English Dub Review: Baki Hanma Season Two Part Two

Jun 12, 2023

Baki Hanma’s second season, and the series overall, concludes with the showdown readers and viewers have been waiting for since the franchise began: Baki versus his father, Yuujirou. It’s all been leading up to this, with every punch thrown, every bone broken, every opponent defeated, all in service of Baki finally gaining the strength to face his dad in one on one combat. Or at least that’s what I assume based on ONLY watching Baki Hanma and not the previous two series, “Baki the Grappler” and adjectiveless “Baki”. This arc draws from a lot of episodes and plots that I haven’t seen, though not so much that I end up lost, so it’s not like it’s total continuity lockout. Plus, if this IS the big climactic showdown that it seems to be, as well as the second part of the second season of the third series, then some reference to continuity is pretty much expected at this point. Also probably worth noting is that this half of the season technically encompasses two arcs, whereas the first part only had one, the arc that focused on Pickle. And really, the first arc mainly acts as a ramping up of tension to get to the arc specifically about Baki and his dad, aside from a plot about Retsu becoming a boxer (that is apparently important enough to get a small distracting moment in the OP and a post-credit scene in the finale). Kinda felt like if Tien from Dragon Ball got to be in a story that respected him.However, the main event, as it were, is the father and son fight to end all fights, and what it makes clear from the jump is that this fight started long before the first fist was ever thrown. Baki is shown to have incredibly complicated feelings towards his father; seeing him as an admirable ideal of strength who Baki has been chasing all his life, but also an estranged parental figure that Baki would kill to have a normal relationship with, sweating bullets at even the mere thought of cooking the man dinner. Previous arcs have had Baki shadow box opponents he wishes to face (and even an imaginary man-sized praying mantis), but the biggest challenge is apparently shadow-cooking for his abusive father. Because make no mistake, Yuujirou Hanma is by no means a good person, made quite clear with how he neglects Baki and his other son Jack, but also in the fact that he killed Baki’s mother in front of him long ago (as some flashbacks were considerate enough to catch me up on). As much as he, Baki, and the rest of the muscle bound cast look in peak physical condition, the relationship between these two is a Dr Phil episode wrapped in a Maury episode wrapped in a Judge Judy episode wrapped in a post on r/AITA.Yet the fact that this is nothing more than a personal fight elevates this plot above many other shonen stories about a maniacal villain with plans to conquer the planet, which, oddly enough, Yuujirou very likely could if he so chose. The man is quite literally the strongest being on Earth, with numerous governing bodies observing his every move and the President of the United States having to sign a treaty of friendship every time a new one is sworn in. It would be easy enough within the established world of the story to have Yuujirou decide he wishes to shape the world in his image and give Baki the easy motive of stopping his crazy father in the name of truth and justice. But Yuujirou doesn’t have those kinds of aspirations, which actually ends up making him that much more unsettling as an antagonist, as well as Baki all the more intriguing as a protagonist for simply wanting to take his dad down a peg but also understand him. The eventual showdown is given the gravitas it has earned as it’s built up to, but the ultimate fuse that lights it isn’t a buzzer going off or a bell being rung, it’s a quarrel about the past between father and son. There are moments that try to add a mythical element to this fight, but it’s really only the heightened emotions of a domestic conflict between a parent and child.And that’s why it pains me to say, as much as I feel the emotional weight and complexity of much of what is going on here, the story itself does have some noticeable issues that feel like a step down structurally from the other sections of Baki Hanma. One is the aforementioned subplot about Retsu, who previously had his foot chewed off by a caveman last time we saw him and now bounces back from that by transitioning his kung fu skills into boxing. I love a good comeback story about lower leg amputees as much as the next lower leg amputee, but it simply feels out of place in a batch of episodes that are building up to a totally unrelated fight. I realize they had to acknowledge it in the OP but that too feels slapped on and honestly made me think Retsu was gonna join the final battle for some reason.The other big issue I have with this half of the season is actually the latter parts of the final fight itself, as it seems to have numerous fakeout endings and climaxes, even introducing the ghost of Yuujirou’s father just to throw in some backstory about him that is neat to learn but otherwise adds nothing. Even the actual ending of the fight feels like it ran out of steam and just needed a place to stop.That all said, it doesn’t sour or ruin the story by any means, and the intense and intriguing character work it does for Baki and Yuujirou saves a lot of it. This all ends up being a pretty sufficient wrap up to this section of the story and definitely beats a few other fighters taking up the majority of the plot, loosening Yuujirou up before Baki can come in and take the win like the previous arcs felt like they were doing. It was, for the most part, pretty laser focused on building up to a planned end point, both emotionally and plot-wise and, again for the most part, achieved that goal. Not to mention, this is not the end of Baki’s story, as there are several other arcs left to be adapted including more rivals revived from the past and mixing in other fighting styles. Might take a few more years for those to come out, so in the meantime I might actually get around to watching the rest of this show. It’s about as likely as me getting into the gym sometime this year, and I’ll let you decide what that means.