Vampire Hunter D of the 1985 anime movie of the same name makes a cameo appearance as a villager in the scene where Raoh's second-in-command, Uighur, reveals the pot of flowers to the people. Toyoo Ashida, the director of the film, directed Vampire Hunter D one year prior to directing the anime Hokuto No Ken movie.
Real anatomy was studied to depict the gory explosions of the villains.
Many of the more graphic scenes of violence in this movie were edited and altered immediately after the original Japanese theatrical run - and possibly even during it. In 1986, Toei Animation immediately received many complaints from concerned parents and media reviewers over the scenes of violence that more closely represented the manga art it was based on. So, in response, Toei added in screen filters and crop/zoom effects to partially blur and distort the animation that depicted exposed brain matter, intestines, and other close-ups of severe body trauma that were inflicted on many of the characters throughout the film. But since then, Toei Animation has never released information or commented on the uncut version ever existing - to the point that rumors began persisting that they had a massive warehouse fire in the 1980's which lead to the original unaltered reel being destroyed. Industry insiders, however, think that at most the original reel was recorded on poor film stock that simply expired in some fashion over time to never be seen again. Yet, years later, evidence of the uncut version ever existing finally came to light from an Italian VHS tape which is believed to have been created from a partially untouched source. A few scenes clearly showed gore without any alterations, while a majority of the others were still censored. Theories about this tape believe that Italy prematurely received a partially edited reel before Japan made all of the edits to the final cut version. But as to whether that Italian reel still exists, whether in Italy or if it was sent back to Japan, is unknown. Toei Animation still refuses to comment about the uncut movie or the edits made to it to the public, and they denied US licensing company Diskotek Media the chance to release the Italian trailer as a supplement on the US DVD in 2009.
Ryûken's speech regarding the nature of life and death, which opens the English dub, is quoted verbatim by Jeru the Damaja on the intro to his classic album The Sun Rises in the East.
Similarly, Kenshiro makes a cameo in Vampire Hunter D as a villager during the scene where the Count's messenger arrives in the village to give the candle to Rei Ginsei.