Hokuto (ホクト, Hokuto?) is a friend of Kōsuke Shirai and Ataru Moroboshi from Class 2-4 at Tomobiki High School. Although a friend of Ataru's, he and Kōsuke will not hesitate to bully and even backstab Ataru to get Lum's attention.
Biography[]
Very little is known about Hokuto's backstory. Like Kōsuke Shirai he is one of the tertiary characters of Urusei Yatsura, not even having his name revealed until Chapter 259. He attends Class 2-4 at Tomobiki High School, and is commonly seen hanging around with Kōsuke Shirai and Ataru, usually in scenes set at school or, less frequently, when visiting the Mendō Estate or one of the Mendō properties.
Appearance[]
Hokuto is a plain-looking regular Japanese human teenage boy, with curly hair and a stocky build.
Personality[]
Despite not being named until Chapter 259, Hokuto gets a surprising amount of lines for such a bit-part character and these express a surprising amount of personality.
Firstly, Hokuto is quite brazen. He is the one to suggest they go and steal food from a nearby village when their own secret stores of food are stolen whilst on a camping trip. Likewise, when infected by Ten with his oni toothaches, Hokuto immediately attacks and bites Kōsuke Shirai to try and alleviate his suffering. He is seen visiting the Mendō Estate as an excuse to stuff himself on fancy food when Shūtarō Mendō stays home in an effort to cure his claustrophobia and nyctophobia, and likewise he participates in the hunt for the missing Mendō family heirloom, and the quest to recapture the runaway South Pole Octopus, Matsuchiyo He's also devious, as he's the one who comes up with the idea to try and fool Shūtarō Mendō with a fake Matsuchiyo.
Secondly, he's a lecher; alongside Kōsuke Shirai, he's the first boy to arrive at the school nurse's office with phony problems as an excuse to hit on Sakura when she opens her office for consultations, and is amongst those drooling over her when she first begins work at Tomobiki High. However, he rarely if ever is seen at the beach hunting girls alongside Ataru Moroboshi, who seems to prefer Shūtarō Mendō or Ten for such hunts. He also expresses an attraction to Lum
Lastly, he has a strange fixation on tanuki. In Chapter 117, he's shown to keep a shop-greeting ceramic tanuki statue in his locker, and he weeps over how he had to work a part-time job to save up the money to buy it when Onsen-Mark confiscates it. Later, in Chapter 212, his dream prize upon finding Matsuchiyo is for Shūtarō Mendō to buy him a new tanuki statue. Data File 23 speculates that he may come from a shopkeeping family, as such statues are common symbols for good luck amongst merchants and shopkeepers.
Trivia[]
- Hokuto is the Japanese name for the Big Dipper.
- There was a completely different-looking version of Hokuto introduced in episode 158 as part of class 2-4, completely replacing Hokuto's design from Chapter 254 and whose design was based on Kenshiro of the manga Hokuto no Ken.
- He does not appear in the original anime series, likely due to his minor status, although Kakugari (whose real name was Hiroyuki) resembled him and filled a similar but more active role, even acting as a close friend of Perm's who was essentially just a slightly altered Kōsuke.
- In the 2022 series, Hokuto makes his formal animated debut.
- Data File 23 in Viz's version of the manga's 12th volume is devoted to Kosuke and lists his most notable appearances and traits.
Media Appearances[]
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