Hanma Baki

Hanma Baki is the third part of the Baki franchise and can also be considered the climax of the series. The story is about Baki Hanma, the protagonist of the story and his quest to one day defeat his father, Yujiro Hanma. Some people finding this aspect of the show ‘boring’; however, there are tons of similar shows that have an already established singular goal. Baki develops his fighting prowess by fighting stronger opponents throughout the series and the focal point of the story was never Baki vs Yujiro only. What is more important is the way in which the story develops until the final goal is reached. And this is something that Baki does very well. There is some good quality character development in the series such as the relationship progression between Yujiro and Baki as well as the development of other side characters like Katsumi. Furthermore, Baki has a lot of exaggerated concepts and can be termed ‘ridiculous’ and ‘absurd’. This is a strength of Baki because of the author Itagaki’s ability to cross the line of realism but not so far to the point that it feels unrealistic. Most concepts of Baki are drawn from real-world concepts and incorporated into the series using exaggeration, this makes almost every concept unique and entertaining. When it is combined with the art, the techniques/strikes feel very dynamic and impactful. It makes fights a lot more enjoyable.
If you enjoy badass fighting manga with a deep affection for martial arts, this series is at the top.

Do you like big muscular men that were clothes that leaves little to the imagination pounding each others faces in? Well boy do i have a great testosterone filled ultra violent martial arts manga just for you!

While the story isn't anything that will make your jaw drop the art and fights puts any battle manga to shame. The fighting is raw, gritty and follows true martial art styles but pumps them up to 11. Strikes that are faster than the human eye, fists that can brake through solid iron and muscle structure impossible for the human race are still here while never dropping it's realistic martial arts roots.

The art is amazing and really is the highlight of the manga! Itagaki, Keisuke really know how to make every panel count and when the fighting is in full force the art shines even more with striking poses and amazing fight choreography. The characters are also good. They are not anything outstanding but they do a great job of feeling intimidating and as an obstacle for Baki while still having enough character so the reader can feel joy in victory and sadness in defeat.

All in all Hanma Baki is an amazing martial arts manga. Its amazing and memorable fights and over the top violence will have you hooked from start to finish. Read it if you haven't already.

Hanma Baki's initial storyline closed! Hanma Baki finally shows us the plot end we have been waiting for. Battles between the strongest and between the two strongest on earth! This story has to be the best one up to this point. The action was awesome, the dialogue was awesome, and the relationships progressing was awesome. This part has some of the sickest and brutal fight sequences out of any of the previous series. The sheer masterful, imaginative, awe inspiring techniques, and pure wildness displayed are beautiful. The art insanely detailed and better than ever before. The muscle structures are beautiful and mighty, inspiring enough to make me keep at it in the gym. With each installment the series gets more ferocious and endearing. The dialogue interesting as always, although sometimes repeating itself to much, maybe a fan translation problem. The atmosphere and climaxes being built are stunning. The hype and thrill this story has built on to finally reach its purest form yet, everything coming together and delved even deeper on. The characters relations coming together even stronger, feeling even more real and relatable. The story is still as wacky as ever, full of all the fun and silliness we love! All i can say at this point is you got to read this story, its similar to something like One Piece, the long build and slow atmosphere building feels so worth it all. I feel very happy i decided to continue this series! Everyone has got to read this awesome, manly, and wild story.

Hanma Baki is without a doubt the in my mind the most consistently amazing martial arts manga ever written, if not the best martial arts media of all time. 3 masterclass sagas, back to back. The Prison arc, with the manliest duel I've ever seen, as well as the wonderful weirdness of Oliva vs Baki. Then we get to the raw savage action of the Pickle saga, with Katsumi Orochi surpassing his limits to land possibly the strongest single strike in the history of Baki's world, even surpassing the likes of the iron tail of the Tyrannosaurus Rex or the giant weight of the Supersaurus. Jack's biggest "fuck you" in history. And then my lord, the fantastic father and son duel. Perfectly executed for what Itagaki was going for.

Where should I start with this? The good in the story? The bad? The average? What the arcs are, and which ones are important and not important?

I'll start with simply assuming that people know of the first two manga. If you haven't, then it is a must before reading the third part. You cannot go into this manga with no backstory or background information and expect everything to be clear and satisfying in the end.

Also, spoilers. I'll even give a few warnings as to what to expect for those that are more 'sensitive'.

This manga has "4" arcs to it. Or, maybe I should say, 3 major arcs and a mini-arc to the side.

The first arc is a mix of three things: Good, forgettable, and could have been cut shorter. How is it possible for these three to exist in one? Well, here we go. Long story short, Baki tries to get into the same prison as Biscuit. How? I'll leave it for you as a surprise to find out. Bottom line is that he wants to fight and beat him before facing his father. Between his entrance to the prison and the fight, everything could have been cut out. We finally meet Biscuit's girlfriend, so she can stay. But everybody else except for Baki, the girlfriend and Biscuit, can go to the land of nonexistence and forgetfulness. None of these characters show up again, after this arc. To be fair, the girlfriend doesn't either, but at least she's important to Biscuit's identity. Anyways, these characters felt like they were holding this whole arc back and dragging it as it tried to get a move on to the fight. There were a few "important" characters in there, but they're forgettable. There were also a few mini fights, even between one of these "important" characters and Biscuit, but it can be cut out. Though, you may enjoy it for the simple fact that it's a typical fight of this franchise. But that's about it. This arc is important, so it's a must read. My suggestion is to skip to the fight between Baki and Biscuit and just move on from there.

The second arc is the most amazing part of the story. It is the typical "what will happen if a prehistoric man was brought into present day?" story. Pickle (the prehistoric man), has lived in the time of the dinosaurs. He has devoured them and was stronger than them. You will have to leave common sense, history and science at the door for this arc. What's great about this is not how Pickle handles modern day, but his interaction with the martial artists/fighters of the franchise. Also, how he develops as an individual through fighting them. The reasons behind his actions makes sense and they are explained thoroughly in this arc. This is something that you can appreciate as a reader, because it gives you a connection to Pickle. Before Baki, he fights 3 others, 2 of who have major life changes as the aftermath. Warning: there is cannibalism and a bit of sexual assault in this arc. No rape though. But this arc is heavy with psychology and what makes a human, a human being. You can't help but feel attached to Pickle. The author does well to tell us how he feels and thinks without the means of talking. Though, they give you a bit of a surprise about that in the end of his arc. If not for Pickle, Baki would not have had obtained certain skills to fight with his father in the end. I was rather sad that the arc has ended when it did, but I cannot say that I left disappointed. The ending for it will leave you either frustrated, happy or with a bittersweet taste. Overall, you cannot skip this arc by any means. You must take your time to read through it, as it will not leave you disappointed.

The third arc is forgettable. That's the best way to describe it. It makes the first arc looks like this great adventure (which it wasn't). Retsu wants to learn how to box. Why? Hell if I know. This mini arc is so short that the fourth arc keeps on barging in, and I was more interested in the final arc than the mini one. I love Retsu to bits, but even the characters themselves admitted that it didn't make any sense and decided to leave him to his devices. What's rather insulting to the sport is that he still uses his kung fu stands in boxing matches. I don't know the rules for boxing, and anime/manga always throw common sense out of the window, but it is safe to ask this: where is the common sense in this one? Why would Retsu go out of his way to learn how to box and even leave Japan to fight oversees, if he continues to use kung fu on some level? He is so out of character that it's frustrating to read. Overall, you can skip this arc, but I suggest a different tactic. Ignore Retsu's "journey" and read through the fourth arc when it pushes itself into the story. It has absolutely no impact on the story overall.

The official fourth arc is where Baki finally fights his father. The fight goes well over 50 chapters, but the arc doesn't stop with it. Instead, it starts with Yujiro finally admitting that he loves his son. He accepts Baki's invitation for dinner, they eat together first at Baki's old place and then at Yujiro's chosen location. Then the fight starts. This is where the satisfaction comes in, if you read the first two manga. The psychology and interaction between the two will leave you on the edge of your seat, breathless and in awe. Personally, I cannot wait to see it be animated, one day. Finally, after so long, the story comes at a full circle. The fight itself is not just a fight. It is a psychology and relationship between the two as Hanma members, father and son, and two fighters are talked through here via fists, words and memories. There are even 'touching moments' between them as a father and son. If you see the actions as 'touching', anyways. Yujiro's father even makes an appearance for a brief few chapters. Depending on the type of fights you enjoy and what satisfies you in the end, this fight will, again, leave you in three states: pleased, frustrated or bittersweet. If you want to, you can push in there anti-climatic. Overall, this arc is a MUST to read.

I enjoyed this a lot. This is a manga that I would definitely re-read in the future. It is unbelievable, gives us something fresh and new, and gives a long-waiting story its proper ending. I simply cannot wait to read the fourth manga. But I'm still a bit disappointed with the first and third arcs. They could have been dealt with better, or taken out altogether (and I'm looking at you third arc). But in the end of the day, I highly suggest this franchise to anybody and everybody. If you have read the first two manga and don't know if to continue, I recommend that you do. You can use this third manga as "the end" of the story, if you don't want to continue any further. There's no shame in that. After so long, as I said before, the story came into a full circle.

Normally I wouldn't write a review before finishing a series but this series has me so pumped I had to review for the first 3 arcs, this is also my first review so I beg be kind:
Prison arc: 7/10, basically baki goes to prison to whack up Oliva after failing to do so in new grappler baki, there he has the goal of defeating Oliva while being rivaled by his cellmate (if I remember correctly it was his cell mate) Jun guevaru, what I did like about this arc was the return of one of the old characters and how they finally stopped lengthening out the fights with explanations in this one, they still did it in this arc but nowhere near as much as other arcs, what I didn't like was that baki was an outcast in this arc, might as well be named grappler jun guevaru and grappler Oliva tbh, it was a lot more centered around these two and baki was quite irrelevant in this arc until the Jun vs Oliva fight and the ending, and Jun guevaru is a cocky sob


Pickle arc: 10, this isn't just the best baki arc but one of the best arcs in all of manga history of you ask me, basically pickle the 170,000,000 year old dinosaur hunter is found by archaeologist frozen while in a battle with a dinosaur, he gets defrosted and the first thing he does is probably the most funniest and surprising shit I have seen, I will leave you to see it, but anyway all the fighters get rock hard when they hear about pickle and everybody want to challenge him, pickle was an amazing character, at first he was a scary savage beast that didnt sense any emotion, but later he get some seriously good character development, (what I'm about to say may contain spoilers, but there is barely a story in this manga so it doesn't really matter, don't read on if you don't want to get it spoiled for you, you have been warned) first he feels struggle against retsu, his first time ever experiencing struggle, then experiencing pain for the first time ever when against katsumi, later against Jack he feels fear for the first time and finally with baki he feels friendship, pickle truly was an amazing character and feels human by the end of the arc, all the fights were amazing and the jack vs pickle fight easily being the best in the series, I don't know what the mangaka for this series was smoking at the time he thought of baki vs pickle, it would have been a much better fight only if it wasn't lengthened so much, it was so annoying I had to skip half the fight to the end, the fan translation in this arc was also really poor but that is only something to watch out for not criticism cos it isn't an official translation, also the characters feel much more human as well rather than creatures with the only objective of fighting what ever breathes, katsumi and retsu probably got the most development out of all the characters and theres was really good too, sure not as good as pickles but it was damn well good

Retsu boxer arc: 3/10, bad, like really bad, I skipped quite some chapters cos I hated the arc, I was only interested in that awesome fight between baki and chiharu Shiba in this arc but other than that this arc was trash, basically Retsu wants to get back into fighting after what pickle did to him in the last arc so he takes baby steps to his goal and starts with the basics: pro boxing, well those baby steps were more like Sperm steps cos he is so frickin overpowered and 100,000,000x better than all his opponents, what I don't get is that the mangaka (forgot his name) just forgets about all the times he criticised boxing for not being a good fighting style and makes a whole arc praising boxing, well he didn't do boxing any justice cos the boxers were pretty shit compared to retsu, this arc was just the opposite of the Ali Jr arc and the Ali Jr wasn't executed in the right way but this arc was irrelevant and bad and if I have to be honest I don't think it could have been executed any better

Baki vs yujiro: 9/10, easily the most emotional arc in the entire series, had me damn near crying from the emotions yet also had me laughing quite a bit, they really humanised yujiro and baki in this arc and I loved it, you know what I said about the story? I take that back, this story is amazing, in my opinion I don't think this was just about a father vs son match, it was also because yujiro needed someone equal to him to be able to protect the weak (spoiler warning: you have been warned), the weak see him as a god and during the fight many African immigrants flood in to pray to yujiro for protecting them from the strong, yujiro really cares about people but he shows it in a very extreme way, the reason he is so hard on baki is because when his time comes the world will need another person to take the his place, his role is so important so he needs the best to take his place just like how he took yuichiro's place, baki is the only person capable of doing so and at the end yujiro finally realises that the world will be in safe hands when he is gone

I mean what can I say it is a continuation of the original but it takes place 4-5 years after the original(in manga time line) so low on new characters(not many) and the same story, "imma kill my dad," boring. C(Copy)+P(Paste).

C+P: "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," still an asshole but now he is older and shows some strength.

C+P: "Again my reader has a very weird arrangement of the manga which i'm gonna assume was the original way it was published."

This just like the original it is super engrossing and I didn't want to stop reading it I know my first major statement said boring it's the premise that's boring not the actually story.

~SPOILERS~

~4 years later Baki is still doing Baki things, he's getting stronger and fighting mind enemies(like shadow boxing but they can be anything) which we find out is a Hanma specialty. He fights bullies a kid. Keeps practicing to fight his dad and then he fights some dude named Pickle, who's a fucking caveman, wtf. The he tells Colonel Scar he wants to eat a meal with his dad which he does, flirts with his crush, sorta. The he fights his dad now it get boring it's a regular beat down here nothing special except more mind things and grandpa Hanma ghosts into the fight and doesn't do anything and Baki wins but says he loses. He dad gave him the title for messing with his mind during another meal but the Hanma mind games meal, and Yujiro flips out after Baki flips a non-existent table with the food on it. Stupid. Worth 1 read.

Hanma Baki or Baki Son Of Ogre is the 3rd Part of the Baki series, please watch Baki The Grappler Anime & read New Grappler Baki.

Baki Son Of Ogre delivers in gritty action but starts to shift its tone. The story begins with Baki developing a new form of image training where he can physically create an opponent to spar against (originally featured in Baki VS Retsu Kaioh). This new form of training eventually becomes Baki's newest fighting style as incorporates animals & insects into his attacks.

The first arc takes place in prison where Baki intentionally commits a crime just so he can battle against Olivia Biscuit. I personally found the first arc very slow as the focus was more on Olivia than Baki himself.

The 2nd arc & possibly the best written arc in the Baki series is "The Pickle Arc" where a caveman from the Jurassic Period is revived in modern society. Several Baki characters battle against Pickle as centuries ago Pickle managed to not only fight dinosaurs but eat them occasionally. Several characters gain development & life changing events as they battle Pickle.

The 3rd arc is sadly untranslated as it seem to deal with Retsu Kaioh being a boxer. Not many of these chapters can be found online.

The last arc of Son of Ogre is the long awaited fight of Baki Vs Yujiro. Depending on your viewpoint, this battle is either anti-climatic or okay.

Overall, this chapter of the Baki series certainly delivered its action & easily its most savage fights in the Pickle Arc. Due to certain events in these arcs, convinced me that Toriko has gained some inspiration from Baki Son Of Ogre due to the Pickle character. Lastly, the next part of the Baki series is called Baki Dou or Way Of Baki which deals with a clone of Miyamoto Musashi. Only time will tell how Part 4 will fare.