The Secret Origin is Revealed!
Heaven Desires Tragedy!!

-From RQ87's Fist of the North Star site

Hokuto no Ken episode 71
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For a detailed overview of this episode, click here.

The fight between Toki and Raoh begins.
Original broadcast date: April 10th, 1986

Contents
1) Synopsis
2) Manga differences
3) Notes
4) Errors


Synopsis

Toki finds Raoh at the place where he and his brother first trained. In a flashback scene, it is revealed that Raoh and Toki's parents died long before the war, and the two had to try and survive. However, Ryuken then appeared before them, saying that he knew their father. He wants to test Raoh in particular, and kicked part of a wall, causing part of the ground the boys were standing on to crumble and make them fall. Ryuken said he would only adopt one of them, and even then, they would have to climb up to him first. Raoh however got himself and Toki up, and Ryuken was very impressed with his strength.



Back in the present, the battle between Raoh and Toki begins, and the two exchange blows. As Toki lands back down, Raoh tells him that being close to death has made him fearless. Toki disagrees, saying that it was his brother's existence that made him stronger. In another flashback scene, Toki beat up a man who killed Koko, his pet bird. Ryuken saw this and realized that Toki may be gifted in martial arts, and said he could train in the North Star divine fist if he wished. Toki said yes, despite the fact that there could only be one successor to the style. He told his brother that he wanted to surpass him. Raoh told him that if he should ever take the wrong path, he wanted Toki to stop him.



Back in the present again, Toki tells Raoh that time has come, but he gets hit when Raoh counters one of his attacks by using musou insatsu (unconscious shadow kill), a technique that allowed Raoh to predict what Toki was going to do and counter it subconsciously. Toki uses juu no ken (soft fist) which will not be enough to break Raoh's gou no ken (hard fist). However, Toki then reveals that he also knows the hard fist, and stops one of Raoh's moves whilst also greatly increasing the size of his muscles. He tells his brother to look up at the Big Dipper, and when he does, he sees that he can see the death omen star. Kenshiro explains to Lin and Bat that it is said that when two masters of the North Star fight, both of them will be able to see that star. Toki tells his brother to get ready -it is time they finally closed this chapter of their lives.



Manga Differences

-When young Raoh and Toki fall, Raoh has to move a large tree trunk off his brother in the manga. For the anime, it was changed to a large rock.

-Koko was a dog in the manga. He was changed to a bird in the anime.

-Right after Toki starts to use the hard fist stlye and make his muscles bigger, there was another flashback scene in the manga. It involved Ryuken and young Toki looking down at Kenshiro, who had fallen down during training. Ryuken tells Toki not to help him, as if Kenshiro has fallen at this stage, he is not worthy of becoming the successor.

Toki helps him anyway, telling Ryuken that he has to help Kenshiro. Ryuken warns they will have to fight each other some day, if they both try to become the successor. Toki says he does not care about that, as Raoh helped him before (when they first met Ryuken), and he didn't care about the destiny of the successor then. This scene is not in the anime.


Notes

-The recap uses some clips from the previous episode, but there are a few differences. This episode's preview -shown at the end of the last episode -also shows some clips that also look slightly different to what they look like in this episode. Click here for more details.



Errors

-Right after Toki is seen ripping his shirt off, there's this shot of him with his shirt back on.

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