Hokuto Shinken - Practitioners

Practitioners

While Hokuto Shinken can only be passed down from one master to another, the style is usually taught to more than one student before a successor is named. In the prequel series Fist of the Blue Sky, Tesshin Kasumi was the 61st successor of Hokuto Shinken; followed by his son Kenshiro Kasumi, the 62nd successor; and then his younger half-brother Ramon Kasumi, who eventually becomes Ryuken, the 63rd successor, who named his adopted son Kenshiro as his heir (the 64th successor). Students who've been formally trained in the art but were not chosen for the succession include Ryuken's rival Koryu, and Kenshiro's three adoptive brothers: Jagi, Toki, and Raoh. Ryuken also trained a fifth student named Kim, whom he later expelled from his dojo after failing to meet his qualifications for successor.

Additionally, there are characters who were not formally trained in the style, but managed to learn it by observing actual practitioners (e.g. Amiba, who developed his own style based on Hokuto Shinken by observing Toki; the Emperor of Light Baran, who was a follower of Raoh when he was a child; adult Bat, and Ryu son of Raoh who observed Kenshiro during their stay together).