Bootlegs
-From Rage Quitter 87's Fist of the North Star site

Bootlegs refer to the wave of knock-off DVDs available, and there are plenty around for the Fist of the North Star series. Whilst being completely illegal and generally frowned upon, sometimes fans are forced into buying bootleg sets just because there is no better alternative available. When this site first started, only the images used for Shin Hokuto no Ken and the live action movie sections came from official DVDs, all other images were gathered from bootlegs. Things have improved somewhat in recent years for Fist of the North Star fans, as the movie, original and sequel series have been released on DVD via Discotek.


Usually the quality of the video on a bootleg DVD is poor. For example, bootlegs of the anime series usually cram 10 episodes or more onto a single disc, which can lead to a very pixilated image, especially if there is a lot of action going on (which happens frequently in the fights scenes of Hokuto no Ken). If the bootleg includes English subtitles, they are almost certainly going to be hilariously bad and inaccurate, as you can see above and below.

The subs usually get character names wrong, are full of spelling errors, get concepts completely wrong, don't bother translating what is being said on screen for a few seconds and more. Don't be tempted by a bootleg set -they are never worth it.



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