Why is Baki the Grappler considered such a good manga?
Phillip Arnesen
Updated Aug 29, 2018
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Baki-the-Grappler-considered-such-a-good-manga#
I love Baki with every fiber of my being but in my opinion it’s a bad anime and manga. I can tell you why I love it and consider it one of the greatest of all time but I can tell you right now my opinion is not shared by the majority of people.
Baki walks a very fine line between realistic and completely batshit absurd. I love Baki for 2 reasons, 1 of them is the dance this series maintains with that line.
The series establishes for me 3 levels of human in terms of physicality. Normal everyday joes, the pique of theoretical human perfection, and blatantly superhuman. I would hazard a guess that mostly people don’t really care much about the blatantly superhuman characters, of which there are a handful. What I really love is that category of pique human physical capabilities. A lot of what this series focuses on is the characters who are at the top of human abilities trying desperately to bridge the gap and be able to stand on par with the super human characters.
I feel like Kaoru Hanayama embodies this category of pique human capabilities best. The guy is an absolute monster, he can rip tires in half, flip cars, crush bones with his bare hands and more. These are all feats the worlds strongest men have done. Additionally, his will is insane, he has been shot in both kneecaps, beaten in the head with a police baton, had most of his face blown off, and a lot more in ONE fight and kept going. But he is also still really human, we get to see the after effects of his fights, he gets MESSED UP, he takes time to recover, and bears permanent scars from his fights.
While Hanayama in my opinion best represents a human at absolutely pique capabilities I feel like Jack Hanma is just as compelling a character. He is ALSO on that same threshold of almost being beyond human but not quite. But unlike Hanayama who just trains harder Jack goes heavy into body modification, which I feel is a very realistic response to finding out there are basically demigodlike humans running around who can fight whole militaries. He increases his limb length, replaces his teeth with stronger artificial ones, I think gets muscle insertion points changed to maximize strength, and used to take INSANE amounts of performance enhancing drugs.
Don’t get me wrong, the superhumans are cool and fun to watch fight, this category is Pickle, Yujiro Hanma, Baki Hanma, Kaku Kaioh, Biscuit Oliva, and a few others. But they aren’t compelling characters in any real way, you can’t relate to the things they accomplish. Although they do often get AWESOME fights.
My second reason for liking Baki is really controversial and may get me ragged on by people on here. I want to be really clear, half of the things you see in fights in this manga is just complete supernatural BS that is fun. But the other half…. Itagaki really really loves martial arts. It’s obvious to anyone who actually has a background. He takes massive artistic liberties, especially with more esoteric styles or characters who don’t rely on a traditional martial art. But with the traditional martial arts, he puts absolutely ridiculous attention to detail to the way a punch or kick should connect or the way a throw should be executed. Boxers don’t PUNCH like karate masters who don’t punch like kung fu masters. He took a lot of time, researching movements of different styles and it really shows.
But I like both the absurd AND realistic in this series. I think this is why it has such a hard time finding a fan base. Not many people I feel can put themselves in the right mind set to enjoy this. Also, I have an appreciation for something he does as an author that I can totally understand hating. He almost has NO story. Story, and character background only exist to deliver fights. And there is only enough of it for fights. As a fan of just straight martial arts and fighting in general, I love this. Not many authors go “anti-filler” so hard that it’s almost a complaint.
كلام جميل ! ! !