“Baki” is back. A living legend when it comes to martial arts anime, the franchise based on Keisuke Itagaki’s original “Baki The Grappler” manga simply revels in depicting grotesquely muscular supermen brutalize each other. Forget everything you know about physics, fighting, and basic human anatomy. All of that goes out the window whenever protagonist Baki Hanma finds an opponent worth his salt.
If you think that sounds like almost every anime and manga, you wouldn’t be entirely correct. The “Baki” franchise — including its most recent entry, Season 1 of Netflix’s “Baki Hanma” anime — depicts many common tropes from the shonen genre. The only difference is that “Baki” pretends to be more grounded in reality by relying on “scientific” explanations for the impossible things its characters do.
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