Although now a man in his 40s, Mr. Sato has long held a special place in his heart for the Fist of the North Star series. He recalls picking up a copy of the manga 20 years ago and heading straight out to the gym for two sets of 18kg (40lbs) bench presses.

After two weeks of that, he felt he had reached his full potential, but was still nowhere near as cool as the series’ protagonist Kenshiro. Decades later came word of the Fist of North Star bi-weekly DVD collection beginning at Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. The first day of sale was to be rung in by a gathering of cosplay characters from the series. Mr. Sato’s mind raced at the possibility of truly becoming his long-time hero Kenshiro.

Just then Mr. Sato’s editor approached him saying, “Hey, you like North Star don’t you? How’d you like to go down there and cosplay as…”

“You’ve stood in my way long enough! I’m going to Shinjuku to become as awesome as Kenshiro is whether you like it or not!” shouted Mr. Sato snapping out of his daydream and crushing a paper cup in his mighty fist.

“Yeah, that’s what I was going to sa…”

Mr. Sato interjected, “You’re already dead.” He then flicked the paper cup at the editor’s forehead and walked determinedly out of the office without looking back.

Having spent a good chunk of his life savings on acquiring clothes just like Kenshiro’s and then having a mullet like the martial artist crafted by the finest hairstylists of Tokyo, Mr. Sato was ready to go to the event. However, dozens of meters away from the bookstore he spotted a problem.

All of the other cosplayers there were dressed up like minor characters. If Mr. Sato waltzed in looking like the greatest Hokuto Shinken fighter of 199X, the others would see him as some kind of pompous jerk. Thinking fast, our reporter ducked into a convenience store and bought a razor and a sharpie. Minutes later he emerged from the store’s washroom with his new look. Now he was the spitting image of Zeed rather than Kenshiro.

Mr. Sato then casually went up to the group of cosplayers saying “Yo, what’s up?” They silently stared at him with furrowed brows until one of them said, “Something’s not right with you.” They slowly began to circle Mr. Sato as someone uttered, “Yeah, Kenshiro doesn’t have a Mohawk or Z-666 written on his head.”

“It’s a pretty crappy Kenshiro with all that junk on your head” hissed a man with pale eyes and a leather face mask. “But it’s a cool punk look anyway!” With that they all laughed. Mr. Sato joined in too, discretely wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead.

The mood was jubilant out in front of the book store as the small band of road warriors cavorted the afternoon away. Then suddenly, one of them turned to Mr. Sato and shouted, “SAY MY NAME!”

“Um… Heisenberg?” said Mr. Sato, not knowing the famous line used by Kenshiro’s brother Jagi and causing everyone in the group to instantly fall silent. You see, Mr. Sato had actually only read a few pages of the manga before running off to the gym way back then. He didn’t know anything about the series beyond Kenshiro being cool.

Later that day, Mr. Sato sat tending to his cuts and bruises and began catching up on the First of the North Star series with his first of the bi-weekly DVD’s sold by De Agostini. “Huh, this is actually pretty good,” he thought to himself and winced in pain when he finally saw Jagi for the first time.

So, next time you see a guy doing arm curls with only the bar and “Z-666” written on his forehead because he accidentally bought a permanent marker, don’t say hi to Mr. Sato. Say hi to Kensato, 202X’s hero of humanity.

Source: De Agostini
Photos and Video: RocketNews24


[ Read in Japanese ]