Old Skool Anime Question

[reddsun1]

I've recently been going down memory lane, watching the Fist of the North Star movie, and a few eps. of Hokuto no Ken that I could find.

I recently peeped a few clips of the new OVA that's recently come out, and it looks decidedly different in a critical way, from what I've seen. Oh sure, the animation quality appears to be much better, and they even got rid of Kenshiro's "super bushy" eyebrows [always wondered just what was that about?]. But the blood and gore factor seems to have been cranked up--WAY up. Looks like lots more bones splintering and gray matter flying in the wake of Kenshiro et. al's deadly punches and kicks; which leads into my question:

As I understood it from the original series, the secret of Kenshiro's powerful technique was channeling the his inner energy [chi?] to increase his strength, etc. Am I right in surmising that it also allowed Ken to use his enemy's inner body power against them? hitting select power points was what triggered uncontrolled releases of this energy, hence the exploding body parts, etc?

This doesn't seem to be the case in the new anime? From what I've seen, it's like the gore and blood has been increased exponentially for its own sake? It's like they just want to show how much better they can animate spilling entrails and splitting skull caps with today's animation budgets and technology?

[Akilae]

From what I gather, the basic idea is still the same, Kenshiro still hits certain points of the opponent's body to trigger an uncontrolled release of energy. The original series were also bloody in their own way, just that the new series is probably cranked up for newer generations for whom blood is not that big of a shock factor.

[Hoptimus]

Kens technique attacked critical Nerve and pressure points. When hit hit them with a precise attack it causes that explosive power. I think when VIZ first brought the manga here in 88? or so there was a nice explanation in one of the issues.

I really didnt like this new Hokuto No Ken DVD. It was just weird.

[bsu legato]

The gore in the OVA is actually far closer to how it appeared in the manga than the TV series was. For each and every kill, the manga very explicitly showed brains, organs, bone fragments, eyeballs, oh....and blood, blood, blood.