Hokuto no Ken (yomikiri)

The original one shot prototype of Hokuto no Ken, published in the April 1983 edition of Fresh Jump, was set in 1980's Japan and told the story of a teenager by the name of Kenshirō Kasumi (霞 拳四郎, Kasumi Kenshirō), the successor of the "Hokuto Shin Ken" martial arts style, a deadly style which kills or cripples opponents internally by striking pressure points. Kenshiro's main adversaries in this incarnation of the story were a rival martial arts school known as the Taizanji Kenpō (泰山寺拳法, "Taishan Temple Martial Arts"), a secret organization of assassins with influence over the Japanese government. Kenshiro's girlfriend, Yuki, becomes a witness in one of the organization's assassinations and is subsequently killed by the culprit named Gōda, with Kenshiro being framed for the crime. This event serves as a catalyst for Kenshiro's war against the Taizanji organization. A second one-shot, titled Hokuto no Ken II, was published in the June 1983 issue of Fresh Jump. Both pilots were collected in the second collected volume of Tetsu no Don Quixote (Tetsuo Hara's prior manga series before Hokuto no Ken).

Tetsuo Hara has stated that he came up with the idea of Hokuto no Ken from his editor Nobuhiko Horie. According to Hara, Horie suggested to him that he should draw a manga about "a martial artist who destroys his opponents by striking their acupressure points" based on Hara's wishes to draw a martial arts manga and his knowledge of pressure points.