Other Countries
-From RQ87's Fist of the North Star site
Hokuto no Ken was a Japanese creation, but has also been released in many other countries around the world.
1) France
2) Germany
3) Italy
4) Sweden
In France, Hokuto no Ken is known as "Ken Le Survivant". The anime series was released in France, and it is famous for one main reason: when the French voice actors took a look at the scripts for some episodes, they were appalled at the violence, and refused to say the lines. Rather than cancel the series, the guys in charge decided to let the voice actors say new lines, and turn the series into a bizarre fighting comedy thing. For example, in this episode, when Shin explains to Yuria about Southern Cross just before she leaps to her death, the French dub changes the dialogue to this: |
The 1986 movie was released in Germany. Maybe some of the other animes were, I don't know. If you can find the German dub of the movie, please listen to it -you need to hear the noise Kenshiro's German voice actor makes when using the crack fist against Zeed. |
Italy loves Hokuto no Ken, the country has the second biggest fan base for the series, after Japan. Quite why they love it is a good question, but love it they do, as just about everything that was released in Japan anime and manga wise has been released in Italy. The Italian version of Hokuto no Ken and Hokuto no Ken 2 is known as "Ken il Guerriero" and has quite a few quirks in the Italian dub. There were less than 10 voice actors for the entire 152 episode series, and then there were strange translation changes, like these: (Thanks to vota dc for this info.) |
Not much is known about the Swedish dub of the original anime, other than it exists, and that possibly only the first four episodes were released. Despite being given the highest age certificate rating in the country, the Swedish version still heavily cuts out as much of the violence in each episode as possible, and also has very bad voice acting. |