In Southern Cross, Saki's brother is being tortured for trying to oppose Shin's rule. Yuria tries to stop this, but ultimately it is Shin who saves his life, by killing the torturer. Saki's brother, Temujina, later decides to try and find Kenshiro and tell him where Southern Cross is. He gets on a bike and manages to escape from the city. Elsewhere, another part of Shin's army, led by a warrior called Garekki, arrive at the village Jennifer lives in. Garekki demands that Kenshiro is sent out to them, as they believe he is in there.

Jennifer and another man manage to escape their city and head out to where Kenshiro is, who had been trying to follow some troops of Shin's. Ken heads back towards the village, but encounters Mahari and his army of gyrocopters. Kenshiro takes over Mahari's aircraft and gets him to do what he wants, which leads to the destruction of all the other helicopters. Kenshiro soon confronts Garekki and is introduced to his crazy Nanto ningen houdan (South Star human cannonball) fighting style, but he defeats his army, and then defeats him with a move called Hokuto koku zan (North Star sky slash).

Garekki had put a couple of kids in a balloon and sent it up into the sky for some evil reason, but Kenshiro fires Garekki out of a cannon, and he pieces the balloon with his blade. The balloon descends, whilst Garekki dies when he hits the ground at a fast speed and explodes. Just then, Temujina arrives in the city and just about manages to tell Kenshiro that Southern Cross is located next to the green land in the "eye of the demon", before he dies from the injuries he has sustained. Kenshiro promises to avenge him.

Manga Differences

-This is a filler episode, and was not in the manga. However, those two ladies with Shin near the start of the episode actually were in the manga, but they featured much earlier -they are with Shin when he kills those two guys for running away instead of fighting (a scene used in episode 3 of the anime).

They also wore significantly less clothing in the manga.

Notes

-The way the blood trickles across the sniper scope in the opening scene is a tribute to the James Bond movies, most of which open in a similar way.

-According to TV Tropes, this episode caused some issues with Buronson (the manga's writer) and his editor, Nobuhiko Horie. They were not pleased with some of the filler content the anime was coming up with, specifically, the Nanto human cannonball technique. They probably weren't too pleased with the last few episodes either, which had Kenshiro fighting zombies, Kenshiro getting two people to hug each other to death, and Kenshiro defeating a tank by punching and kicking it. Apparently they started working more closely with the anime's staff after this episode, and put a stop to some of their sillier ideas.

-This episode has quite a few shots played twice, such as a gyrocopter crashing into the ground, and some of Garekki's troops being launched out of the cannons.

Errors

-During this shot, Yuria's sleeves are missing.
-Mahari has a different design to when he last saw him:

Episode 17	Episode 19

Whilst I suppose it could well be possible he had more than one outfit, the fact remains that his hair has changed color between his appearances.
-When Kenshiro starts throwing spears, watch his arms -his band and bandages swap arms as he throws the spears.
-During this shot, the guy piloting the gyrocopter has an all green outfit, but his shirt color has changed during this shot.
-Also, there is an editing error during the gyrocopter battle. This guy is seen, but as he looks back to see his tail rotor has been destroyed, he suddenly changes to this guy. The latter guy appears seconds later -he's the guy who has his gyro's rotor blades destroyed.
-Near the end, when Temujina moves his right hand, he leaves a hand shaped mark over Kenshiro!
-Seconds later, when Temujina moves his right hand again, there is a glitch where his hand remains in place, and a second right hand appears beneath it.