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[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

Manga[edit | edit source]

Title	Japanese	Romaji	Year	Writer	Collected
Super Challenger	スーパーチャレンジャー	Super Challenger	1982		One-shot (featured in the Jump Super Ace edition of Iron Don Quixote)
Mad Fighter	マッドファイター	Mad Fighter	1982		One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote)
Clash Hero	クラッシュヒーロー	Clash Hero	1982		One-shot pilot for Iron Don Quixote (featured in the Jump Super Ace edition of Iron Don Quixote)
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	Buronson	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	Bob Ryuichi Mitsui	4 tankōbon
Keiji of the Flowers: On the Other Side of the Clouds	花の慶次 ―雲のかなたに―	Hana no Keiji: Kumo no Kanata ni	1990-1993	Keiichiro Ryu Izumi Fujimori	18 tankōbon
The Hitman	職業兇手(ジーイェションショウ)	Zhí Yè Xiōng Shǒu	1993		One-shot
Doppelganger Tokugawa Ieyasu	影武者徳川家康	Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu	1994-1995	Keiichiro Ryu Shō Aikawa	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	Buronson	One-shot
Sakon: Record of the Upheaval of the Warring States	左近(SAKON) -戦国風雲録-	Sakon: Sengoku Fūun Roku	1997-2000	Keiichiro Ryu Shingo Nihashi	6 tankōbon
Hydra	九頭龍(ヒュドラ)	Hyudora	1997-1998	Tadashi Ikuta	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	Katsuhiko Takahashi	1 tankōbon
Fist of the Blue Sky	蒼天の拳	Souten no Ken	2001-2010	Nobuhiko Horie	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-	Nobuhiko Horie	12 tankōbon
Fist of the North Star: Last Piece	北斗の拳−LAST PIECE−	Hokuto no Ken: Last Piece	2013	Buronson	One-shot

Novels[edit | edit source]

Kōryū no Mimi (黄龍の耳) - (2 volumes, 1993-1994)
Hokuto no Ken: Jubaku no Machi (1 volume, 1995)
Miyamoto Musashi (8 volumes, 2013)

Non-manga works[edit | edit source]

Saturday Night Slam Masters (Muscle Bomber, 1993 arcade game) - illustrations.
Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II (Super Muscle Bomber, 1994 arcade game) - character designs
Mori no Senshi Bonolon (森の戦士ボノロン, 2005 story books/anime) - producer, character designer
Itadaki Muscle! (いただきマッスル! 2006 TV series) - illustrations for the opening intro.
K-1 World Grand Prix 2007 Final pamphlet cover

Tetsuo Hara artwork[edit | edit source]

Indiana Jones
Axel Foley
The Terminator
Lum
Guts
Super Saiyan Son Gokū
Ryo Saeba and Hitomi Kisugi
K-1 World GP 2007 Final

Rank Kingdom[edit | edit source]

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:

Top Five Villains:

Top Five Danmatsuma:

HIDEBU! (ひでぶっ!!)
TAWABA! (たわば!!)
ABESHI! (あべし!!)
DOEHEPU! (どぉえへぷ!!)
UWARABA! (うわらば!!)

External links[edit | edit source]