雲のかなたに―	1990-1993	18 tankōbon
Zhí Yè Xiōng Shǒu (The Hitman)	職業兇手	1993	One-shot
Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu	影武者徳川家康	1994-1995	6 tankōbon
Kaen no Shō	火炎の掌	1995	One-shot
Takaki Ryūsei	猛き龍星	1995	3 tankōbon
Kiseki Moyuru Toki	輝石燃ゆる時	1996	One-shot (featured in Aterui Nisei Vol. 1)
Chase	チェイス ―追跡―	1997	One-shot
Sakon	左近 -戦国風雲録-	1997-2000	6 tankōbon
Hydra	九頭龍	1997-1998	1 tankōbon
Nakabō Rintarō	公権力横領捜査官 中坊林太郎	1998-2000	2 tankōbon
Aterui II	阿弖流為Ⅱ世	2000	1 tankōbon
Souten no Ken (Fist of the Blue Sky)	蒼天の拳	2001-2010	22 tankōbon
Ikusa no Ko: Oda Saburo Nobunaga Den (Child of War)	いくさの子 織田三郎信長伝	2010-

Novels

• Kōryū no Mimi (黄龍の耳) - (4 volumes, 1991-1993)
• Hokuto no Ken: Jubaku no Machi (1 volume, 1995)

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

External links

• Hara Tetsuo Official Website
• wikipedia:ja:原哲夫
• Tetsuo Hara's works (in Italian)