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Story: 5/10
This is Hokuto no Ken, so the story is just to contextualize the fighting and action. However, the story in this adaption is an insult to the original, this is modernized-Anime-only garbage. It's barely acceptable if you've never read the manga but the charm of the original has been stripped away.

Art: 7/10
CG is clunky and awkward, mo-capped to hell and back in the worst way, people sway like trees in a thunderstorm when they're talking. Fight scenes and overall quality of models make it somewhat redeemable. Nothing to write home about, go watch Houseki no Kuni.

Sound: 8/10
It's hard to screw this up.

I write this ... review as someone whose watched and read many of the works in the Hokuto no Ken series including the original Souten no Ken manga. I had hopes for this to be a proper adaption that took a different approach from the original 2006 adaption, unfortunately I was very wrong.

I'm going to have to say this though, if this is your first time delving into the Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) universe, back out right now. Go watch one of the movie originals, heck, watch the original Fist of the North Star anime, if you want Souten no Ken, read the manga, any of those are better than this anime. Don't waste your time reading the rest of this review, go enjoy literally any other works in the universe besides the Souten no Ken adaptions.

==Read this part if you've read the Souten no Ken manga==

Right so this is more of an extended rant than a review where I go off on the stupid decisions made in the anime.

I went back and re-read the entire Souten no Ken manga a second time while watching so I can properly compare the two.

I went into this adaption expecting a proper adaption of the manga's plot, hopefully start from some major arc in the middle rather than from the beginning. However this anime starts off smack in the final arc while stripping many plot points and characters away. It keeps most of the setting with the Green Gang members in the List of Hope arc but they make it very obvious that this is an anime original plotline by the end of episode 1.

The directors and writers make obnoxious decisions in attempts to gear the show to a younger audience. This includes things like modelling atagonistic characters in ways that make them look like pigs and animals and turning two minor Red Flower Gang member into a recurring comedy relief side plot.

Liu Zongwu and the Hokuto Ryukaken subplot was completely removed to focus the spotlight on Yasaka, which they stretched out over 8 episodes because of awful, awful pacing. They even scrub out Fei-yan's badass older brother and replace him with some little edgy younger one who just runs around asking for Fei-yan. At the 8 episode mark I was confused, because they should all be sitting at a restaurant in Shanghai and laughing while the END card comes on screen. However, that was actually when the REAL ANIME ONLY storyline begins. This new story is generic and cliched in a completely different way from Hokuto no Ken.

They introduce new anime only big bads with the leader looking like the masked claw-user from Street Fighter that uses a martial art where all he does is shoot explosive rainbows out of his hands. The guy's part of a bloody organization of secretive black-clad KKK lookalikes sitting in a dark room around a table speaking of some inane "secret plot". If Kenshiro walked in and poked everyone to death in the following 4 episodes then fine, alright, but no. The shit show continues.

Regenesis is getting a second season, seemingly to continue this awful anime-only story. Dear god why, I can go on all day about how they ruined things.

Souten no Ken has no chance of getting another adaption after this. Just go read the manga.