Other Countries
-From Rage Quitter 87's Fist of the North Star site
Hokuto no Ken was born in Japan, 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:
Shin: Yuria, look. I brought in the best architects I could find to make this city extremely sturdy!
(Yuria jumps to her death)
Shin: ...Damn, someone bring me that architect.
Despite this, my understanding is that all episodes from Hokuto no Ken and Hokuto no Ken 2 were dubbed into French, and when the show came out on DVD it included the original Japanese audio with accurate subtitles. They've also gotten some of the newer material, like the Legends of the True Savior movies.
I think the intro theme is pretty rocking, too.
The 1986 movie was released in Germany. Maybe some of the other animes were, I don't know. But let us go back to the 1986 movie:
Don't think there is anything more I need to say!
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.)
*Early episodes have Hokuto Shinken referred to as just "karate".
*Madame Patra became a man.
*Jagi's troops always refer to their leader as Jagi, even when they are meant to be making people think he is Kenshiro.
*Kenshiro tells Jagi to use a dagger instead of a gun.
*Souther is called a "Colonel" rather than Holy Emperor.
*When Kenshiro uses the Tenha Kassatsu against Souther, the Italian dub refers to the technique as "Distruzione dell'universo", which roughly means that, if Kenshiro did the move wrong, he would end up destroying the entire universe.
*When Raoh withdraws his aura in his final battle with Kenshiro, the Italian dub gets Bat to say that Raoh's aura is actually weakening, and Raoh hasn't noticed.
*Akashachi blames Kaioh for killing all of his men, even though it was clearly the Nameless Shura who did it.
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.