Jun 20, 2020
[SPOILER WARNING]
Baki was one of the first animes that I watched, but I soon dropped it. After giving it another try after watching Baki the Grappler, I very much enjoyed it. Unfortunately, almost all of the things I enjoyed about the first season are no longer present in the second. In hindsight, I wish i kept Baki dropped, or at least stopped after the first season. I will state my major problems with the second season, which is where the spoiler warning will come into play.
First: The Raitai Tourney
This tournament was set up to be spectacular, but did not live up to it (to me).
...
Firstly, the major problem coming into this season was Baki being poisoned. Him being cured right away dispels any notion that he was really in danger. Secondly, most of the fights aren't very unique, and are massively one sided. Even the biggest challenger her, Sea Emperor Kaku, was set up to pose a threat to Yujiro, but was such a pussy that he literally died during the fight and claimed that he "didn't lose." Ok, whatever dude. Keep trying to be profound when you're really just a twat. Even when the tourney ended, I expected them to keep going. While it was a team battle, it was a tourney first, and I expected the remaining winners to fight each other, but it simply ended. Raitai Tournament - disappointing.
Second: Muhammad Ali Jr.
I very much liked Junior when he was first introduced. I thought having the son of Muhammad Ali as a main character was quite strange, but I liked him regardless. It's a shame, because he turned out to be such a shallow and weak character. Baki the Grappler had characters who appeared to be shallow, when in fact they were not, such as Jack and Igari. Junior, however, was cocky, arrogant, and hypocritical. These do not make him a bad character. However, he does not change. He sticks to these traits as if they were great morals. However, after getting his ass pounded by numerous fighters who were all inferior to Baki, he still believes that he even has the right to challenge the champion. Even when he loses, he cries as if to make it seem like he believed he was going to win. An annoying moment was when multiple experienced characters proclaimed that Junior would beat Baki, making me question their own sanity. The author wrote that to make the audience believe Baki is an underdog going into this fight, when in actuality anyone who has seen what he has done wouldn't believe that crap. And why did he want to fight Baki so badly? It was for 2 reasons: to be the strongest and to win Kozue. The first is a stupid reason because everyone knows that Yujiro is stronger than Baki. In fact, in Baki the Grappler, everyone wanted to fight Yujiro, not his son. So Junior is essentially fighting Baki over a hollow title, revealing his own shallowness. Second is Kozue. This right here was what really sunk the show for me. Junior seems to want to provoke Baki into fighting him, so he goes after Baki off the fighting grounds, and challenges him for Kozue. He asks to marry her and continues seeing her afterwards. As a man, no as a person who tries to do the right thing, I can say that this is a super shitty way to get someone to fight you especially after Baki revealed Kozue belongs to no one. Its just shitty. You know she is dating Baki and you ask to marry her and try to convince her to go out with you? He said he thought she was the most beatiful person he knew, and he had only met her twice, without much conversation. Superficial and fraudulent. This is a fighting anime, why am I writing about the romance aspect? Why does anyone care about the romance in an anime where people beat the crap out of each other? Why was this such an integral part of the show? Seriously, fuck this guy. The best part of season 2 was when he got his ass handed to him 5 times in a row.
Third: Kozue
Oh brother! Kozue was actually a very good character when first introduced and in the previous season. She was an individual character, more than simply a side piece to Baki, even though she was only seen with him. They also seemed to have a deep connection, and "true love." She supported him when she disagreed with him, and she stuck by him all the time, even when he was weak and dying. I wish someone would explain to me why this "true love" of theirs is so weak that she almost dumps Baki for a person she had met twice. Ali Jr., the boy with insatiable yellow fever, who stated he despises Baki, only likes her for her looks, and only asked her to marry him to get to Baki in the first place, was somehow charming enough that she entertained him. She consistently went out with him after he proclaimed that they would get together, which was straight disloyal to Baki. On top of that, not once did she outright deny him or reject his advances. She said "no!" when he kissed her, but she still continued to see him. She also told him not to expect anything more than just a friend, but (and I may be reaching here), this can also mean that she would get with him, it would simply be unexpected. By the end of the season, it seemed like she was not even with Baki anymore. She was going out with Junior far more often than Baki, she seemed to be upset when Baki was beating the crap out of him, and she actually told Baki she was going home alone and went to console Junior. When i was watching the first season, I saw a few people online who very much disliked her, and were glad she disappears in the manga. Now I understand why.
Fourth: Point of View
Like I said earlier, Kozue was going out quite often with Junior. In fact, after the Raitai Tournament, we almost exclusively see the story from Junior's point of view. At what point did the show stop being called "Baki" and became "Junior"? Did I previously watch "Baki the Grappler" or did I watch "Muhammad Ali, Jr. the Grappler"? I have seen this same criticism of Hajime no Ippo, yet there it was Ippo's gym partner and friend, Takamura, with Ippo still showing up frequently and having a claim to being the main character. Here, Baki almost disappears from the second half of the show, to what? Show a guy who gets his ass whooped by the guy who got HIS ass whooped by the MC back in 2001? Baki is not a great MC, but he is far better than whatever that was.
Fifth: Final Thoughts
An anime I previously watched was Rising of the Shield Hero. In that anime, bad things continually happen to the MC, which is set up for him to overcome these things and turn them on their head. The second season of Baki is written as if you asked a preschooler to writer the same story, but with a different characters and a different setting, all in Mandarin. And the child is a white kid from America who doesn't even know that Mandarin exists. The show got me worked up and angry over what should be minor parts of the show, only to let me know at the end that this show was not worth watching. Some anime you watch for a message, to feel profound or something, and some you watch to be entertained. Baki is the second. Shows like Gurren Lagann, Hunter X Hunter, Overlord, and the first season of Baki all do this (to varying degrees of success). In the first season of Baki, we saw numerous characters that we knew faced with new ones, and all of them beat the shit out of each other in brutal and grotesque ways. In the downtime between fights, we saw the main character and his first love go through a heartwarming relationship and growth. Even in episodes 25-48 of Baki the Grappler, we saw nonstop action, with Baki and Kozue beginning to enter a relationship with each other for the first time. This formula is not genius level, but it works. Why deviate from this to give an action show with mediocre action, where the last half of the show if about a shitty love triangle, and the most important part of the triangle isn't even there! Dude! What the fuck were you thinking when you wrote this crap! I've never written an actual review before, but this made me so angry I had to. It is not pretentious garbage like Devilman Crybaby (I know that is an unpopular opinion), so why did it aspire to be like that? My time is wasted, and my day is ruined.
I don't expect anyone to read this, but if you are and managed to read all of this nonsense, or skimmed it, feel free to send me hate mail, complain, and even agree. Or not.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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