Grappler Baki (TV)

This anime is something.. Whether that's something good or bad will depend on your tastes. When this came out, I'm sure it looked amazing and I must admit I am a fan of that 'older' art style of anime. Everything art wise is very 'odd' or quirky for this show, the way Baki looks, the design of his father..

Yujiro Hanma, the villain of the series has a very striking design. His muscles are horrifyingly creepy looking, he's completely, totally despicable and... he vaguely resembles Akuma from Street Fighter.

Okay, I've yammered about the art and how it's both unique, yet dated.. ... The story is basically... meh. It's your typical kid fights to overcome odds thing but the action is always intense and full on badass throughout.

Character wise - there's very little depth to anyone other than 'I must beat so and so', outside of one episode where Baki and his mother deal with their relationship.

Overall. I'd call it a solid '6'. There's a lot to like if you enjoy fighting and big displays in your show, but, other shows have developed their characters while also juggling these big fighting displays much better. Not bad, but not the best.

There are a lot of things to consider when grading this anime as it has some strong points but a lot of flaws, so let's get started.

The story is about a 13 years old boy named Baki who wants to get as stronger as he can be for one purpose: to defeat his father. The story is at weak as it sounds as there's nothing else to support it. In theory there's another reason for this as well, as Baki wants to get stronger to be admired by his mother to finally be loved by her (she loves strong people.......). There's nothing else to say ... about the story as that is all there is to it.

The art is not that bad (given that this is from 2001) and shows what needs to be shown. The details of the body of each fighter are spectacular as it show muscles that I didn't even know they were there. The background is somewhat repetitive as you get to see either the same place of the city or a jungle.

The music falls into what I like to call the almost-annoying-yet-not-so-much category. Every tone brought me to an 80's movie due to the unfitting-ness of it with the anime. There are about 3 types of music and they get abused often enough to really question their selection.

Character development.......an enormous flaw.
There are a lot of characters in this anime due to the fact that Baki has to fight to become stronger. You do get to see some difference between them, however they all seem to be based from a generic character. Almost all of the characters that appear get none to little background to support them nor a motivation for their actions. You get to wonder who the hell is each one as you only know their name before fighting. The second half of the show is worse as a supposed "girlfriend" of Baki comes out of nowhere and all you get to know about her is her name. Even the background of Baki's father and mother is left untouched (except for an episode that "tries" to explain something about them). They could have done a better job if at least with the main characters.

After all this flaws why the hell did I enjoyed the anime? Well, if there's a strong point with this anime it should be the fights. They are well done and show the different kinds of martial arts from the world, so you get to see some action that is worth the multiples mistakes done with this anime.

A warning though; if you're going to see this anime with fansubs (not DVD subs, those may be right) you'd better know japanese, because the available versions of it have such an awful translation that you barely know what's happening (goes from "unfinished sentences" to "things said that are not translated" to "bad translation" to "things that are never said but put in the transation").

Notice: This review covers all three major arcs.

First arc

A typical shonen series is about hyperactive boys training endlessly in order to become the best in a specific field. Well guess what; this anime is also like that. It’s about a boy that wants to be the best fighter and to surpass his father, the strongest man in the world. The catch is, it’s way more focused on being brutal than telling a moral message about friendship or spicing things up with something other than fighting.

If you got tired of watching fighting shonen or sport series that are wasting a lot of time on not being ... about the action, Grappler Baki is where you go to, assuming you can tolerate bad animation and horrible openings. Seriously, if you want to get your blood pumping when you begin watching an episode of pure manly action, you don’t throw a lame pop song, sang by a girl in the opening.

And I get why they did that. Females in the series are damsels in distress, existing only as rewards for manly men who beat the crap out of each other. Listening to girl singing while the protagonist is training hard is telling you subconsciously that everything is done for the pussy and that all the pain and suffering the hero is going through will have a reward at the end. It’s just a cheap hook to keep teenage boys watching a show about guys who want to be the strongest for the sake of being the strongest.

You also don’t use cancer CGI models. I get how it saves money, but if you don’t bother to render them properly or cover them by drawing over them, then it looks horrible and not awesome at all, which happens to be the main appeal of the show. I mean, if you can somehow look past it, it’s still amazing for its brutal fighting, which includes all sorts of nasty attacks no typical shonen would use. Scratching the eyes, biting the ears, kicking the nuts, attacking without a warning, and so on. The early episodes were merciless, as there was no honor in fighting and winning was the only thing that mattered.

Second arc

Unfortunately this was diminished in the second arc, where everybody was fighting before an audience with a referee and you had to follow a few rules because you were doing it to prove how powerful you are and not to win no matter what. In fact, the second arc took away most of the charm in general and became an almost typical fighting tournament, despite constantly saying it is dangerous and merciless.

Even the plot was damaged because of it. During the first arc things were moving at a reasonable pace. You were following a single character as he was travelling around the world and facing all sorts of challenges with no rules or referees to limit what you are allowed to do. It also had meaningful character growth, as Baki gets constantly stronger and learns new tricks. The handful of opponents he faces get some screen time as well so their backgrounds can be fleshed out.

The second arc ruins everything. There is no actual growth since nobody there gets stronger from his battles. There are also about 30 fighters, most of which are one note, and they all get a rather equal amount of screen time when it’s their time to fight. Meaning you don’t focus on someone for too long and because of their sheer number almost nobody feels important or memorable. Also, every battle takes place on the exact same arena, which quickly becomes repetitive and dull to look at. Also, you can’t use dirty tricks, field tactics, or dirty tricks, because there is a referee and rules to follow. The fights are still kinda fun but there is very little engagement.

And I have to stress how darker the first arc was, despite having a lot more absurd elements during its battles. Everybody was constantly grumpy and ready to choke the life out of their enemies, while the only relevant female was the psychotic mother of Baki, constantly mistreating him so she can have sex with his even more psychotic father. It was edgy at times, but it was also much more enjoyable than the second arc that had a comic relief midget and a dull schoolgirl acting as a generic platonic girlfriend.

What I am getting at here, is that although the story was never something special, the first arc had a linear plot where every major character was somehow significant and was getting fleshed out. The tournament arc had everyone waiting for their turn on the ring. Until then, they had nothing to do besides being spectators who were stating the obvious for what is going on in the current duel. There is no plot to speak of and it quickly became boring. The show is all about muscular guys training and fighting each other just to see who the biggest badass is. In vacuum they are all different and cool, but when binging the show you clearly see how none of them feels important because of their sheer number and lack of permanent focus.

I also have to point out how a big part of the appeal was also Baki’s relationship with his crazy ass father. The two of them are the flagship of the whole series, and we don’t get much of it. Baki stops evolving in the tournament and becomes almost of a blank self insert. His father’s backdrop gets fleshed out, but he is still not doing something other than being a jerk who keeps making his son suffer as means to keep getting stronger.

Third arc

Things seem to improve during the third arc, since the plot goes back to be being about dirty fighting, field tactics, and stealth. It is quickly proven to suffer from the exact same pacing issue as the second arc, with the addition of constantly cutting away every few minutes. Basically, a bunch of convicts go after Baki but they are constantly bumping on the 30 fighters from the previous arc. So again, there is no focus on a few characters. On top of that, since those 30 fighters are no longer standing idle as spectators, they are now constantly jumping in to intervene, or the convicts constantly do tricks to escape and leave the battle inconclusive. On top of that, a fight that is at large is constantly stopped and the scene changes to show us what someone else is doing at the time thus ruining the fun.

Basically, the third arc has the same problem that plagues all stories that go past a tournament. You either never again show the fighters that took part in it, thus making it even more clear of how meaningless it was to spend time on them, or you keep them all around and you need to find something for them to do. The cast was now over 50 fighters doing their daily routine or bumping onto the convicts, making the plot extremely fragmented and unfocused.

On top of that, even if you somehow make a compilation of the fights so they will seem uninterrupted, they are still going to be horrible to look at. The CGI is now everywhere and it makes the characters look like something out of a Playstation 1 era. The android animation is also extremely cheap, as most motions are essentially stills that slide instead of actual motion. Most of the badassery is lost because of it.

I also need to point out how messed up the power scaling is. You never get a clear picture of who is stronger than whom, with the only exception being Baki’s father, who is the strongest man in history. At one scene it seems like A is stronger than B, only to somehow be proven weaker than C, who lost to B. For example, in the first arc Gaia was referred to as the second strongest person in the world, and then the second arc introduces all those fighters who are supposed to be even stronger. Then the third arc introduces the convicts, who are supposed to be even stronger, yet they all get defeated by the lower end of the fighters of the second arc.

The dirty tactics many are using could be used as a justification for why some can get the upper hand in cases where normally they would lose. But as it turns out not even that makes much sense, since the convicts are all crazy powerful on their own, and their dirty tactics are actually making them underperform. Plus, Baki gets a power up in this arc not through training or through some realization but because he lost his virginity. I kid you not; the show treats sex as a power up.

We also don’t get an actual finale, since the story ends without a resolution and it’s yet another case of go read the manga, where you get a whole bunch of arcs that keep going forever. There is never any clear objective or end point, making the whole thing being literally about endless pointless fighting.

Down to it, Grappler Baki is cool at points, but as a whole unfocused and badly directed and animated. It stands no chance next to better produced titles, even if their action is nowhere close as brutal.

I just got done with the final episode and have moved onto the next season upon writing this. I prior to watching this was a huge Baki the Grappler fan regarding the manga. I very much enjoyed the manga, however the first season of Baki falls short for me. Some of the problems I have with the first season are as follows; the art is inconsistent and tends to look weird at times, the anime cut out very enjoyable parts of the manga, the anime was at a too fast of pass. The feeling really isn't there for me, and the manga was very emotional ... for me. The mangas story starts off differently and gets you into the characters and world much faster, giving you a better sense of the atmosphere. Orochi is in the beginning in the manga and its Orochi what else can I say :D. Finally, This adaptation is fine, but could be better. To add, there are a lot of awesome moments in the anime and the characters are dope, just wish the, og, manga would get finished translating to English.

As I finished the first episode of Baki, the thought crossed my mind that there wouldn't be much to say about it. And I was right. Don't expect anything original from this anime. It follows the same old story of a buffed-up brat who wants to be the strongest man in the world. He pushes himself through over-the-top training, life-or-death situations, and brawls against a hundred thugs, a 2.5-meter-tall kid, or some kind of mutant ape to achieve his dream. As a result, he keeps getting stronger, meeting stronger dudes and beating them with stronger blows.

This show is filled with cheesiness, and sometimes, it's god-awful ... and hard to digest. You can expect to see typical cliché characters who are too full of themselves with their manly nonsense, long and tiring speeches during fights between the combatants, explaining their techniques, remembering their oh-so-touching pasts, etc. The typical useless side characters in this show comment on the fights by making some insipid observations or getting impressed over the most childish tactics ever.

It's quite obvious to me that Grappler Baki is a perfect candidate for a genre parody. I mean, I found myself laughing out loud at times when I wasn't even supposed to. But let's be real here, Baki's story is nothing but an unoriginal, uninspiring, and unsubstantial tale about the pride of a manly man who simply wants to outdo himself by beating the crap out of everyone in his way, which is often portrayed as something positive. And don't even get me started on those two messy, badly executed time skips, which had nothing much going on except for Baki becoming stronger and changing his hairstyle.

It's hard to ignore the fact that the characters in this anime lack depth and complexity. Most of them exist solely to be defeated by Baki or his father, engaging in idle chatter during fights or simply filling up some spare airtime. The series swiftly discards quite a few characters, as they serve their purpose as mere cannon fodder. The anime tries to inject some pseudo-dramatic flashbacks during their fights, perhaps in an attempt to falsely imbue them with depth or minimal likability.

As for Baki's father, Hanma Yujirou, we learn three essential things about him: He's very strong. He's a former soldier. He's a real jerk. Yes, that's it. His excessive strength fuels an inflated sense of self, making him believe he can do as he pleases. In a fictional world where every Japanese man is either gigantic or possesses muscles larger than their heads, and personal worth is seemingly measured by how arrogant and brutish one can be, there are no surprises.

Baki's mother fares no better as a character, perhaps worse, given her lack of utility in fights. Everything we learn about her can be condensed into a sentence: a sadistic woman head over heels for Hanma Yujirou. As the anime progresses, this character becomes progressively grating and irksome.

Baki himself starts off as an unlikable brat who lucked into a leading role. He's selfish, immature, and prone to violence. However, he surprisingly morphs into a more polite and tolerable character, with a few redeeming qualities that make him marginally likable. Nevertheless, he remains rather plain, much like the rest of the cast.

Overall, I found Grappler Baki to be mindless yet mildly amusing entertainment.

Punching bag named Baki, is the real title I'd place on this show. It has a very simple premise which doesn't carry the show but gives it enough excuse to glue other ideas on to in attempt to create a coherent story. This story is neither deep nor good, just barely serviceable to provide yet another excuse for yet another fight.

Our main character wants to get stronger, even though at any point in any episode we are told he's already like monster. Episode after episode we are told he is strong, he advanced and overcomes hurdles and yet you don't get any of that from ... actually watching the fights. Every episode there's someone stronger and by the time you realize there are like 50 strongest people between the most strongest and second strongest. It's a mess and you really don't get a sense of scale. Sadly you rarely see him training or doing anything that can be cleverly reincorporated later. There are no techniques or knowledge he gains throughout. Every fight starts with him getting beaten and standing up again and again and again until somehow the opponent loses. It's repetitive and painful to watch.

Am not talking about art and style since the show is pretty old at this point. It's okay but it certainly doesn't stand out from others from same period. Choreography on the other hand is not good. Certainly better than slide shows we got with Fist of the North Star. Here things are at least animated, but sometimes they look as if they are cheating with physics.

Overall, give it a 3-4 episodes if you like the premise. That would give you the idea of what's to come. It doesn't get better, just more of the same. I watched 16 episodes out of boredom and nothing else to watch, but it became too boring to continue. Definitely not a show for binge watching.