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The story
A twist from early in “Fist of the North Star” is once again making the rounds on 5ch: the near-death Kenshiro rescues Yuria, only for her to turn out to be an elaborately crafted decoy doll planted by the enemy. Reactions split along generational lines — those who read it in real time during the original run versus those encountering it for the first time in the Reiwa era. Many said things like “I always read it as a gag manga” and “it was treated as a joke even back then,” while the thread also branched into side discussions about just how many men died over Yuria, and the family ties among brothers like Raoh and Toki.
What people said
I just read this manga for the first time today and burst out laughing, but it's not supposed to be that kind of manga, right?
Was it treated that way even back then?
The moment the protagonist has eyebrows like strips of seaweed, you should've known.
In the otaku magazine *OUT*, it was treated purely as a gag manga.
For some reason there was a popular parody series where Goggle Yellow (the yellow ranger from the Sentai show Goggle Five) went around killing good guys while quoting Kenshiro's lines.
Honestly, for a story that's made up as it goes along,
this is actually one of the more sensible bits.
I think it's a manga that's interesting in all sorts of ways.
Yeah, this manga's hilarious.
Is this the inspiration for that scene in Rurouni Kenshin?
The era is the end of the century…
"How was such an elaborate doll even made?"
Yeah, the cocky Bat-type boy sidekick has become rarer.
You still get Rin-type girls treated as half-pets sometimes, though.
Having a kid around lets the story move forward through the kid doing something shortsighted, or lets the world get explained to the audience via exposition aimed at the kid.
These days the protagonist himself is often a kid, so that role isn't needed anymore.
They're a pain to make, you know.
If it's Hokuto Shinken, you'd think he could just stick to the ceiling or something.
There was an old hag who used the Nanto Shelter Fist and tried to kill either Toki or Kenshiro.
In reality he's the kind of man who says he'll kill Yuria if she doesn't become his, while also fathering a secret child with a different woman.
Who even is Ryu's mother, anyway?
Raoh saying that is basically just a pathetic virgin putting on a brave face.
Wait, isn't it three brothers?
There's a younger sister named Sayaka.
Kim, Raoh, Kaioh, Toki.
Who's Kim…?
What? You're talking about Hokuto and you don't know Kim…?
He's Kenshiro's senior fellow disciple who couldn't endure the training and got expelled by Ryuken.
Juza: "Wh… why would I ever tell you?! If I knew, I'd become like a gale and race straight to my general's side! The one thing you, who has seized the very heavens, want most in the end… is my general!"
Even I, who was excited wondering "who's this Nanto general even greater than Souther?", went "…oh" at that line.
He'd just been hit with the Kaiamonteichou pressure point (forces the victim to blurt out the truth) — can't be helped!
This is a scene depicting the pressure point taking effect, right?
Seriously, how many guys died over this woman?
Yuria's basically the textbook example of a "circle crusher" (a woman whose presence wrecks a friend group's harmony).
She's the ultimate "sage-man" (slang for a woman said to bring bad luck to the men around her).
The Hokuto-Nanto friend group, destroyed by one princess.
Background and Talking Points
“Fist of the North Star,” written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara, ran in Weekly Shonen Jump starting in 1983, and the doll swap involving Yuria appears early in the series’ run. The thread’s reactions suggest that even among Jump readers at the time, both readings — “serious tragedy” and “made-up-as-it-goes gag” — coexisted. Some commenters compared it to the doll trick in “The Kindaichi Case Files,” suggesting that “doll swaps” were something of a standard device in boys’ manga of that era. That said, posters’ accounts of Raoh’s siblings and the character “Kim” contradicted each other, a reminder that this is casual chat relying on memory and not always accurate.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] Yuria, Whom Kenshiro Rescued, Was Actually a Doll.”
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