Baki

[Minor Spoiler]

What triggered me the most, is that at the beginning, when they introduce the five criminals, it appears that they're as strong as Baki's father. And one of them fought Baki at the first few episodes, but Baki was nothing in comparison to him. However, after few episodes the five criminals started to look so weak (like very very weak), which didn't make any sense. Even two of them together couldn't defeat Baki.

Also, during some of the fights, the animation effects looks so weird and childish. It seems like if it's a video game or something, and it was too awkward to watch.

The ... protagonist character "Baki" becomes so weird in this season and just cares about having sex. After he had sex, he became so strong, which is ridiculous and doesn't make any sense. In the previous seasons he never thought about these stuff. He was just training. But in this season they wasted few episodes just for him being in love and horny af. Also, he didn't fought a real fight in this season, so it was a waste of time.

From someone who just watched the previous seasons before this one, I can say that the writers of this season didn't even watched the previous ones, and they're just putting out their trash. Netflix over here just want to fuck up every Anime that we liked.

This is the worst anime I've ever seen. It's about people fighting against each other except when their spine gets broken into pieces, they not only survive, but start walking the next day like nothing happened. Also, they all refuse to kill each other, which backfires every single time and it just pisses you off as a viewer. Overall, it's not entertaining at all...Let's be honest, It's trash. Just because I say that doesn't mean it isn't entertaining. It's trash but in a good way. If your looking for a action anime with good plot/story and animation, this is not it. Its worth watching because ... it funny and entertaining, not because it's good.

Baki is not good.

It starts out with five criminals escaping and coming after Baki, our main character. After most of a season, Baki hasn't fought anyone without being interrupted midway through. New characters are introduced all the time, so we spend entire episodes building them up. The 5 criminals start going after other people (why?), and there are all these fights between different people I don't care about.

Everyone that matters has super-human abilities that are entirely unexplained, so you have no reference point or expectation about how a fight will go. Think about how Dragonball Z has power levels and levels of Super Saiyan. Or in Yu Yu Hakusho, they have spirit energy and all kinds of different techniques, so there's a focus on disparities between combatants and how they'll win the fight. But in Baki, there's none of this. A naked guy takes 8 shotgun shells point blank, and is fine. Any damage done to an opponent doesn't matter. Cut off a hand? Shatter literally your entire ribcage? None of it matters. The people are fine afterwards, and the fights are super boring because of this.

Anyway, I dropped off before season two. There's zero story, boring fights, characters with little to no backstory. Maybe if I had seen/read other Baki series/manga it would make more sense, but this is a mess.


Baki - 2018


Anyone who knows Baki or has read the manga knows what they are getting into. The story of Baki is not about martial arts, rationality, logic, explanations, or good fights. It's all about the silliest and most bizarre scenario possible that you can write while making a fight. That's about how Baki can be put into words.
Is your face gone? Don't worry, band-aids will take care of it. Your hand is gone? Let's stitch it up! Did you lose 40 liters of blood? Don't worry, just a drop! Have you suffered a fatal injury or are you even dead? Your doctor is your friend and Son of God, he will help you. Combine that with relatively unambitious combat, slow pacing, and at the beginning horrible CGI (EP 5-12) and some of the dumbest dialogue around? Then you have BAKI.

If this still doesn't put anyone off, then you'll either learn to like the anime or you're a masochist and like naked men like I do.

[Story 2]

After winning the tournament from season 2 and defeating his brother in a duel, Baki was considered the strongest man/teenager in Japan. Through the fascinating effect of "synchronicity", 5 extremely dangerous criminals broke out worldwide to challenge Baki because they wanted to taste "defeat".
They came to Japan to show everyone their dirty little tricks (including Dorian's talented voice). Successive battles ensued between the best of the underground arena and the 5 challengers. This repeated over and over for 24 episodes until at some point all 5 had lost so many times that even their brains realized it. Apparently, they have a very different definition of "defeat" which is why it's hard to convince them to do it, otherwise, this season would only have 8 episodes.


If the fights had at least been well-animated there would have been more to enjoy. Unfortunately, several horrible CGI fights put even Beserk 2016 to shame. The pacing itself was also horribly slow, making it hard to enjoy these fights.

And if that's not the worst of it, the narrator also came in and started explaining every possible nonsense for 2 minutes. I thought soon he was going to explain how to breathe.


[Characters 3]

It's Baki, a series in which men fight because they can and befriend each other afterward, exchanging Whats App messages to break their jaws again.
Anyone who came here for character writing, good conversation, or relationships is pretty much in the wrong place. There's none of that here, it's all very half-hearted and, surprisingly, the characters are somehow connected all.

[Baki Logic 10]

Don't forget, humans have an infinite blood reserve, don't worry about something as irrelevant as strawberry juice, you can always top it up.
Sex makes you stronger, that's why there are chads and normal mortals. So never forget the "PeePee Training" as Yujiro put it. Did they have 32x of sex in one night? Counted that many tissues.
Doyle and Retsu have the best romance.

[Music 5 / Animation 4]

The opening and outro are average. The Osts on the other hand decent, unfortunately very rarely heard. Predominantly, only the same ost ever plays.

The animations vary from average to very bad. The backgrounds are at least good to look at and the lighting effects. From the second half of the season, the CGI has fortunately been removed.


[Conclusion 3]


This season had nothing worth mentioning. Just back-to-back fights between the inmates and the fighters. Some confrontations were okay, while others were very boring. With better pacing, and animations, and without the narrator, the whole thing could have been a bit better.

But Baki being Baki, there's nothing you can do about it.

[Enjoyment 4]

I didn't know about the original anime until netflix started the 2018 adaptation. Being an otaku of anime I try to watch all originals before or after seeing the adaptation. After episode 4 of the 2018 version I binged all of Baki the Grappler. I fell in love with the original- a story of growing up, passing romantic and professional ambiguities, breaking the parental fallacy, the ties that allow us to accept new people in our lives based on a common interest or shared experiences, self development, and extended brotherhoods. I was finally happy to find another anime to call Epic.

This adaptation, which seems to ... start well with some funny and impressive characters, ends up being an insult to the original.

Baki's look in his eyes is that of lack of intelligence not that of existential confusion with a mix of determination. The lack of imagination is really pathetic. In a particular case, half the episode was a rewrite and contradiction to the original anime. The fights don't develop in an interesting manner, there's only a couple of characters with intriguing fighting abilities.

All fights are about speed and strength, very little has to do with techniques but rather repetitive brawls where the contextual implication is that suddenly another character is in fact faster and stronger than the other- no fountain of strength, no continuous unraveling of quirky draw dropping skills.

As a person who leaves a little time on Sundays to look at anime, because there's always something to do, I feel cheated out of 80% of the time I spent watching it.

The Netflix formula so far for anime has been aggregating pieces from other anime(s) and an added exaggeration or "americanization" to the likable absurdities of classic anime's such as: Rouroni Kenshin, Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop, Hitman Reborn, Trigun, etc. It was okay the first times around, when Netflix started making animes, but this crossed the line.

Baki cannot be phased by some glass going to his eyes, come on, he's past that already in the original anime. Murderous intent is the only thing anybody has in this anime, all the characters lack style.

I would gladly forget ever seeing this, Bleach and One Piece have tempted me from time to time with all the filler nonsense, but they had my heart before so they at least did well, Netflix just shoved me some lame excuse.

Even if the Story is based on another arch, i doubt its as bad as the anime.

[The worst season in all of Baki]

⪻- Review | Comment and Reflection -⪼

This season starts off pretty good, and at first glance it's a crazy start. They introduce you to the 5 antagonists of the arc who are interested in Baki, and at the same time introduce you to the concept of defeat.

The start is crazy to be sure, but it's actually a cliffhanger trap. Let me explain myself, the concept of defeat is interesting and with a lot of potential, but when I thought about it, it didn't make any sense. If what the prisoners are looking for is defeat and not simply fight ... Baki "because he is the protagonist", then they would have fought Yujiro instead of Baki at first.

Then the other problem apart from the concept and the idea, are the fights. This strengthens what I said earlier that it is a "cliffhanger trap", since the animation looked crazy and the fights were going to be the fucking best anime in terms of animation, but then they come to you with a disgusting CGI, and the 2D animations are static and infumable. The worst thing is how they lengthen the series, fights that could perfectly end in 2 episodes or less, are prolonged unnecessarily.

And what angers me the most, they WASTE old characters from previous seasons. I am referring especially to the Karateka of the previous season (Saidai Tournament) who leaves behind the pride that characterized him so much, and decides to learn and implement the Chinese arts in karate from him. This completely destroys the character, since the main characterization of him was his egocentricity and pride, and in addition to being humiliated in the previous season, he now also loses his pride. And let's not even talk about the new ones ... Dorian had potential, but the end was one more shit, a forced and pretentious personality change. Or we have the blond prisoner whose name I forgot because of how inconspicuous he is, who in the end was another smoke-seller (OH, surprise, Itagaki wasting people and using the typical formula of inflating characters) ... Then there is Speck, who despite not be complex, at least he has personality and imposing and his fight against Hanayama was the best (the only one he rescued). Yanagi is the same as the blond prisoner, but a little stronger. And Hector Doyle is the second and best among the prisoners, despite being possibly the weakest of the five, although he has very questionable actions and his relationship with Retsu seems frigid to me.

Everyone is immortal. Literally, I do not think it is normal that with such brutality that they attack each other, not a single one has died. I also find it very convenient that the doctor is able to adhere one end to the body and that it heals in two weeks.

And with this 2 weeks, I go to the penultimate point ... ITAGAKI'S TIME MANAGEMENT IS HORRIBLE, taking as an example the brother of the medical fighter of the Saidai Tournament, now suddenly he is ultra strong and rivals the prisoners, he is It gives relevance for some reason (?), and all this when not even a month will have passed since the saidai ...

Finally, Baki turns into Gary Stu. He gets Power-Ups for the sake of it, and for that simple reason the author can't even develop or characterize him. Baki lost ALL the charisma that characterized him so much in the first season. That's why I think Baki was a good lead in the first season, but then he gets too bad and he gets horrible, and let's not even talk about his relationship with Kozue that the construction is lousy. That is why he is the protagonist that I hate the most in anime, and he is not at all underrated as many youtubers say.

i believed in this anime from season 1&2 i really like how it was previously done. i dont like the direction or plot idk why the messed up a good anime they always do that.i cant watch any more even if in sub. season 1&2 inspired me but this its like there being lazy or its just a money thing.i dont like how there cutting corners. baki s2 intro sucked but the anime made up for it.this baki 2018 is to aggressive in a bad way. there missing the mark.
the way the plot is implemented far as how baki gets strong to beat his dad ... is chessey,and it seems to have a art down grade.this anime is not getting the proper respect.and characters are to big an bulky ...like way to abnormally muscular for no reason. its distastfull ,its to in your face in a way.

they should keep the feud between his dad going past 26 eps...there needs to be alot of changes...im dis appointed.that dark dant seriouse art stlyle is not cuttin it for me. screw the manga.. the villains were brought in a terrible direction.

the dialogue is cheesy everything looks slaped together. like.. well ok where going to do this and fans are still going to watch o hows my pay check going to look..... o what the heck lets crap all over this anime..

Gets a 3 from me.
I haven't seen any other season or read any baki. Going into this it looked really good, the animation looked sick, the idea and action scenes looked great.

*Spoilers*

5 Episodes in it was going alright, there are escaped criminals that are portrayed as beasts and very dangerous and it's set up baki and his friends will be fighting these guys on the streets no rules whenever they see each other to the death. Alright, I'm excited, this has my attention.

Then it all goes seriously downhill. The first of the criminals finally has his first real fight. The match is sort of back ... and forth but by the end it is clear baki's friend is very superior. This fight wasn't extremely bad and I thought this was the 1st criminal to go down, he is probably the weakest.

It just gets worse and worse after the 1st criminal goes down. It soon becomes apparent that these criminals are extremely weak and they get beat down 1 after the other in absolutely 1 sided fights. It became essentially a show of watching professional fighters beat down what looked like randoms off the street.

Next, in the beginning these criminals killed their captors to escape prison and meant to kill baki and friends, well after those initial jailbreaks there is pretty much no death. Baki nor any of his friends die in these encounters, nor do any of the criminals. The lack of repercussions made it very boring.

I’m really not sure how so many people like Baki.
It’s one of the ugliest anime’s I have ever seen in my entire life.
The story is ok, the characters are weird, which is usually fine.
But damn. It’s a little too weird. The villains are OP. The dialogue is pretty bad. The set pieces suck.
The only thing to really watch this for is for gore, and if you’re like some gym tiktoker who likes anime and want someone to model your body after. It’s really not interesting, or enjoyable beyond going like “oooh!” “Geeeez!” “Oof, wow!”
It’s like. A dumb. Jock anime. To watch ... with your dumb jock friends to see people fight and have reactions to the gore.
It’s truly a mediocre anime for mediocre NPCs.

Probably one of the worst fighting animes I've seen since darkstalkers.
The animation is great sure, and there is nothing wrong with the voice acting.. it is just so terrible at telling a story and keeping focus. The padding and long drawn side characters would easily give dragon ball Z a run for its money. It quickly built up this great premise of 5 villains vs 5 good guy fighters including the main character, and then does none of it. It likes to bring in new characters all the time, give them an episode or two, then drop them by the wayside.

Without ... spoiling I'm going to try and give you an example. One of the few fights the main character has. In the side plot during this fight 2 characters get together and go over in great detail the powers of the villain in the fight. 80% of this fight is them talking about something that goes by almost instantly when they go back to the fight. they could have cut that, given the villain a single line, and saved you 20 minutes of needless exposition.

The entire anime is like this! Exposition on top of exposition, a lot of talking instead of showing. for an action fighting anime it is utterly ridiculous. They could easily cut an entire season out, write proper dialog for the people who are actually in a fight, and stop wasting your time.

If you are looking for a good fighting anime this is not it.
Skip it, or watch it with a fast forward button.

Ok, so I really dislike Baki. I was fully expecting a somewhat brain dead anime (poor/minimal plot) that would at least be a fun to watch due to it being combat orientated as that is what Baki essentially is.
To the cut to the chase, the absolute defining negative that makes this anime painful to watch is its complete and total lack of animation consistency. Baki constantly swaps between 2d and 3d animation at such a pace that it's just painful, there often only being 10 seconds between the two styles swapping and during the fight scenes that goes down to as little as 3 ... seconds.

TLDR: due to how often the animation switches between 3d and 2d i found Baki to be an absolute slog devoid of any "that was enjoyable" moments.

I came into this anime open minded having heard it was similar to Kengan Ashura, an anime I had recently watched and loved and highly recommend. I hadn't seen any of the prequel earlier Baki shows and was only looking for a show with good violence and intense fight scenes and was severely disappointed.

Story 2/10
This show promised so much from the first episode and kept me invested enough just from that to keep watching, but it was just so awful and boring. The story does not give what it promises. This whole show felt like a cluster fuck of mismanaged characters, obvious plot holes, ... and disappointing fights. Episodes 1-10 was just watching hoping that what they promised from the first few episodes would come soon. Episodes 10-15 was the slow realization that what I'm watching now is not going to get any better and episodes 15-26 was just me trying to force myself to finish since I'm already so far in. If you manage to make it to the end without dropping this show and blowing your brains out, it does end on a high note similar to episode 1 promising an interesting season 3 in which a Baki in a weakened state will participate in a grand centurial tournament against the strongest fighters in the world. If you still do want to watch this anime I would start from season 3 when it comes out because I don't think it's possible for the creators to make anything worse than what seasons 1 and 2 were.

Art 3/10
The art felt rushed and under budgeted. Having a show which revolves around fights between the strongest in the world you would think that these fights would be captivating, thrilling, and well animated, but this was not the case with Baki. The characters faces are so ugly to look at it, it looks like something I'd draw if I was trying to make an anime face. They also go for the giant muscley bodies doing poses like Jojo does, but they go even further with it. I don't mind if that's your thing, but it wasn't that cool to me. The fights all felt clunky and ugly with cg woven in which I don't mind if they do it well, but they just did it wrong. Admittedly, there were a few good scenes in fights here and there, but in total the art was pretty awful.

Sound 6/10
Nothing special here that I noticed. I didn't enjoy the intros very much.


Character 2/10
Having a show named solely after the main character Baki you would think he would be the focus of the show, but there were so many side characters with dull personalities it was just so boring. The main character was garbage too, I think of a cast of 20+ characters only 2 were worthwhile. Pulling from another review I read and whole heartedly agree with "the main character at times seemed a little autistic". I watched the entire thing in dub so this might've influenced my opinion, but the dialogue was moronic, choppy, and awful. The voice actors themselves seemed fine, but the script they were speaking from just said the dumbest shit at times. Also, the romantic interest was ugly and said the stupidest things it made me want to skip parts of episodes that she was talking in.


Enjoyment 3/10
I enjoyed the first 2 episodes, one or two decent (not great) fights, and then the last episode. There was also a sex scene of the main character losing his virginity that I didn't enjoy, but if that's what you want to watch just skip to episode 17 & 18.

Overall 3/10
Just do yourself a favor and PLEASE don't waste your time on this and watch Kengan Ashura instead if you're in the mood for an intense, violent, fighting anime. Kengan Ashura is what this anime wishes it could be. Other recommendations I saw that are similar to this and good are Megalo Boxing and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure parts 1&2.

SPOILERS ahead. You've been warned.

The story takes place in Japan around the late 90s or early 2000s, I'm actually confused about this part as we don't get much information about what year it is. Five completely unrelated death row inmates from various locations around the world manage to escape from prison, leaving the same message that says they are heading for Tokyo to "taste defeat".

Why Tokyo? - because according to the synopsis our boy Baki who "trains with an intense focus to become strong enough to surpass his father" (who is known to be "the world's strongest creature") lives there, so for some weird ... reason they go to challenge him instead of... his father... yea, this part doesn't make much sense.

Although if I have to be honest I would say that I liked the premise, it was the execution itself that was a huge disappointment for me. Of course since it is an anime I expected some of the characters to have superhuman powers and stuff like that, even the fact that throughout the entire anime we don't really see Baki (or anyone else for that matter) actually "training" despite most of the characters looking like some anabolic monster taken from last year's Mister Olympia didn't really bother me.

But as the anime says "A martial artist's job is to break human bodies", the problem is that it is literally impossible in the world of "Baki". All we see is the same characters causing catastrophic damage to their opponents bodies just so they can bleed a little and continue fighting later on.

Cutting someone's throat - don't worry, he just needs a band-aid
Losing your arm - we'll reattach it
Hundreds of broken bones including the entire spine - will be able to walk again in next scene
Almost gets his head cut off and is left to bleed for like a day - he will be fine once we get him to the hospital, also reattach!
Deadly explosion - just few burns on his skin, nothing serious
Getting shot by a shotgun at point blank range - not even a scratch

Sorry but how am I supposed to take any of the fights seriously, I literally felt that they would've survived even a nuclear blast at that point. I'm honestly confused about how are you supposed to "kill" someone in "Baki". None of the significant characters ever dies. Even all the blood and gore felt meaningless as it rarely led to any permanent injury.

Not only that but the anime keeps throwing new and new characters to the mix. The viewer simply doesn't have enough time to establish any connection with them or whatsoever, it feels like they are appearing out of nowhere just to fight a bit and disappear again few episodes later. Baki's brother, those Karate guys, the criminals, the Chinese dude, we even had Muhammad Ali and his son for some reason. There was so little explanation or backstory that it felt as I've jumped directly into season 6 of this show. So many things were incomplete or didn't make sense.

Art - mediocre also excessive gore and some annoying CGI

One of the few positive things I find about this anime is the only female character - Baki's girlfriend. I didn't expect much of her but my expectations were subverted. Despite her generic looks and the lack of any special powers she's manages to become strong (in her own way) and earn some of the viewers respect but far from enough to compensate for the complete mess this anime is.

Disclaimer: haven't seen the original series.

Had high hopes for this series the first couple of episodes. Fairly basic premise. Five escaped convicts versus the main character Baki and 4 other fighters. Seems like it's setting up a five on five death match, with no rules. Which it is. Until they introduce another character to the "good guys" side, then another one, then another one, then another one. Some of them showing up solely to defeat a criminal with no lead up or introduction. Some of the master fighter criminals go down with barely any resistance in the later episodes.

Baki is barely involved in most ... episodes, and completely absent from several. Most of his screen time revolves around him and his girlfriend, culminating in them sleeping together which gives him a big power boost for some reason.

Overall, cannot recommend.

Five men, all considered some of the most violent and dangerous criminals in the world await death row. Each one locked in high-security prisons across several continents unbeknownst to each other and, as if by sheer coincidence, break out from their penitentiaries and head for Tokyo Japan. Their goal: to challenge the fighting champion of the underground Baki Hanma in the hopes of finally tasting defeat.

Baki is somewhat of an anomaly when talking about the series in depth. On the surface Baki comes across as the stereotypical shounen following a teenage boy training to become the world’s strongest fighter, a label currently held by his ... father Yujiro Hanma. However, when delving deeper into the story, Baki manages to encapsulate the concept of fighting and the themes that tie with such. The struggles, sacrifices and suffering felt when facing an almost unachievable goal, the unbridled enjoyment of experiencing your passion to the fullest and even the jaded, dreary perception that can set in when constantly at the pinnacle of one’s field of interest – all are just some of the core ideas the series is firmly rooted in and all remain prevalent in this adaptation of Baki.

This version is set shortly after the Maximum Tournament arc, acting as a direct continuation to the past TV adaptations of Baki almost 2 decades ago, but still serves a solid entry point for newcomers of the franchise. The first OP gives enough backstory on its own – Baki wins a fighting tournament and is crowned the world champion, but that title behaves more like a proverbial target on his back, attracting the group of convicts whose unmatched strength had led each to grow bored of life and now seek to challenge the young prodigy. This premise eventually leads to a showdown between the death row inmates and Baki alongside other underground martial artists prominent in past seasons; a 5-on-5 no holds barred match where fights are free to run amok between fighters anytime and anyplace, which would also include various other characters in this battle between discipline and technique against sheer brutality and ability. It’s an arc that easily creates excitement and anticipation as to how such a story will play out, but the execution of this turns out to be a mixed bag depending on your expectations for the anime.

The plot for this arc, while it may seem grand on paper is actually fairly simplistic; progression and development are both dependent on fights between martial artists with at least one character gaining something from each encounter, from a newfound strategy to beat an opponent if they ever fight again to realizing weaknesses that keep themselves from becoming stronger. One would think this approach would make each fight more meaningful and hold more weight, except that when reflecting back most fights in this show came off forgettable and even sporadic, the latter being the result of very poor structure and pacing. Baki has a habit of introducing new characters and flashbacks at random points in the story, with some flashbacks being as long as 10 minutes in the middle of a match. It’s a habit that seriously disengages the viewer from the tension and unpredictability that this arc is founded upon, to an unpardonable extent with how often this is bound to happen. This kind of storyboarding is what constantly brings down my engrossment of the narrative here as it continues onward, meanwhile the eventual outcome of this arc is seriously underwhelming given how each of the five criminals are written off so unevenly. The lack of a succinct structure results in some antagonists being beaten in quick fashion in order to build towards the next arc of Baki and thus required bringing past characters back into the mix to do just that. Narratively, it looked to be full of ideas and potential develop but lacked a clear direction and framework to present the arc in a carefully planned and orderly manner.

The character development for Baki is also lacklustre to an extent. Characters in Baki can often be considered embodiments of their chosen martial arts style, with the values and overarching philosophy of each forging the minds, bodies and souls of their practitioners. Through this understanding the show probably appears to be stacked with many distinct personalities to play with at the writer’s leisure, yet it remains difficult for many to leave a strong impression on the audience. Partly due to awkward plotting as stated earlier, but also apparent is a lack in clear focus and development to keep most characters important. The events are often made out as more vital than the characters taking part in them. This leads to not only a declining interest in the fights as the series continues, but also makes the majority of characters used here more likely to be lost in the shuffle and only used when convenient.

Baki as a whole has always been primarily about Baki Hanma, the protagonist, and his father Yujiro, the strongest creature on Earth both feared and respected by all. These two are constantly integral parts to the overall story as they should be, yet to witness so many side characters be treated so sparingly can be disheartening to say the least. However, my biggest problem with this adaptation when it comes to characters is with its handling of the main character Baki Hanma. This is a problem that I feel is more prominent to those who have followed the series from the beginning and have seen Baki grow from the hot-headed impulsive gifted brat to an exceptional fighter worthy of being called a champion. But in this arc, Baki appears…. different. Not only is his personality more laid-back but his train of thought and subsequent actions at times come off somewhat autistic. It’s a take on the character that I had never envisioned or pictured, not only acting as the cause for several awkward moments, but also frankly feeling like a betrayal of the character that I remembered watching and reading. Baki still receives his own development throughout this arc, moving from a reserved anxious style of fight to the spirited, confident attitude that made him such a force to be reckoned with. Except for when you find out this change and increase of strength is solely due to Baki losing his virginity.

I wish I was making that up.

If you were to read Baki in its manga counterpart, one of the first aspects that would catch your eye would be the artstyle. There is a keen eye for detail in not only making each technique such a crucial part of the series, but in making the character designs such exaggerated portraits of strength in the human anatomy. A clear expression of weight and power through this absurdist aesthetic creates a strangely beautiful sense of art that further pushes Baki from the standard shounen manga series. If you were to watch this version of Baki, the visuals would easily be the first part that grabs your attention. But unfortunately, the visuals here are kind of trash. It is certainly an improvement from previous installments, but comparing it to the quality of its contemporaries, this has so many glaring issues. Designs have a habit of appearing out of perspective on different angles, animation for the most part is cheap and the juxtaposition of 2D and 3D animation is so god awful it is near impossible for viewers to take most fights seriously. It also doesn’t help that the fight choreography makes the battles come across more turn-based than a Pokemon game. For one of the most jarring experiences I have ever had for watching an anime. I’m honestly surprised how I can say a show with so many technical issues can still be tolerable, but here’s the crazy thing: I actually enjoyed the show.

Earlier I called Baki an anomaly, and this entry in the franchise is no different. Baki (2018) is honestly an insane show that should not be so entertaining to watch, from both faults in production and writing. But here we are, with a series seemingly unbridled in taking action and martial arts to the irrational, all whilst taking itself absolutely seriously. This level of sincerity is almost palpable through every episode and makes it difficult not getting drawn into the bizarre logic of Baki, no matter how grating the lack of fluid animation and coherent writing may get. In this arc, Baki takes the leap of embracing its own ridiculousness to evolve into a genuine spectacle for the eyes that is hard to not take notice of, and with the finale acting as a teaser to a possible continuation of the story, I expect that the best of Baki is still yet to come.

Any spoiler is in just first episode.

I wanted to watch this anime, because it includes a lot of violence. But what I wasn't prepared to see is total nonsense. I gave very low rating even if I just watched one episode. What do I mean when I say nonsense. Guy just blow some air in to other guy ear, and his brain went true his other ear in pieces. I was prepared to watch people fight, not sci-fi. Overall animation is decent, I can't tell much about the story, but what I heard form my friends it's good. I think that anime is actually quite ... good, but it wasn't what I expected. Maybe I was wrong, and anime deserves one more chance. If you thing so, can you write down why. :D

I took me quite a while to get to this anime, based on the cover and synopsis it seemed like I would have no interest at all in it, being a Netflix Original I also wanted to stay far away from it. Though one day I decided that I don't know what to watch and Baki was there, so I had it playing in the background, slightly watching it as a time-waster while I played games on my PC. But oh boy is it not even good for that.

On your initial glance, Baki seems to be an anime about big beefy dudes fighting each other ... with little to no clothes on, blood coming out of places you would not expect it to be, muscles bulging and touching each other, and 90% of the sweat on the characters not being their own. Yes, on initial glance Baki appears to be a gay porn series focused on the BDSM Fetish. But you dear reader would be wrong because unlike in Baki, those porn stars have to actually do something to keep the watcher's attention and their switch turned on. Baki on the other hand does not do that. It's constant jump shots and action scenes that you think are pretty good until CGI so horrible it makes you want to gag come in. Jimmy Neutron would be disappointed... (To those who don't understand JN was the series to popularize the trend of CGI animation over hand-drawn). Even without the CGI scenes, the art itself isn't very good but sometimes it is? :/ If there was a way for me to describe the art of Baki I would go with ugly. Not because the characters are ugly but the overall art style just isn't that good, like some characters and scenes only look decent when it's a front shot, otherwise their body would be bending in inhuman directions much the same way that in games, when a player died, their player model would glitch out and extend all their joints.

Even with a bad art style, I can enjoy a show enough if the story is good, such as the later Berserk seasons. However, with Baki, the story was simply meh. It's a show that's simply violence because of violence, there is no plot to the point I got to other than violence and to beat the other people as best you can. It's just not my type of anime, if it's yours then by all means dive right in but for me no. You can have a good story in a show that has over-the-top violence, and the point is violence (see Hellsing, Berserk, etc.) but with Baki, it seemed like there is none other than another quick cash grab from Netflix. My biggest complaint of the series is the CGI. There are just so many random switches from CGI to drawn back to CGI and then back to hand-drawn. Such as in one episode it went from a hand-drawn fight sequence to a scene of CGI was all it was, was a character simply just standing there. It's lazy and causes a lack of flow in the anime.

Perhaps I was going into Baki expecting more than what I received but I genuinely did not enjoy this anime, while some of the fight scenes were well done, the voice acting was great, and the music is good, the CGI and the jump cuts that almost put to shame the whiplash sound effect in Johnny Test, ruined my experience with it. Yes, it was that bad. There are scenes that are done in CGI that should not be such as a character standing there, two characters talking to each other while standing still, and someone walking into frame, these scene constantly just ruined the 2D style of the majority of Baki and the more you watch, the more prevalent the CGI becomes.

For me, this anime is too painful to watch, even as a time-waster.

This show is painfully cringe. I could only sit through 2 episodes before getting bored of it. A buddy of mine tried showing it to me and I was sitting there trying my hardest not to laugh, but couldn't since he was taking it seriously.

The show tries its hardest to be taken seriously and from the way it sounds, it seems like it would be a serious, enjoyable martial arts anime, yet it isn't. These are supposed to be normal people with god-tier genetics and some inhuman feats, but at the end of the day they are still human. Fair enough, still doesn't sound ... too bad.

But when I'm supposed to sit there and take it seriously when Baki punches the air so fast that it starts punching back? Or when a US Military General(or major i can't remember) walks up to Baki and tells him he needs to resolve his issues with Yujiro cause them fighting would be like to countries at war? Or even when were told that not even disease can't kill Yujiro cause of how strong his is.

If superpowers were written into Baki and implemented into it then it would be good. The art style isn't my favorite but it's far from bad. The base line story seems fairly interesting, but it's like those moments mentioned above that just make the show difficult to sit through.

The first season of the Netflix Baki anime has a fantastic plot that kept me engaged from start to finish. The animation, while not the best, is still good enough to be enjoyable. The art style is not my favorite, but it doesn't take away from the overall experience.

The characters in this anime are well-developed and have their own unique personalities and backgrounds. The English voice acting is top-notch and really brings the characters to life.

One of the strong points of this anime is its diversity. It features a wide range of characters from different countries and backgrounds, which helps to create a more interesting ... and dynamic world.

Unfortunately, the enjoyment factor was not as high as I would have liked. The pacing can be a bit slow at times and the story-telling could be improved. The music and sound effects are decent, but the openings and endings are forgettable.

Overall, while Baki is seen as a masterpiece to many due to its unorthodox method of storytelling, this was not the case for me. While the action and shounen elements were strong, the drama and mysteries could have been handled better. I was initially interested in the anime, but the first few episodes did not resonate with me and I ended up putting it on hold.

Despite its flaws, I am still curious about the next season of Baki and will be watching it.

Fans of “Baki” already know what to expect. Where the show becomes more interested in establishing a strange and improbable situation between fights, rather than martial arts, logic, sense of coherence and explanations or intense battles. One would wonder how it is possible that even serious injuries, which could be facial wounds or severed hands, can easily be handled if only using simple means like band aids and stitches. The show is not about blood loss or even death because here, there is a divine doctor who can even resurrect people from the threshold of death. The fights themselves, however are not all that inspiring ... and can be slow-paced, the CGI in some episodes leaves a lot to be desired. The dialogue can also be weird. However, if these eccentricities don't bother you, you may enjoy the show or appreciate its unusual style.

In the second season, after winning the title of the strongest man in Japan and defeating his brother in a duel, Baki is challenged by five dangerous criminals who emerge from around the world due to "synchronicity." They come to Japan to fight the best in the underground arena, and the cycle continues for 24 episodes until the challengers finally understand the concept of defeat. Nonetheless, bad CGI battles and slow pacing make the fights not as exciting. Besides, there is an occasional interruption by a narrator with some nonsensical details, and that makes the show further confusing.

Characters are not well developed and their relationships are shallow. They are somehow related to each other, however. The show has its own weird logic, for example the scene that sex enhances strength and also that blood loss is not a problem. Finally, there is an odd romance between Doyle and Retsu.

The music itself is average and the animation quality ranges from mediocre to poor. The backgrounds and lighting effects are visually appealing, but the poor CGI in certain episodes becomes a weakness.

In general, this season can be a hit or miss with viewers as some fights are interesting and others aren’t. Pacing, animation, and the absence of narrator are some areas that could have been better but like it boils down to being an acquired taste not so much due to its style itself but for what is done with the result.

I didn't watch the previous anime, I only saw enough to know it was bad. This one is bad too. If different studios are adapting the same guy's work and they both do a bad job, I'm inclined to think the manga must suck (which I have not read). Baki is a simp retard who is getting constantly shit-tested by his girl but he's so hopelessly in love that he lets her walk all over him. Nothing in the show is realistic. People live through ridiculous crap and characters that should die don't because the writer has no talent and needs to keep the story ... going. Other characters have unrealistic cartoony deaths because the writer couldn't come up with story reasons for people to die. This series is entertaining for a few episodes, but nothing makes sense, it's all nonsense. That's all that needs to be said about this show.

Are you into senseless, brutal violence and nothing else? Then this is the show for you. This was my first exposure to Baki and I have to say that this is very disappointing and felt like a waste of time. I just pulled through the show to finish it and to give it a shot after it was hyped so much. This is not even a good action anime there are way better shows out there you can invest your time on.

The anime is very inconsistent. There are 5 criminals who are dangerously strong and are held at high-security specialized prisons (the prisons are specialized ... to hold them) they all break out and come to Tokyo to find Baki Hanma and defeat him. A couple of episodes in one of the criminals finds Baki and completely annihilates him. Later, about midway into the series, Baki is able to defeat not only him but another one of the 5 criminals. While this is a common trope in action anime, there is nothing that shows how Baki got stronger.

Don't even get me started on that weird love story that came out of nowhere and Baki only seems to care about sex. There is nothing likable about Baki as a lead character that the show is named after and none of the characters is likable or memorable.

The art in the show is another downfall, although it is consistent the animation itself is weird and doesn't flow well. I'm a strong believer that action anime use the platform to its maximum potential, with great angles and dynamic camera work and character expressions of which none are seen here, there are a couple of close-ups and so on but, it's more childish than impressive.

This is one of those shows that people who don't watch action anime watch and use as an example to generalize and complain about all action anime, which I don't blame them for but, triggers me.

Kengan Ashura is a better show compared to this and it is just as senseless and violent. It is also CGI which I was skeptical about. While it has a lot of its own downfalls and is not a great show in any regard. It has a simple premise that holds the series together and gives it structure, whereas Baki is just all over the place and doesn't know what it's doing due to the lack of any structure or a clear story.

Final verdict, looks buff and strong but, Baki throws a weak punch, just dodge it. You're better off watching any other anime.