One night, several weeks ago, I needed to find something new to watch with my 11-year-old son. There was nothing on our streaming services that caught his eye, so I chose something I liked from our physical media collection: Fist of the North Star.
He loved it. As of this writing, we’re making our way through the entire classic TV series.
However, there are some things about it that have definitely not aged well, and have caused me to explain several story tropes to him, and why they’re outdated.
For those who don’t know, Fist of the North Star is a classic manga/anime about a martial artist who wanders a post-nuclear wasteland punching bad guys, and his martial art causes the people he punches to explode. The TV series glosses over the splatter in a sensationalized way, so it’s not the extreme gore fest of the movie or more modern remakes.
But the over-the-top violence is not what has caused me to explain things to my son. It’s the things around it.
The most glaring outdated example would be the protagonists explaining to a female character, who had sworn to “give up her womanhood so she could be a warrior,” that once she was free of her obligation to fight she would be free to “stop being a warrior so she could be a woman again.” I had to pause the damn episode to make certain he knew that 1) that’s an outdated idea written by a dude and 2) women can continue to fight as much as they want to, in real life or as characters in stories.
We also make sure to point out that most of the women in FotNS stand around crying out for the men who are doing all the exciting fighting, and how that is also an outdated role for women in stories. And I’d like to point out it’s not just one character, but several.
I was encouraged, though, when he pointed something out on his own. We were many episodes in when he suddenly looked at me and proclaimed, “Dad! I just realized something! There are hardly any black people in this show!” I was proud of him in that moment, because he said it like he had uncovered something that was wrong with the show. Whether that’s because of how we raised him or modern stories doing an excellent job with representation I cannot say, but that he saw it as a fault was a green flag for me.
But for all its faults, Fist of the North Star is an entertaining watch. And I am endlessly amused when he tries to imitate Hokuto Shinken. My heart swells (but does not explode) when he pushes random spots across my chest and declares “Omae wa mou shindeiru.” Of course I reply “NANI?!” and pretend to blow up.