Yujiro Hanma is a BAMF (Baki)

Yujiro Hanma from Baki is a certified BAMF.

I’ll admit, I slept on the Baki series for way too long.

As someone who lurks 4chan’s /fit/ board, I saw enough pictures to know what Grappler Baki was and have a rough idea of what it’s about. It’s a fighting anime full of giant muscular men. I might catch some flak for saying this, but the show is essentially a male power fantasy, with giant dudes performing crazy combat feats and overcoming limits to get stronger while the few women in the series don’t understand why the men are doing this. In fact, one of the most prominent lines from the series is something to the effect of “Every man has dreamt of being the strongest at least once in his life”.

There’s nothing wrong with that at all, great films like Rocky use the same principle, albeit more grounded in reality. This isn’t “toxic masculinity” or any of that whiny nonsense, it’s a story of a man aspiring to greatness, rising to face challenges, and ultimately becoming a legend. But I’d be lying if I said the show wasn’t a form of wish fulfillment for a male audience.

The main character of the series is Baki Hanma, a 17 year old martial artist whose goal is to become strong enough to beat his father, a world-renowned fighter named Yujiro. The series also shares some of the focus with other fighters, like Doppo Orochi, his son Katsumi, young Yakuza boss and brawler king Hanayama, a little old man named Shibukawa who is an insanely strong jujitsu and aikido master, Chinese kenpo master “Sea King” Retsu, and a bunch of other crazy strong fighters.

But none of them compare to Yujiro Hanma.

This guy is a fucking unstoppable beast. Yujiro would whoop the living shit out of Saitama or Goku like they were whiny little kids acting out at the grocery store. Sung Jinwoo? Please, Yujiro would bitchslap Jinwoo into the ground, take over his shadow army, then destroy every other hunter and monarch without using any shadows. Sukuna? Suck-un-a deez nuts, domain expansions mean nothing when the entire Earth is Yujiro’s domain. The only character that might stand a chance against Yujiro is Gaston, and even then Gaston would probably just say “Nah I’m good fam, game recognize game” and not bother trying.

Obliviously I was being facetious there, but Yujiro is still insanely fucking strong. Yujiro is like those Chuck Norris facts from the early 2000’s personified as an anime character and dialed up to 11. The guy is a straight-up ass-kicking factory. My man casually stormed into the Japanese Prime Minister’s office after taking out over 100 guards armed with riot gear, just to prove he could.

In the manga, which is about 20x crazier than the anime, he’s broken into the White House and paid personal visits to Trump, Biden, Obama, and Dubya just as a flex. He even threatens to rape Hillary Clinton (which apparently turns her on):

That’s how you know Yujiro is a true monster, he can get hard for Hillary. I bet Yujiro even has information that could lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, and there isn’t a damn thing she can do about it.

Do you know the reason that the US lost in Vietnam? I mean, the real reason? It wasn’t some namby-pamby Viet Cong guerillas, it was a 16 year old Yujiro Hanma, running around the jungle literally killing US forces with his bare hands. The US sent in Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and Delta Force to try to take him down. They got slaughtered like they were nothing. The United Nations sent in an operative to take Yujiro out. Yujiro raped her, and nine months later she gave birth to Jack, Baki’s older half brother.

I didn’t make any of that up, it’s all really in the anime and the manga. Yujiro Hanma is one of the biggest menaces in Japanese animation.

When Yujiro isn’t busy committing murder and rape for fun, he’s checking in on Baki to see how his training is progressing. Yujiro wants Baki to become stronger than him so someone can finally give him a good fight. Yujiro has become so strong that nobody can even come close to defeating him, he’s bored off his ass at this point. In a way, he’s like Saitama if Saitama didn’t have any morals.

Yujiro watches Baki and the others fight in Tokugawa’s Maximum Tournament, occasionally jumping in to whoop someone’s ass just because. About halfway through the tournament, he decides to challenge all the remaining combatants simultaneously. Season 2 was about to wrap up real quick, but the losers of the tournament stepped in and said “We’ve already taken an L, what’s another one?”, volunteering to fight Yujiro instead. They got their asses whooped royally, but the tournament was able to continue, and the second season didn’t have to prematurely end halfway in.

Oh, and he can literally walk through glass like it’s plastic wrap:

I could go on and on about Yujiro, but I’ve got shit to do so eventually you’re just going to have to go check it out for yourself. If you haven’t watched Baki yet, you’re definitely missing out on one of the greatest fighting anime of all time. You can’t really just jump in anywhere though, there’s a recommended viewing order.

Start with Grappler Baki from 2001. Watch the first 16 episodes, then go watch the OVA from 1994, Grappler Baki: The Ultimate Fighter. After that, finish both seasons of 2001’s Grappler Baki.

Once you’re done the older stuff, move on to Baki from 2018. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s from Netflix, it’s still good. There’s two seasons of this, one is about 26 episodes, the other 13.

After that, do Hanma Baki: Son of Ogre. There’s two seasons of that, the first is 12 episodes, and the other is 27.

Netflix has also recently announced a new season, titled Baki-Dou: The Invincible Samurai. Apparently the plot revolves around everyone fighting legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. I can’t wait, I’m effin’ stoked.

The manga is still on-going, so hopefully the anime will continue to draw from that and keep going. I think a series about fighting translates better to moving animation, but considering all the crazy shit I’ve heard about I might just go check out the manga on this one too.

I give the Baki series a solid 8/10. I give Yujiro Hanma a 100/10, because I’m afraid that if I don’t, he might come to life and beat me to death like the little bitch that I am.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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