The Insanity of Grappler Baki and Why You Should Care

here's a list of out-of-context things that happen during grappler becki becki a 13 year old boy hurls himself off a cliff in order to obtain the near death focus baki fights an opponent so strong he urinates himself twice before resolving the conflict with a make-believe cooking contest back his romantic rival is Muhammad Ali jr. Barack Obama Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are all canonical characters the latter of which soils himself before signing a non-aggression treaty between the United States and the strongest fighter in the world and finally my personal favorite baki gets into a fight with a 9 foot tall imaginary praying mantis this is grappler baki grappler Bakke is a martial arts based series following the life of Bucky Honma a young competitive fighting prodigy on his quest to one day surpass his father the invincible and terrifying yuujiro honma the series has been in publication for 27 years over a hundred and thirty two volumes which can be divided into four separate parts in terms of anime Becky has received a 50-minute 1994 OVA and a 2 season 2001 series only to fall into hiatus for 17 years which had only recently emerged from with this year's Netflix original anime simply titled Pocky which I'm very happy about because despite everything I said in the first 40 seconds of this video my love for this series is completely on ironic for all the absurdity there's a heart tabacky that makes it feel different from just about anything else and to begin to explain why I'd first like to talk about Becky's author Keisuke aragaki even among manga authors Arakaki stands out as someone a little unusual two of his previous titles include these series make up bar which is a manga about well make up as well as dog asan which is a story about a man whose special ability is that he is very good at apologizing it's easy to see from these titles alone that it Agha ki has a very distinctive approach to creating manga which he himself describes as too to bring happiness the thing that stands out about this month the most however is his lifelong love of martial arts it Agha ki was obsessed with Kempo as a child and took a boxing in his later years even becoming a member of the Japanese self-defense force and you can see this deep affection for fighting just from these sleeves of his manga which are frequently adorned with photos of his encounters with a variety of fighters from different disciplines and it's this love of martial arts in combat that is so palpable in every page of Pocky in my video on Dragon Ball Z I said something to the effect of Dragon Ball Z wasn't a story about fighting it was a story about a group of characters who really loved to fight and grappler Bakke is like the complete inverse of that baki is a series about fighting for fighting sake there's no overarching plot mechanics like the search for the Dragon Balls with the quest for one piece there's very little character development outside the different fighters philosophies on combat but the reason it works is each individual character is imbued with the same love of martial arts and fighting that's so palpable in it agachi himself someone doesn't just do karate and grappler baki it's seen as a system of beliefs that Forge the body and soul of that person with the series going to great lengths to illustrate this often stopping encounters mid-fight to explain these specific techniques each martial artist is using down to the most my new details like the particular way an individual fighter will clench their fists and this can slow the pacing of these fights to a crawl but a doors put across just how much of themselves these characters have poured into mastering their individual fighting style and so the drama comes with the question that forms when two of these fighters who both equally believe in their own martial art collide one of my favorite instances of this comes in Bakke part 3 son of a ger in which retsu a kung fu master who has dedicated his entire life to mastering the 4000 years of Chinese Khenpo goes up against the dangerous pick who now bear with me here is a hundred and ninety million year old Neanderthal who's discovered frozen in a glacier before being thawed out and declared the strongest living creature on the planet and so the question that this encounter presents is can retsu sublime technique and lifetime of training overcome pickles overwhelming raw natural power with the fight turning into a surprisingly moving meditation on what it is to dedicate your life to something and still have it not be enough I should also note that the example I've just given is ludicrous a kung fu master fighting a caveman is a insane concept for a fight and what's more it's one of only dozens of other equally outlandish encounters that occur over the course of the series grappler baki is silly really really silly but despite this the story actually takes itself incredibly seriously there's nothing supernatural in Bucky's world and it never veers into self-deprecation or winks at the audience which only adds to the absurdity but it also gives Bucky what I can only describe as an endearing level of sincerity the events being portrayed here are unbelievable they are ridiculous but it feels like it Agha ki believes them and as a results we end up kind of believing them too and it ends up being difficult not to get drawn into the bizarre logic of Bucky's world's when back yet slam so hard that his body liquefies we believe it when the muscles on Ichiro's back form the shape of a grinning demon we believe it and I've never really been sure on how self-aware it agachi is of this aspect of his series but it's his commitment to his own fiction that's always kept Bucky from being just another wacky martial-arts series instead becoming something strange and even weirdly beautiful I'm guessing right now the use of the word beautiful is going to have raised some eyebrows among you especially in relation to how this series looks and I get that the artwork of Bucky is about the only thing more bizarre than its story the writers are depicted as these grotesque portraits of masculinity vascular nightmares of the human form where Anatomy is to be abused and distorted and I can understand if that's off-putting to a lot of people but hear me out here there's a big difference between not understanding human anatomy and having that understanding while actively [ __ ] with it break down any Aveda khakis figure work and you can see a very clear I'll be a highly exaggerated understanding of human anatomy and musculature coupled with an intense eye for detail and if you're cynical better just look at this illustration of a shoe look at the love and observation that's gone into conveying each tiny part of it and taking drawing like this into account it's hard to argue that it agape is anything other than an extremely talented draftsperson and so if you wanted to draw more we'll say reasonable looking figures he'd be well capable of it and so the question it becomes why does he choose to draw humans like this the answer being that nothing is more important to gawky than illustrating figures that convey weight and power even at the expense of traditional aesthetic appeal and it works there's a sense of physicality and strength to the characters of GraphLab a key that creates a solid nearly three-dimensional feel and in a story where every major encounter hinges on two people putting their bodies against one another that feeling of solidity is vital so whatever your personal opinion on the arts cell baki I think it's hard to argue that it isn't at least suited to the story being told but there's a second layer data Jackie's technique that elevates the combat of Bakke and that is his mastery of gesture gesture is a term used in life drawing the idea being that any pose of human body there is a central line that runs from the base of the filles to the tip of the skull with a skilled artist being able to identify that line and accentuate it to create a sense movements and intention within their drawing and this is a technique aragaki is adept at within his illustrations there's always a very clear and breathable central line that flows through the character and one that despite all the detail gives them a sense of momentum and speed in fact he's so good at conveying this line he'll even sometimes extend it beyond the character's body in the form of abstracted punches or kicks where fists or feet aren't even Illustrated and yet we still feel the impacts it's the combination of both these principles in agha keys ability to imbue weight and physicality into his character work and to move those characters with a sense of flow and gesture that gives the fights of grandeur Bakke a real feeling of brutality and strife which in turn communicates just how badly each competitor wants to win and so every part of grappler Bakke is built around the idea of fighting there's never a moment in the story who me aren't either experiencing a major fight or building anticipation for the next big showdown and building anticipation is the final part of what makes grappler backis fights so captivating one of the many ways pro wrestling and battle anime are like is the idea of building heat for a match to create as much anticipation as possible so that the audience will pay to see the conclusion and this is something that grappler baki is adept at it has this way of building up its characters so they feel like these legitimate dangerous monsters meaning when it's actually time to fight we're already invested and it does this with the same level of absurdity found in every other part of the series but just like the rest of the series it is effective for example Jack soma was a ghoulish fixture at his local gym a disturbing portrait of skin and bone he'd spend hours obsessively pounding away at the heavy bag in the vain hopes of one day achieving the strength he'd need to face that man but all his sweat and passion would amount not born with a slight frame and ineffective muscles Jack's refusal to rest and his obsessive need to train would only damage his body further leaving him exhausted and frail and robbing him the strength he'd need to compete in martial arts causing those around him to view Jack as a ghastly specter of failure first earning sympathy then ire then ridicule this would continue until the day that a leading genetic scientist visits Jack's gym and upon seeing the skeletal figure pummeling endlessly away sees within Jack the perfect combination of physical weakness and stringent mental discipline that would make him the ideal candidate for a revolutionary new performance-enhancing drug and the results are dramatic and horrifying Jack's body quickly grows into a twisted nightmare of strength and power he begins shattering world records and surpassing all human limitation but still it's not enough with Jack developing an uncontrollable addiction to the drug exceeding its maximum dosage and driving his body to terrifying new heights as he re-enters the world of martial arts and years of ridicule and hatred awakened a brutal side of Jack as he leaves a trail of broken bodies in his way with Jack slowly descending into a violent madness the scientist who had once sought to help him and now realizes the horror that he's unleashed upon the world and takes his own life but not before informing Jack that the strain on Jack's system has become so severe that he only has six monster live and so in Jack's final days he steps forward and enters the maximum tournaments as a literal time bomb of rage and violence obsessed with facing the one known as Bucky Honma so just to note again this story is ridiculous but I'm also willing to bet that there are at least a few of you right now who are very curious to see what happens to Jack and he'll he fairs in the maximum tournaments and it's that feeling of anticipation that pulls you through back II story towards the next major face so at this point I'm hoping I've convinced at least some of you that this is a series really worth getting into and so the question now becomes where should you start well in terms of anime the 1994 OVA covers about the first 50 chapters and has some really cool animation the two season 2001 series er mixes the start of Bucky story but covers basically the same material as well as the maximum tournament arc but it does have a very limited animation style especially in the second season which was completed only a few months after the first and it really shows and so with that in mind I'd actually recommend starting with the most recent 2018 series that might sound a little unusual as the 2018 series is a direct continuation of the maximum tournament arc and begins about 276 chapters into the story but think of it like this if someone wants to get into Batman they don't start a Detective Comics 27 because that is no longer an accurate reflection of what contemporary Batman is and Bakke is kind of the same both in writing and art style the series has evolved a lot from its early chapters and given its lack of any real overarching plot or story outside Bakke and you jurors rivalry you're not missing a whole lot by starting at the 2018 anime which will give you a much clearer taste of what modern backing is and from there you're free to dive into the earlier parts if you decide this series is free it does a much better job of translating Iraqis unique visual styles animation and covers one of my favorite arcs in all of baki the most deadly death row inmates are in which five of the world's most dangerous criminals break out of different prisons on different continents and completely unbeknownst to each other all swim to Japan in orange BL two-faced [ __ ] and Noda fees and even by [ __ ] standards this arc is wild it's built around the fundamental question of which is superior pure martial arts technique or the violence and brutality of the world's most vicious criminals with battles no longer being sportsman like contests of skill confined to an arena with vicious brutal street fights that can occur anywhere at any time I could go on for a long time recounting all the insane [ __ ] that happens during this series there's a fight in a roller coaster a security guard gets his intestines blown out through his ear this happens [Applause] [Music] yep and I've always seen this Ark as a kind of turning point for a jockey where he truly embraced the madness of his own series and evolved it into the insane spectacle it is today but all that said well I think the Netflix series will give you a great sense of what Bucky is to really experience the series at its fullest there is no substitute for the manga itself and that's not even just because of it agha keys are at work but because Bakke as a manga captures why I read manga at all what I love about comics is that they're the only form of visual storytelling that can be feasibly produced by a single creator on a consistent basis and so these stories you get from them can feel a lot more individualistic and personal than a bigger production potentially could and particularly with manga where traditionally a creator is tied to do one series and characters and I think something special happens when a person puts their unique obsessions and experiences into creating a world story and that's the feeling I get when I read grappler pocky for all it's absurd a Landis and straight-up insane ideas there's a level of sincerity to it that I think could only come from a singular vision and I think that's really cool I think that's something that people should care about friends thank you for joining me today I really hope you had a good time and if so maybe have a little wander on over to my patreon page at patreon.com a port slash super eyepatch wolf where for no more than a single dollar you can join some of these strongest creatures on the planet and help further add to the power of this channel this week in particular I'd like to thank Ishmael Darlene oh great Slough black lands lightning Papa and rogue opponents as always find me on the let's fight a boss video game podcast or on Twitter at pool friends take care of yourselves and I'll see you next

Channel: Super Eyepatch Wolf

Views: 3,993,180

Keywords: Grappler Baki, Baki Hanma, Yujiro Hanma, Vs, Fighting, Anime, Musashi, Pickle

Id: bTMMdMVFRWE

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 01 2018