Baki: Complete Collection Season 1 Review
WARNING: This is an 18-rated series, and contains strong graphic violence, sex scenes and drug use.
Baki the Grappler (by Keisuke Itagaki) is one of the longest-running manga around, with nearly 150 volumes published since it began back in 1991, and has been subject to multiple different anime adaptations during this time. This anime series was originally made for Netflix back in 2018 and does not start at the very beginning of the manga story. Fortunately, you don’t need to have seen earlier episodes in order to enjoy this series (although it was released back in the day by Manga Entertainment if you want to try and hunt it down). Is this new Blu-ray release worth a watch however? Well, let’s just say it’s a mixed bag.
The series revolves around Baki Hanma, a 17-year-old who is a master fighter, having taken part in and won an underground fighting tournament prior to when this anime begins. This series starts with that tournament’s organiser, Tokugawa, warning him that five convicted Death Row inmates from Japan and elsewhere are coming to Tokyo in order to seek defeat from the strongest fighter around, i.e. Baki. As a result, Tokugawa arranges for him and four other men to form a team to fight against the convicts. These fights are no-holds barred, can feature any type of weapon, martial arts style, and take place anywhere and at anytime.
That pretty much sums up the entire plot, as the vast majority of the series is just very muscular men (think JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure levels of bulk) beating each other up. The only other real plot points concern Baki’s relationships with his father Yujiro, said to be the strongest fighter in the entire world; and with Kozue, the daughter of Baki’s landlord who becomes his girlfriend.
I would argue that the fights are the only real reason to watch Baki. They are certainly the best thing about the show. Also, what with this being an 18-rated series, you know that the fights are going to be extreme – and indeed, so is the action even before the fights properly start. When we witness the convicts escaping their captivity in the opening episode, one escapes by blowing a man’s brains out – and I don’t mean with a gun. I mean he blows with his breath in a man’s ear with such force that their brains come out of the other ear. This is just one of several moments that made me wince when watching Baki. The sheer amount of violence in this series is not at all for the faint-hearted, but if it is something you can stomach, then it is something you will want to check out.
However, it should be said that this series is far from perfect. In fact, there are multiple issues. The dub has problems. For example, one of the escaped cons, Hector Doyle, is a Briton imprisoned near Glasgow, but US voice actor Johnny Yong Bosch makes no attempt at giving him any sort of accent. Mind you, the character itself has issues too. May I remind you that the five escaped cons were all on Death Row. I’m guessing the author doesn’t know that Britain hasn’t had the death penalty since the 1960s. Even then, we witness Doyle escaping his execution, which is via electric chair, a method of killing the British have never used.
The subtitles have issues too. In one scene, located in Tokyo, someone asks for the emergency services to be contacted. What comes up in the subs is: “Call 911!”, which is not Japan’s emergency number.
Then there are other problems too. The 3D animation used is clunky; the climax of a sex scene between Baki and Kozue is so bad it’s laughable (and somewhat problematic given that Baki is 17); the music is uninteresting; the Blu-ray release has a disappointing lack of extras with the only noteworthy thing being about five minutes of promo clips to advertise the series; and then there is the issue that there are multiple episodes in the series in which Baki makes no appearance at all. Now, I would argue that if you create a TV series which has a title character, then said title character should appear in all the episodes. If you watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Haruhi Suzumiya was not in an episode, you’d probably complain. If you watched Poirot and Poirot did not appear, you’d complain. If you watched Mrs. Brown’s Boys and Mrs. Brown didn’t appear… OK, bad example, but you know what I mean.
Overall, this series is easy to sum up. If all you want is some excitement and thrills from the fights, then fine. Baki is a good choice, and a lot more grown-up than many other martial arts anime. However, there are many issues with the quality you are going to put up with. Also, I would say that the only reason to buy the physical copy of the series is if you are someone who is worried that this series is not going to be available online at some point. This though is unlikely to happen, because as said at the beginning of this review Baki is a Netflix series, and the entire thing, along with its later series, is still up there. Netflix tends not to get rid of shows from the platform that they themselves commissioned.
Our review copy was supplied by MVM.
