Lessons from Fist of the North Star, part II

I am now nearly 60 episodes into Fist of the North Star. That comes out to about 40 episodes watched in the past 3 weeks, only two of which I've actively watched the series. Hey, what can I say? When your wife is off traveling to foreign lands, you have a lot more free time living a bachelor life. Anyhow, I've picked up some new lessons hidden in the plot of FOTNS. I'm still really enjoying watching Kenshiro kick ass, but these little points stuck out for me:

1. Yuda wears lipstick and looks like a fugly woman. He also happens to be under the "star of deception." Rei pulled a similar stunt earlier in the series. He dressed as a woman to lure unwitting bandits into his trap. Lessons learned: (a) South Star fist martial artists are well versed in the cross-dressing arts, and (b) Never trust a transvestite.
2. Kenshiro gets his arm bone "shattered" by Raoh in their battle, yet continues using his arm to fight in the subsequent episodes. Apparently, with muscles big enough, you can move your arm freely without any skeletal structure in place.
3. When Rei is defeated by Raoh and only has three days left to live, he decides to avenge Mamiya. That involves traveling to 2 different cities... on foot... while occasionally spitting up blood... being overall weakened... and walking through the desert with no water. Yet, he and Kenshiro manage to walk between two cities easily within that three day window. And this is after we have seen that Bat has repaired his dune buggy in an earlier episode. I was mistaken to think the characters were Japanese. They must be crazy Europeans since they prefer walking to driving, even when it makes more sense to drive.
4. If you suspect a cross-dressing, flaming martial artist is gay, then your suspicions are probably grounded in truth. Yuda started wearing lipstick after his bromance obsession with Rei.
5. How can you identify bad guy martial artists? Because they all practice martial arts from foreign lands or need weapons other than their hands. You practice the ultimate Chinese kempo style XYZ? You're probably a bad guy about to be killed by Kenshiro. Invincible Persian spinning blades? Ditto. Also, if they look a lot bigger than the villagers, then they are probably bad guys.
6. Of course, midgets are also evil. All short characters who aren't children are evil.
   
7. Kenshiro is color-blind. He mistakes Mamiya for Yuria, despite their hair colors being quite different. Or maybe even in post-apocalyptic Japan, it's still fashionable to constantly change your hair color.
   
8. The radiation from the nuclear war has changed biology and laws of energy (or mass) conservation. Characters often grow and shrink in size quite dramatically (particularly the bad guys, and especially around battle scenes). Must be all the radioactive energy in the environment.
9. All of Yuda's henchmen are branded with "UD." I'm all for school pride, but that's no reason to make all of your underlings show off your school. And how the heck did Yuda get into the University of Delaware? He strikes me as more the type to go to Brown.
   
10. After deciding to devote his remaining three days of life to saving his beloved Mamiya, Rei suffers exponentially greater pain from Toki extending his life and has his hair turn completely white. He manages to kill Yuda for Mamiya, but still dies in the end. What does this illustrate? "Women: can't live with them, and if you try you'll suffer, have your hair turn gray, and you still won't be able to live with them."