New Fist of The North Star #2: The Forbidden Fist ADV 55 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles Released: 11/02/2004 Reviewed: 11/22/2005

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I'm incredibly arbitrary about my anime tastes. You could say I'm fickle, if that'd stroke your fancy. It's endearing really, the way I waffle about, totally indecisive about everything, making snap judgments that I'll later recall on a moment's whim. It's all part of the delightful package that makes me what I am. If you're reading these things I'm going to assume that you, to some extent, share my opinion. If that's the case then you won't be pissed off at me when I show pictures like this while the other review this weak rails on and on about how offensive and misogynistic anime can be. I just can't let myself get offended at Fist of the Northstar. It's so enticingly benign! Its violence and hatred of the use of women as anything but cardboard cutouts there for men to muscle around and molest are positively outrageous. I mean really, this one of the prime examples of where anime gets its poor reputation in the eyes of the majority public. Sure it's rude and crude and more than a little disturbing, and if I was a better man I'd probably feel bad about, but there's something just so ridiculously over the top about Fist of the Northstar that it's so hard to take it seriously.

I mean, really. I'd like to see the psycho-messed up kid that goes to school and tries to do one of those "YATATATATATATA" jobs on the bully that's been picking on him. When he gets his face planted in the dirt because the bully's head didn't blow up as advertised I don't think he's gonna have a single illusion about the problem solving abilities of violence ever again. More likely he's gonna buy some of that liquid poop off the internet and squirt it all over said bully's bookbag/locker/lunchbox and that's just way more productive. He'll never even dream of bringing a 9mm into school and "popping some caps off". Now that I think of it, Fist of the Northstar's brand of violence is actually a boon! If the kids in our dog-eat-dog world of school shootings and nail clipper incidents could just sit down and spend three hours with my man Kenshiro I imagine they'd learn a whole lot about life and love. That's just plain productive! Also, it's super-fun to see people get their heads blowed up.

As our story continues Ken, our hero, has to kick the ass of some serious monks who are totally serious about guarding the seriously nuclear weapons that the leaders of the world want to get their serious hands on and commence seriously irradiating the Earth to levels beyond what the planet has already suffered. The manliness in this episode is well out and about as men fight against men in the way that only men know how to fight against men. When the dust clears and the monks learn that Kenshiro is a force for good they are only too happy aid him on his quest for... something that involves blowing people's heads up. I'm not going to lie to you, I wasn't exactly watching it for the story. But while Kenshiro is away from town a sinister element is brewing... That element is Seiji who has stomped into the final city of the world and decide that he's gonna make it his own place by any means necessary. But even more detrimental to the good of the people than Seiji is the man who does his voice acting. That man, and the term is used lightly, is Gackt. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, but he's part of this ridiculous fad going around Japan (and anchoring itself into American culture) called Visual Kei. It's a positively stupefying trend that's like "glam" except without any of the musical talent.

And a whole lot more feminization going on. Tell me, what about this man exudes any sort of manliness? I would even go so far as to say hat this is a relatively benign picture of the person who's wormed himself into one of my favorite parts of the animated medium. Skabs walked through the room during an interview with Gackt and the stream of profanity that spewed from his mouth was positively epic. This man is a joke, like the Japanese Michael Jackson, and it kind of makes me sad that Fist of the Northstar would see fit to include him in something of its great magnitude. I understand the desire to increase mass market appeal, the shrieking, overweight yaoi fangirls is a market that's relatively untapped by muscle-bound man-anime after all, but all the same... not one of my favorite things to see. I guess I'll just have to suffer through it, because it's still just as good, just as brutal, just as misogynistic, and just as absolutely ridiculous as it ever was. I wouldn't let Michael Jackson ruin my favorite American animation, and I won't let the strange he-she that encompasses much of what's wrong with that peculiar subculture of anime fandom ruin this. Gackt or not, Fist of the Northstar maintains its momentum. Just try not to think about any metrosexual Japanese males while you're watching it.