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. He suffered from an eye condition 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 |
| Mad Fighter | マッドファイター | 1982 | One-shot (featured in Tetsu no Don Quixote Vol. 1) |
| Clash Hero | クラッシュヒーロー | 1982 | One-shot |
| 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 | 職業兇手 | 1993 | One-shot |
| Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu | 影武者徳川家康 | 1994-1995 | 6 tankōbon |
| Kaen no Shō | 火焔の掌 | 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 | 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-ongoing | 21 tankōbon |
Novels
- Kōryū no Mimi - (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 2 - character designs
- Itadaki Muscle! (2006 TV series) - illustrations for the opening intro.
- Mori no Senshi Bonolon (2006 anime series) - producer, character designer