Welp, it is time.

Baki FINALLY is available for purchase, which essentially means this Media Do Manga Tour is at its end. Come join me for some thoughts on the manga that has shockingly been licensed!

New Grappler Baki, by Keisuke Itagaki (Serialized in 1999 in Weekly Shonen Champion)

New Grappler Baki English and JP Volume 1 cover

So as you can tell from the name, this isn’t the first Baki series. MD-i has decided to release the sequel, which is a bit more manageable at 31 volumes. I say manageable because the current volume champion in length for them so far is Mio Murao’s S&M manga. So them releasing this many volumes is something they can do.

Another thing is that having only a part of a series released in English is rare, but it does happen. Probably the most famous is Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. VIZ jumped ahead and brought over Part 3 way back in the day. Now of course times have changed significantly. Drops of God, a wine tasting manga that started in 2004 and is still going in Japan, was released and ultimately had to jump ahead before having to stop completely. Kaiji, which was just picked up by Denpa, is a new example where the only way more will be licensed is if it sells well.

But for Baki, the big question is, if you happened to jump into the series without any prior knowledge of the first one, does this invite you in?

Well, that’ll depend if you can answer the following two questions:

  1. If the summary at the beginning of volume 1 satisfies you.
  2. If you can handle the ultra violence in this manga.

And for me, as my only knowledge of the Baki series was Netflix has the rights to the anime and it’s one of the longest manga series ever, I guess this volume does its job. The story is, however, very simplistic at the moment.

New Grappler Baki
Spoiler: This guy survives this.

For now, volume 1 introduces us to Baki Hanma, who is entirely too powerful to still be attending high school, but he is. He gets called over by his grandpa, the 13th Head of the Tokugawa Conglomerate, who begins warning him of some new challengers. These aren’t any random peeps — these guys are absolutely psychotic prisoners who survived all manners of torture (hanging, electric shock to name a couple), executed prison guards (or a black belt, a doctor, etc) in gruesome ways, or escaped seemingly impossible conditions (like a dude who weighs 100 kilos scaling a 100 meter high steel wall…by himself). Why? All to go to Tokyo and be…defeated.

Well, defeated by Baki? In general? So many questions, and yet, the main point of Baki isn’t all that complex. You’re going to read this to see just how the hell these monsters tear apart capable beings as if they’re nothing. Well, that and how Baki deals with it. In a surprising twist, this volume barely features Baki at all. It obviously makes sense if you’ve read the first series, but for me, it’s definitely a cold way to go in.

That said, this is obvious set up to where all of these guys meet each other. However, how in the world this series can keep up the shock factor for 31 volumes is actually stumping me. There are multiple killings in every chapter. It’s going to live or die on how it can mess with the human body…and it feels weird to doubt an author that’s gone this long with a series, but Itagaki…I wonder how long I can survive all of this!

But that said, you might also have to wonder if the product is actually in the best shape. In reading a few older materials localized by MD-i, the quality looks a lot more presentable than Baki does. In some cases, this really makes me think of low-quality scanlations, which isn’t quite what I want to be reminded of when I’m paying for a title. Now, as a defense –1999 is a long time ago. Works like that have a shelf life, and this could have been the best quality they could make for digital release. Also, the art in this manga is grotesque. Mostly in ways that show detailed violence, but sometimes it just looks goofy. That doesn’t always help.

The translation of the manga is good. As in, I didn’t notice any major errors. However, I dunno if the lettering is all that great. And well, this now makes two MD-i series where I did NOT want to read the following wall of text:

ahhhhhhhhh

Like, it might be important! It’s something that happens twice in the manga, so there was a point to be made here. But I found it incredibly tedious to look at and read. Maybe a better font could have been chosen? I dunno, it was just awkward.

Anywho, the first three volumes of this series is weirdly exclusive to ComiXology and Kindle until September 15. I dunno if this means it’ll remain on the service after that date, or if it’ll stay on that date but other digital retailers (BookWalker, Kobo, etc) can now sell it. I highly doubt it’d leave Kindle or ComiXology, so if you feel like waiting a month or so, you can.

For everyone else…pick this up if either the quality or the violence isn’t a turn off.

The Twitter Version of BAKI thoughts