News
Sentai Filmworks Adds Fist of the North Star Side Story (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
ADV Films spokesperson Chris Oarr has confirmed that the Sentai Filmworks licensing company has acquired Masashi Abe and Satelight's Hokuto no Ken Raoh Gaiden: Ten no Haoh television anime series under the Legends of the Dark Kings: A Fist of the North Star Story title. The entire 13-episode series will ship in one 325-minute set with English subtitles on September 15. ADV Films will localize and distribute the series on behalf of Sentai Filmworks.
The 2008 action anime series adapts Youkow Osada's Ten no Haoh - Hokuto no Ken Raoh Gaiden manga, which ran from 2006 to 2007 in Shinchosha's Weekly Comic Bunch magazine and was compiled into five volumes. The stand-alone story tells the early, violent life of the dark protagonist Raoh. Raoh is the oldest brother and frequent enemy of the Kenshiro character from Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's original Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken) manga. The Raoh character is so popular that a Buddhist funeral ceremony was held for the character in 2007. (The Shin Kyūseishu Densetsu Hokuto no Ken: Raoh-den Gekitō no Shō film opened ten days after the funeral.)
ADV Films will not be holding a panel during Anime Expo.
Source: ADV Nation (third-party blog)
Update: Background information added, and Oar's position updated.
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history