A Martial Arts Extravaganza

This anime is about Baki Hanma, who trains in martial arts and brute strength to defeat his father, Yujiro Hanma, in a one-on-one fight. To gain strength and training, he faces a variety of opponents, some of whom are real and others are figments of his imagination.

The first season is set in a prison where Baki commits a crime to fight America's strongest man, Biscuit Oliva, who is no. 1 in the prison. There he also needs to face another man, Guevaru, who is the second-best in the prison. The storyline is good as it is set to show the pursuit of Baki to attain strength, master the various techniques of different martial arts, and put himself in the challenge with the greatest fighters to test his skills. The backstory of Guevara and his need to be the strongest man were written well and were quite different from all the characters in all Baki animes. The fight between Iron Michael with the Triplets and Guevaru's intervention, the fight between Guevaru and Biscuit Oliva, Biscuit Oliva's privilege in the prison, and his love interest were portrayed well and were presented in a short and crisp duration of 12 episodes.

The first part of the second season is set with the finding of a primitive man, Pickle, from the Jurassic era frozen in an ice glacier. The story begins as the primitive man regains consciousness. He is challenged by every strongest character from previous Baki animes, just as he fought a T-Rex before being frozen. The fights between Pickle and the fighters one by one were set out well and created curiosity about how Baki will face him. Baki's training with reimagining the insects in the size of humans and their strength as equivalent to it was interesting and portrayed as the next level of shadow boxing was good but feels a bit exaggerated when Baki bleeds and gets bruised by facing nothing in real-time. The narration of characteristics of the primitive man was a good addition to pose him as a serious threat and give a good cliffhanger at each episode's end.

The second part of the second season is set to Retsu's pursuit towards boxing, and Baki challenges his father to a fight after five years since their first face-off. The training of Retsu and his face-off with boxers one by one as the rank of boxer gets high were good and admirable. Baki's wish to dine with his father Yujiro Hanma before their face-off was good and showed his longing as a child who missed his father's presence as he grew. But when Baki starts to speak about his father, it shows he went soft on him despite his actions regarding his mother; even his mother pushed him too far to earn Yujiro's attention and love instead of showing care and love to Baki. For the same reasons, I couldn't tolerate the ending of the show as Baki and Yujiro make peace between them, appreciate, name, and forgive each other.

The story was good for most of the anime but lagged at certain points and felt stretched for extra episodes. As I watched it in English dub, the voice acting was good and suited for every character. The animation was good, as each fight was animated with different martial arts and humanified insects. The music was crucial to this anime as it elevated the action sequences.

In conclusion, I like this anime as an action genre enthusiast. I would suggest this anime for its action with a limited story.