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Hara Tetsuo

Tetsuo Hara (原哲夫, Hara Tetsuo, born September 2 1961) is a Japanese manga artist famous for drawing the series Hokuto no Ken, known in English as Fist of the North Star, which he wrote with Buronson. He also did the character designs for the arcade game Saturday Night Slam Masters.

Career[]

Tetsuo Hara was born in Shibuya, Tokyo on September 2, 1961 and raised in Koshigaya, Saitama. As a child he was a fan of manga especially Fujio Akatsuka's Tensai Bakabon and Naoki Tsuji's Tiger Mask. Hara attended Hongō Junior and Senior High School and worked as an assistant to manga artist Yoshihiro Takahashi after graduating. As an amateur, he won the first prize of the 33rd Fresh Jump award for his one-shot Super Challenger. Hara's professional career began with his first published work: Mad Fighter in 1982. His first serialized work in the Weekly Shonen Jump was the Iron Don Quixote, which lasted only ten weeks in serialization. He did not achieve fame until the publication of Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) in 1983, which he co-wrote with Buronson and ran for six years. After the completion of Hokuto no Ken, he worked on shorter series and one-shots, including three different adaptations of Keiichiro Ryu's novels (Hana no Keiji, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Sakon). In 2001 he did a prequel to Hokuto no Ken called Souten no Ken, which was serialized in the Weekly Comic Bunch.
His influences include Neal Adams. His cousin is "Rocketman" Ryo Fukawa.
He suffers from an eye condition called keratoconus which left him blind in one eye, so all his work must be fixed by his assistants due to errors in perspective and he can no longer ink his own work.

Works[]

Manga[]

Title Japanese Romaji Year Writer Collected
Super Challenger スーパーチャレンジャー Super Challenger 1982 One-shot (featured in the Jump Super Ace edition of Iron Don Quixote)
Mad Fighter マッドファイター Mad Fighter 1982 One-shot (featured in Iron Don Quixote)
Clash Hero クラッシュヒーロー Clash Hero 1982 One-shot pilot for Iron Don Quixote (featured in the Jump Super Ace edition of Iron Don Quixote)
The Iron Don Quixote 鉄のドンキホーテ Tetsu no Don Quixote 1982-1983 2 tankōbon
Fist of the North Star 北斗の拳 Hokuto no Ken 1983 2 one-shots (featured in Tetsu no Don Quixote Vol. 2)
Fist of the North Star 北斗の拳 Hokuto no Ken 1983-1988 Buronson 27 tankōbon, later reassembled as 15 aizoban/bunkokan editions and 14 kanzenban editions.
Cyber Blue サイバーブルー Cyber Blue 1988-1989 Bob
Ryuichi Mitsui
4 tankōbon
Keiji of the Flowers: On the Other Side of the Clouds 花の慶次 ―雲のかなたに― Hana no Keiji: Kumo no Kanata ni 1990-1993 Keiichiro Ryu
Izumi Fujimori
18 tankōbon
The Hitman 職業兇手(ジーイェションショウ) Zhí Yè Xiōng Shǒu 1993 One-shot
Doppelganger Tokugawa Ieyasu 影武者徳川家康 Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu 1994-1995 Keiichiro Ryu
Shō Aikawa
6 tankōbon
The Blazing Palm 火焔の掌 Kaen no Shō 1995 One-shot
The Mighty Ryūsei 猛き龍星 Takaki Ryūsei 1995 3 tankōbon
When The Pyroxene Burns 輝石燃ゆる時 Kiseki Moyuru Toki 1996 One-shot (featured in Aterui Nisei Vol. 1)
Chase チェイス ―追跡― Chase: Tsuiseki 1997 Buronson One-shot
Sakon: Record of the Upheaval of the Warring States 左近(SAKON) -戦国風雲録- Sakon: Sengoku Fūun Roku 1997-2000 Keiichiro Ryu
Shingo Nihashi
6 tankōbon
Hydra 九頭龍(ヒュドラ) Hyudora 1997-1998 Tadashi Ikuta 1 tankōbon
Misappropriation Investigator Rintarō Nakabō 公権力横領捜査官 中坊林太郎 Kōkenryoku Ōryō Sōsakan Nakabō Rintarō 1998-2000 2 tankōbon
Aterui II 阿弖流為Ⅱ世 Aterui Nisei 2000 Katsuhiko Takahashi 1 tankōbon
Fist of the Blue Sky 蒼天の拳 Souten no Ken 2001-2010 Nobuhiko Horie 22 tankōbon
Child of War: The Legend of Oda Nobunaga いくさの子 織田三郎信長伝 Ikusa no Ko: Oda Saburō Nobunaga Den 2010- Nobuhiko Horie 12 tankōbon
Fist of the North Star: Last Piece 北斗の拳−LAST PIECE− Hokuto no Ken: Last Piece 2013 Buronson One-shot

Novels[]

Non-manga works[]

Tetsuo Hara artwork[]

Rank Kingdom[]

In 2014, Tetsuo Hara was a guest on the ranking show Rank Kingdom (ランク王国, Rank Ōkoku) and listed his personal Top Five Hokuto no Ken characters, villains and death cries (断末魔, danmatsuma).

Top Five Characters:

  1. Kenshiro
  2. Rei
  3. Toki
  4. Juza
  5. Raoh

Top Five Villains:

  1. Uighur
  2. Heart
  3. Jagi
  4. Amiba
  5. Devil Rebirth

Top Five Danmatsuma:

  1. HIDEBU! (ひでぶっ!!)
  2. TAWABA! (たわば!!)
  3. ABESHI! (あべし!!)
  4. DOEHEPU! (どぉえへぷ!!)
  5. UWARABA! (うわらば!!)

External links[]

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