Kenshiro and the wasteland get flattened into chibi proportions, but the comedy doesn't soften what made Hokuto no Ken work, it just weaponizes the gap between ultra-serious martial arts mythology and these stubby little guys punching each other into oblivion. The show understands that the funniest thing about a post-apocalyptic power fantasy is treating it completely straight while everyone involved is shaped like a thumb. You're watching one of manga's most brutally earnest properties get dismantled by its own proportions, and it never once winks at the camera or apologizes for the absurdity it's creating.

DD Hokuto no Ken is a 2011 comedy short series with twelve episodes that retells Buronson and Tetsuo Hara's martial arts manga, set after the end of civilization, in a super-deformed art style. The DD in the title stands for Design Deformation, and every character is drawn at just two heads tall. The episodes play the material for laughs, with a slice-of-life flavor.