Grappler Baki

Like I've mentioned many times before I really don't like doing a review until the series is finished(this one is), but this is one of the very few exceptions, mainly the scanners are for some reason way behind in the original series but have most of the others finished, lol.

I really do like this manga it is one of the many I would recommend to old and new alike. But the one main thing that nags at me the entire time I was reading it is that Baki is an arrogant asshole. Now i would like to mention that as of now(11/03/17) only 197 chapters have been fully translated and uploaded so i would say about 70% of the "read" people are lying, the other 30% either have a better "group" then me or can read japanese.

Again my reader has a very weird arrangement of the manga which i'm gonna assume was the original way it was published to give the readers a refresher over a couple of years period that the series ran.

Worth the read i'm serious when i say time flew as i was reading chapter after chapter. The story is engrossing if a bit "normal" shonen fight series. Worth multiple reads, based off how fast i was reading it, if it ever finishes.

~SPOILERS~

Baki fights his dad and loses and his dad kills his mom this would be bad normally but his mom is some slut who gets wet off of death and blood, which this series is fucking filled with gore(thank god older manga is so good) and some nudity full frontal[Baki's mom only though :-(]. Then we see Baki travel fighting all sorts of bad asses and win, he then reaches someone who may at one time might have been strong but never shows it(powerful in influence, name, money, and political) then it shows Baki fighting some people in the arena, no rules except no weapons, and becomes the champ. We then are transported to the past about 2-3 years when he's 13 and Baki's rise through the ranks of the world, that's right Baki is the rich spoiled brat of an extremely wealthy whore. Though there is a pang of sympathy when we find out he was born to fight his dad and that's it, only to satisfy this sick fuck who gets even harder off death then his booty call.

Then it goes back to the first chapter fighting his dad with everyone's whose ass he kicked and somehow befriended them even though we never see this at anytime, unless you want to say visiting the guy you put in the hospital and smiling at him while he lost half his teeth and is wrapped in a huge amount of casts smiles back, a friendship, and now we're in a new competition in the underground arena to see who's really the best.

Grappler Baki is a long-running action, martial arts manga, written and illustrated by Keisuke Itagaki.

Grappler Baki is a massive manga, having over 130 volumes and is still publishing to this day, the series is currently divided into 5 parts: Grappler Baki (1), New Grappler Baki (2), Hanma Baki Son of Ogre (3), Baki Dou Part 1 (4) and Baki Dou Part 2 (5).

The core focus of Grappler Baki is fighting and fighting only, to quote Super Eye Patch Wolf “Baki is a series for fighting, for fighting sake.”
Realism? It does not exist in Baki, what you get out of Baki is high amounts of entertainment, massive amounts of hype, and some insane fights.

Set in Japan, we follow the journey of Baki Hanma, a 17-year-old boy of inconceivable strength, fighting prowess, and potential, the champion of the Underground Arena within Tokyo, an illegal fighting arena, a place where anything goes and has a high chance of death. Baki strives to become the strongest fighter in the world, wowing that he will one day surpass and defeat his father, the invincible Yujiro Hanma. A man so strong, that can seemingly crush and kill any person or creature, thus being given the epithet “The Strongest Creature on Earth”. Just a small demonstration of his strength allows him to quiet literally stop a natural disaster such as an earthquake with a single punch.

The series begins with an introductory arc on Baki, where we view his strength as he fights different martial artists within the Underground Arena. The following 2nd arc takes a Berserk Golden Age approach, chronologically being the 1st arc within the story, showing a much younger, 13-year old Baki pushing himself in various degrees, giving the reader an outlook on the harsh life he lives to achieve the strength he gains as a 17-year old. The 3rd and final arc within the 1st part of the Baki Franchise being the Maximum Tournament arc, a humongous tournament with over 30 battles of fighters trying to prove their strength.

The highlight of Grappler Baki are the fights. It is the main reason why you read the series, the various number of fights can go from good-great to amazing.
Why are the fights great?

First and foremost, the author has great paneling skills, when a fight happens you will receive various shots of the character’s physically intimidating frame to establish an atmosphere. The fights are expertly choreographed because of the author's ingenious if sometimes exaggerated, drawing style of expressing movement. Itagaki is not scared to sacrifice page space, as he will put very small details within his pages: like the startup, launch, and ending impact of techniques.

Also showing various close-ups and facial expressions of the characters battles, showing power and weight within the blows, crazy fighter physiques, superhuman feats in abundance, double-page spread pages of exchanging blows, blood in high quality, teeth flying around, it is all here in Grappler Baki. When someone gets punched in the gut by a powerful fighter like Hanayama. The author makes sure to show you the damage in large amounts and detail, more than the average battle manga would.

In terms of art quality, early Baki is much more inferior in terms of detail and style compared to Itagaki's later work. The first hundred chapters look slightly above average, while later on the detail in the art improves and the last hundred chapters end up looking amazing. Rich detail and noticeable improvement if you compare chapter 1 to the chapters within the three hundred mark.

Baki does not have that deepest story, it does not contain any overarching plot mechanics and most of the character development is only focused on the main character. However, it is a series with a lot of passion and heart put within. The characters love to fight, they are extremely passionate, entertaining, and decently designed. You have various numbers of fighting styles and techniques being showcased within the series. The author also has a good idea of how the power scaling within his series should be and is able to write out pretty consistent fights.

The series is ridiculous and ultimately does not have any amazing storytelling. If you wish to read a simple hype manga, full of fights and receive large amounts of entertainment, Grappler Baki is a great manga just for you. I am giving the 1st part of the Baki franchise a 9/10.

Ah, Baki, where to start where to start
At surface level, Baki seems like a stereotypical shounen, about a boy training to become the worlds strongest and face it all head on, and technically that's not a wrong synopsis.
So what separates Baki from other shounen anime? Well, the creator, Keisuke Itagaki, did his homework to say the least, having military experience and a degree in Shorinji Kenpo, he didn’t need to rely on things like ‘increasing power level/chakra/ki’, and instead gave a mixture of fantasy martial arts and real ones taken to the next level, all having basis in the principles and applied knowledge (Physics, anatomy, slight psychological elements, etc) that tend to make up actual martial arts.
As a result, pretty much all of the fight scenes are incredibly detailed and well written, the reader will know exactly what it happening and how, which adds a huge layer of excitement to the many fight scenes in the series. Instead of just blood flying everywhere as characters are slashed and blasted, Grappler Baki makes sure to let the reader know what got hit and why it’s important, giving the reader an idea of how this will impact the fight as well as the fighter, which provides a suspense that can’t be found in most other action anime/manga
This dedication to martial arts not only makes up the combat of Baki, but a lot of the story and especially the characters. In modern martial arts, it’s believed that not only the style is important, but the way each unique individual utilizes it is more. A fighting style tends to be forged by experience and personality, and the series captures this perfectly.
It’s not at all uncommon for flashbacks to be shown mid-fight, showing us how these fighters came to be who they are, the struggles they faced, and how their fighting styles were basically forged by said struggles. Be it the young man who fearlessly took up responsibility after his father’s death in order to be a pillar of strength for his ill mother, the boxer whose warrior spirit was brought out by his heritage and his desire to protect his little sister, the wrestler who went from someone who genuinely loved the sport to rather fame obsessed and self-indulgent.
The thing is, these backstories, regardless of the character, tend to be pretty sympathetic and actually realistic. There were plenty of boxers who used it as a way to survive the crime ridden neighborhoods, and get themselves and their families out of the slums. There are plenty of fighters in general who lost sight of their passion when they let fame get to their head.
To top it off, a lot of these backstories tend to have themes that honestly wouldn’t be expected of a shounen. This especially shows with Baki’s mother, whose story is pretty much a cautionary tale of how a submissive woman having an abusive relationship with a charismatic devil of a man can turn her into just as much of a monster as he is due to her sheer desire for his approval
To get to the titular character himself, he’s a very interesting case of character development. Notably, the series is just as much about Baki’s growth as a person as it is about his growth as a martial artist. It’s revealed rather early on in the manga, Baki was quite literally born to fight. His father Yujiro, the strongest creature on earth, essentially had a child with the intent of making and eventually breaking a warrior that would give him a satisfying fight. The first saga, the champion saga, is merely an introduction for this world of fighters, however, next up is the prequel saga, ‘the child saga’, in which we start to see who Baki is. The young Baki, age 13, is rather hotheaded and impulsive, fighting is pretty much all on his mind. This mindset goes to the point where he goes out of his way to pick fights with gangsters, boxers, and even wild beasts. Starting with that arc, we start to see Baki slowly learn to control his fighting instinct, and after a certain event happens, he ends up developing in ridiculous ways and beginning to see the bigger picture of life.
Finally, what many view as the downside of the Baki series, the art style. Even if you like Baki’s art style, you clearly see why it turns so many people away. As said before, Baki is rather heavy on the detail in pretty much everything it does, this includes the human facial and bodily features, and it has no problem showing the ugly to it. The physiques of the fighters are that of fighters, not male models. There tends to be things like veins bulging from muscles, horrendous scars, no one is that handsome after being constantly socked in the face. Honestly, the ‘ugly’ art style tends to work in the manga’s favor, except when it starts to exaggerate certain features, often the limbs seem to bend in ways they shouldn’t, similar to early JoJo, and, at times, there are clear exaggerated bends and curves that can raise eyebrows. If you don’t mind characters who aren’t sights for sore eyes and can handle the exaggeration, then the art style is both extremely fitting and an interesting change of pace in my opinion.
All in all, as said, Baki, at surface, is your stereotypical shounen, as you start to read it, you realize it’s one of the manliest series ever written, but as you read on and go further and further into the series, you realize something else. An attention to detail that truly makes the series. In the long run, Baki doesn’t just focus on the why and the what, it also focuses on the how. In fight scenes, it focuses on how the action and the injury effects the fight. In the story, it’s a huge aspect to the characters, we not only see how Baki’s experiences and relationships come to start forging him as a person, we see how the people who make up those experiences and relationships came to be who they were up until that point, and we see how their experiences and affiliation with Baki effects them as people.
The final result of this, especially when combining all four series so far, you get the story of Baki’s transition from boy to man to master, seeing how the world impacted him and seeing how he impacted it back, full of some of the best action scenes you will ever see, each fight getting you more and more hyped up as you wonder where it’s gonna go next.

If you enjoy martial arts manga, this one is a must.

Story: 7/10 The story is very simple, and easy to follow, not the most important thing here, it can be summarized simply in the quest of the MC to get to surpass his father. Out of the 3 arcs of this manga, the most enjoyable one is the Maximum Tournament Saga, an absolute work of art that don't want to spoil too much.

Art: 9/10 One can clearly see the difference between this work and the most recent ones from Itagaki, this one is simpler, it does not exaggerate too much with the proportions and musculature of the characters, and in my opinion that benefits the understanding of the action scenes, especially the grappling ones.

Characters: 8/10 here every character is unique, the main ones have very distinctive designs, personalities, techniques, and backgrounds, with crazy abilities, although not as exaggerated as following parts

Enjoyment 9/10: As i said previously, this piece of manga is a must between "realistic fighting " fans, and has one of the best tournament arcs of all time, I’d recommend reading the manga instead of watching the anime, because the anime has a very slow pacing in action scenes

Baki is not really defined by having a great narrative structure, as the arcs are almost separate from each other, save a few characters and overarching plot that crawls bit by bit. Its most defining features, in my opinion, are in its dedication to the battle manga ethos and the mastery of this by Keisuke Itagaki. The fight scenes are well drawn and the mangaka's understanding of body mechanics clearly lends itself to the quality. The characters *generally* serve the plot or the main character, so if you are not interested in Baki's character and his version of the hero's journey, this may not be for you. Personally, I would not call this a story you read in binge-sittings, but rather a story that you read a couple chapters per day to see what Baki is up to. A very fun read, although to be honest I lost interest and moved on about halfway through the manga; its narrative structure began to be too repetitive for me, but you get what you pay for with battle shounen