Every thrill seeker is aware of the child prodigy of our legendary Hanma dynasty, the “Baki Hanma, son of ogre” (the strongest young man alive), but if you only started watching this madcap series in 2021, then you’ve probably missed a lot already, didn’t you wonder ‘how Baki Hanma became the strongest young man alive or ‘The Baki Hamna’ (I’m repeating it too much I guess…giggle).
Well, “Baki Hanma: son of ogre” was prior known as “Baki, the grappler,” and it all started way earlier than you can imagine. The first ever manga or the prequel of “Baki Hanma” was serialized in a weekly magazine named “Shōnen Manga Magazine” from 1991 to 1999. Can you freaking believe it, (I honestly couldn’t…damn that’s even before my birth).
About the series
In this series, our ‘Son of Ogre’ is just a teenager who is training like a maniac and picking up fights with all kinds of opponents you can think of (in fact, there was a time during his training when he picked up a fight with a ‘Gorilla’ named “Yasha”, though Baki won the battle but learned an important lesson; don’t mess with nature and we should leave these creatures alone to live in their peace).
The second time we saw ‘Baki’ was in a following series, which was released between 1999 and 2005, and that’s when our lead character gets a brand new title, “Grappler Baki: In Search of Our Strongest Hero”. So if you haven’t watched the series yet, I humbly request you guys ‘please do’ because it will give a concrete base to all those fighting scenes we have recently witnessed.
Additionally, you will learn about Baki’s past, and personality a lot more. Spoiler Alert! There was an opponent who defeated Baki without breaking a sweat, it was “Yuri Chakovsky”, though Baki was just a kid and Yuri was twice his size, that’s not the Baki Hanma we know, despite the size, weight, and skills of opponents, Baki always wins, however, that was not the case here so, again go ahead and check it out and witness the making of a child prodigy.
First episode
The first episode of ‘Baki the Grappler’ was aired on January 8, 2001, there were two seasons in total and it continued till 2007. If you ask my personal opinion then out of these two seasons, I loved two watching 2 specific episodes, both are from season one. The first is season one episode 8 named ‘Demon’ (you get it just by the name who are we talking about here), and the second one is episode 24 named ‘The King’s Ransom’. Well, I’ll say no more about “Baki the Grappler” :D.
What’s the point of all this?
Let’s talk about why it all started in the first place, honestly, (does Hanma need a reason to fight? Hell no!) it is like the way we eat, sleep, walk, or drink Hanma’s fights, yes that’s the answer. It is in their blood, or that’s the first instinct a Hanma learns; just like you do not teach a fish how to swim or you don’t teach a cub how to hunt, it comes naturally to them because that’s how they are designed.
Baki and his saga
The world of this electrifying anime series revolves around the Hanma dynasty (specifically Baki Hanma), wherein we witness the journey of Baki from being a “Little Brat” (you will hear this term a lot in this series) to becoming “Strongest Young Man Alive” in the world. Baki Hanma has only one dream; to beat the “Strongest Creature Alive” not a man or woman “Creature,” the man who destroyed armies single-handedly, the man who made all the modern weapons look puny in front of him, and it was a child’s play for this man to crush the skull of a giant ape with his bare hands (trust me guys I’m not bragging.
Instead this is not even an introduction), well this is none other than Baki’s own father the man, the myth, the legend “Yujiro Hanma; The Ogre” (Damn I was waiting for this for a very long time). But why? Father is the strongest creature, and he couldn’t hope for a better son than Baki, who is the strongest young man alive. They should live happily ever after, but that didn’t happen; as I mentioned earlier, Hanma doesn’t need a reason to fight except for one “Baki Hanma”.
Spoiler alert! Baki’s motivation is his steep vengeance slithering through his veins since the day he witnessed his cruel father killing his mother in front of him. That’s when everything started, and our lead embarked on a journey to be the strongest of all just to defeat/humble his own father, “Yujiro Hanma, The Ogre.” By the way, did I mention that there is another Hanma alive living and breathing? “Jack Hanma” is the elder brother of Baki and second son of Yujiro Hanma. Well, this guy’s entry will send chills up your spine all the way to your crown (broad smirk…).
Hair-raising Characters of “Baki Hanma”
Kaoru Hanayama
Who isn’t aware of the toughest “Yakuza” in Japan, who single-handedly crushed all of his rivals in a single night, just because he thought that his tattoo was incomplete without some the scars of Katana (sounds absolutely nuts but it’s true). So, for starters, Hanayama is too huge in size and muscles for his age, not to mention he is way stronger and more vicious than he looks with all his hereditary tattoos.
To give you the gist of his raw and otherworldly strength, I have just an incident wherein Hanayama pinched a stack of cards so hard that it came apart from the deck of 52 cards by using only his one finger and thumb; now that’s raw power. If you talk about his nature, well, he is not really a talkative man, but he takes immense pride in fighting with his all might and some more, I think that’s one language he understands pretty well. To sum it up Kaoru Hanayama is a beast in its truest nature.
Jack Hanma
Honestly, I don’t think this guy even needs an introduction, the surname says it all, “Jack Hanma” the first son of ‘Yujiro Hanma’ and elder brother to our lead ‘Baki Hanma’, and if you look at the history of Jack Hanma then you’ll realize unlike Baki, Jack wanted to come close to his father, rather he wanted to be recognized as a fighter by his own father, and he dedicated his whole life just to this only wherein he had to get his father’s approval.
But that’s one thing he did to achieve is something worth talking about, the original height of Jack was 6’4″ (that’s already more than half of Japan :D) but that wasn’t enough for him apparently (Hanma blood you know), so he went through the surgery and acute pain to become a brute fighter, and after the surgery the guy measured 7’11” tall with the weight of nearly 450 pounds (443 lbs to be precise). I won’t add anything else here since this is something for you guys to witness.
Doppo Orochi
The promulgated “King of War” once put a tiger to sleep with his bare hands and well-honed karate skills, after the incident he was known as “Tiger-Slayer” in the Baki universe, that’s Doppo Orochi for you guys, the karate grandmaster and leading man of Shinshinkai Karate School.
Doppo has trained his body to a level where losing a limb became an opportunity for him (you must be thinking, how’s that even possible?), well, we are talking about “The God Hand” (another name for the legend), and time for another story, during an intense fight Doppo got his hand chopped off from the wrist, and guess what happened next, he landed an even deadlier attack by using the same hand, I know right! After that Doppo immediately went “Thanks for chopping off my wrist, now I can hit with all might, since there are no fingers”, this is enough to explain how menacing of a fighter he is.
Sea King Retsu
From being born in a temple to rising as one of the strongest men alive with mastery in dozens of martial arts, Retsu is a man of sheer determination and perseverance. As this was not enough Retsu is a champion in an ancient Chinese martial art named Kenpo, a very particular and deadly art which can put any opponent to shame in the arena.
Retsu is also a very good friend to Baki and Katsumi Orochi (son of Doppo Orochi), in fact, Baki is an admirer of him, this alone says enough about Retsu and his virtue in Baki universe. (No! we are not yet about Retsu, there is of course a story for him too, just to give you a gist of his capabilities, and this one’s my personal favorite), Retsu once shaped a piece of rock into a perfectly rounded sphere and unlike commoners, he did it with his bare hands.
Pickle
Doesn’t sound like much of a fighter by the name right? Pickle, folks who have watched the recent season are well aware of this name and his virtue, he is the epitome of a specimen, he is a man who has crafted his ironclad physique to its finest by all goddamn means.
Pickle was the center of season 3 wherein every fighter in the world wanted to test their strength by going toe-to-toe with Pickle, but unfortunately, no one stood a chance in front of this prehistoric man who stood about 8′ tall and weighed around 441 lbs.
To give you some context Pickle comes from ancient times and miraculously survived the Jurassic Apocalypse which occurred about 200 million years ago (honestly, I didn’t know humans existed back then), which technically makes him the eldest fighter in the father vs. son saga. I think Pickle is a basic man, just the way when we feel hungry we eat, he killed a T-Rex with his bare hands and ate it, just like that.
Conclusion
So these are the characters you should look out for while watching Baki Hanma. And if you are already done with the show like me, you can get your hands on a new prodigy in the making, Solo Levelling, that is already making history.
