YMMV / Baki the Grappler

• Accidental Aesop: There are quite a few fighters in this series who have big egos and promptly taste defeat when they underestimate their opponents, inadvertently creating the aesop that "underestimating your opponent, even if they are "weaker" than you, is a surefire way to be defeated no matter how strong you think you are". The only exception to this trope is Yujiro, and even he is humiliated extensively during Baki's final battle with him by failing to take his son seriously until the final minutes of the entire match.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Is Yujiro is just a jerkass, psycho manchild wishing to dish pain and suffering to everyone else, including Baki, or the victim of existential boredom stemming from his status of the Strongest Creature grooming Baki into his archnemesis just to have someone to fight with?
  • Then there's his freak out during the Raitai Tournament. Was he genuinely distraught because he thought that Kaku Kaioh, a Worthy Opponent, died of old age and was denied a warrior's death? Or was he baffled and angry because he realized that Kaku outsmarted him by willingly killing himself, forcing the battle into a draw? And if it was the latter, did Yujiro know that Kaku would've resurrected himself later, or did he thought that it was a legitimate Thanatos Gambit?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Although you might think of Jujutsu as a grappling based martial art, it originally started out as accessory techniques a Samurai could use alongside his preferred weapon to set up an easier kill.
  • A participant in the Raitai tournament Chin Kaiou practices a Kung Fu form called Sangoken, where he fights using a combination of the Spirit, the Fist and the Earth. While one can’t exactly find Sangoken online, it’s the Japanese translation for Sanhequan, a kung fu that is indeed a triad of Taichi (Spirit), Xingyi (Fist), and Bagua (Earth).
  • One Raitai participant, You Kaioh practices a kung fu form called Kongoken. Its’ purpose is to turn the user’s body into one that’s Made of Iron through harsh conditioning. Kongoken is the Japanese translation for Jingangquan, a pretty obscure form of Kung Fu. Artistic License – Martial Arts is in effect however, as Jingangquan doesn’t seem to involve any whole body conditioning. It’s possible the author was trying to reference Shaolin monk Iron Shirt training where they do constantly condition their structural strength with heavy blows all around their bodies. Their conditioning methods is not as harsh as You Kaioh’s method of standing under a waterfall full of falling stones and logs though.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Poor Ali Jr will likely go down in history as the biggest example of this trope to ever appear in anime. Especially in the anime which does nothing but hype up his inevitable fight with Baki in both the intro (which at least, shows Jr actually putting SOMETHING resembling an actual fight against Baki) and the ending credits.
  • Depending on who you ask, The Five Criminals as a whole (with the exceptions of Dorian and Speck) fall into this. Once the characters start seeing past all their tricks, their fighting tactics and styles fall apart fast, and are completely rag-dolled for the rest of the arc.
  • Musashi, after spending the entire Dou series as an incredibly capable warrior, is eventually defeated not by martial arts, but by having an elderly spirit medium jump him from behind and send his soul back to the afterlife.
• Awesome Art:
  • One of the most notable and memorable aspects of Itagaki's art style is his ability to effortlessly convey motion without invoking Motion Blur as an artistic technique due to the stylized exaggerated anatomy that he uses, as well as giving the lineart a feel of "looseness", making the fights look and feel animated in spite of them just being still images. Another notable feature of his art style are the realistic looking expressions that the characters make that accurately describe how they're feeling, such as Baki closing his eyes, raising his eyebrows and opening his mouth wide when yawning or Katsumi Katou pursing his lips when intensly focused on training.
  • This is also half the fun of Itagaki's use of bizarre methods of exposition delivered in what might occasionally feel like pure Ice-Cream Koan; He is actually able to make incredibly elaborate demonstrations of some awesome, some horrifying, and some really funny visual metaphors for what is going on inside the fighters and spectators' heads, as well as his own while simultaneously getting to show off his very real artistic skill. This means that anything from dinosaurs, animal anatomy to Giger's Alien, to a fully functional mech-suit with handling so fine that the pilot can knit, brew coffee, eat and drink with its giant robot pinchers has been the beloved subject of Itagaki's artstyle.
• Awesome Music: "Dominance", when someone is about get very serious.
  • What? No love for the opening of the first anime series?
  • The ending themes by the late Ryoko Aoyagi are fairly addictive and relaxing after an episode of bone-crushing action.
    • And if you think all of those are awesome enough, then think again with every, SINGLE, little, track for the 2018 Baki series and it's succeeding Seasons.
• Ass Pull: A flashback showing Yujiro raping a man in the 100th chapter of Baki-Dou. Apparently, Yujiro's body naturally produces so much testosterone that he can't tell the difference between men and women alike, and as a result, sees himself as the only man in a world full of women — apart from making little sense in terms of biology, it comes completely out of the left field.
• Badass Decay:
  • Katsumi (in the very arc he's introduced no less) goes from being able to easily taking down Yasha Jr. and barely beating Hanayama to getting one-shot by Retsu. In all subsequent arcs, he rarely wins any fights.
  • Biscuit Oliva, for the longest time, was the only person in the series with enough strength to actually call himself Yujiro's rival. He was easily the second strongest character behind the Ogre. But after Baki defeats him in the prison arc, his credibility tanked. First Yujiro effortlessly beats him in one hit, then he gets outright destroyed by Sukune.
  • Basically everyone not named Baki or Yujiro all get hit with this after the prison arc. Starting with Pickle, all of them regularly get folded by the new threats every arc. No one was able to beat Pickle outright (not even Yujiro, and Baki himself even lost Twice), and Retsu and Katsumi were irreparably maimed. Then Musashi comes along, kills Retsu, almost kills Hanayama, and makes the rest of the cast look even further like wimps (dude even cut Yujiro a few times). The only arc where everybody didn't suck so far was the Grand Sumo arc, but that gets chided by a lot of fans for varying reasons altogether.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Yujiro is either seen as the embodiment of supreme coolness and badassery or a loathsome Jerkass, rapist and murderer who doesn't deserve his Karma Houdini status.
  • Nomi no Sukune II, the sumo antagonist from Baki-Dou. While some fans enjoy his chill attitude and welcomed him as a new major character, others feel he is just plain boring, especially when compared to the previous antagonist, Musashi.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • In an early manga chapter, Yuujiro is chilling in his hotel room, when suddenly he senses someone on the other side of the door. Yuujiro tries to open the door, only to find out that he can't because someone is holding the door handle on the other side. By the time Yuujiro smashes the door open, the person on the other side has already fled. Even putting aside the Early-Installment Weirdness of someone being stronger than Yuujiro, it is never explained just who it was beyond the door.^note Given the timing, it's implied it was Kureha, but it's never stated outright.
  • Hanayama being driven home by a young police officer after subduing Spec, only to cut to his witness testimony the next day. What follows is his retelling of the events as a bystander to Spec flipping their car and continuing their fight, full of Black Comedy and implied Police Brutality and the officer at several points having a laugh at the viewer's lack of knowledge about just how much of a badass Hanayama is and how he was obviously going to win, no matter what.
• Catharsis Factor: Seeing Yujiro get cut and profusely bleed by Musashi. He even admits that it is a lot of damage for him.
  • The Death Row Convicts are all no better than Yujiro when it comes to maiming and killing people at random for no other reason than for kicks. After spending much of their screen time being nothing but unstoppable pricks (especially Dorian and Spec), seeing all five of them get inevitably and utterly broken and humiliated will lighten just about anyone's day.
  • Any fight in general where Yujiro actually has to TRY for once in his life is definitely this. From his first onscreen fight with Doppo where Doppo kept him on the back foot for most of the fight, to his final ultimate showdown with Baki. But the best example here so far aside from the aforementioned fight with Baki goes to Kaioh Kaku. Seeing the 149-year old man turning Yujiro's own power against him, actually managing to spook him, and being the first one to actually draw visible blood from the Hanma (long before the aforementioned Musashi even appeared in the series) is enjoyable to watch. And what really caps off the whole thing is that even though Yujiro didn't lose the fight, he sure as hell DIDN'T win either!!!
  • Muhammad Ali Jr making Yujiro blow his stack and managing to walk away with a smile. He schools Yujiro on the pointlessness of lying down during a fight since it just means the opponent can walk away. In a nutshell, the kid utterly humiliated the invincible ogre without even getting a scratch on him. Suffice to say seeing this will put a smile on anyone’s face guaranteed.
  • Even if Baki ultimately didn't win, Baki's final fight with Yujiro still counts. After seeing Baki's entire journey to get to that point, there's still a great deal's worth of stress relief to be had in finally seeing him at a level where he could counter his dad's brute strength and techniques, beat the shit out of him and land him on his ass several times throughout the latter part of the fight. After all of the rotten things Yujiro has done, not just to Baki, throughout the series, seeing him finally meet his match at the hands of the son he abused for so long is still a pure delight to watch.
  • Pickle too, for being the first and only character in the series to overpower Yujiro with nothing but raw strength.
• Complete Monster: "Most Evil Death Row Convicts" saga:
  • Spec is one of the escaped Death Row convicts, and easily the most deranged of the group. Sentenced to death row for several homicides, Spec makes his appearance by brutally murdering a man right before ripping his gold tooth from his mouth. After escaping prison, Spec goes on a killing spree in Japan in his quest to "taste defeat", killing numerous cops and a task force who tries to stop Spec's homicidal rampage. Spec violently attacking Hanayama while using various objects from rocks to park benches to maul him, until permanently scarring Hanayama with bullets on his mouth. After his previous battle, Spec reawakens and slaughters many within the police station, before shooting Hanayama in the legs to finish him off. A psychopathic killer, Spec expresses glee when committing violent acts of murder and assault.
  • Jeff Mark(son) is a former corrupt NYPD officer who extorts hippies through intimidation before he was brutally attacked by Biscuit Oliver. Returning years later, out for revenge, Markson sets up a bomb within a building killing 15 people, taking over the building and holding 20 hostages. Markson murders the rest of the hostages once they try to escape, having killed nine of them, all to lure Oliver so he'll have his revenge.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • Not that the series was subtle to begin with, but it is after the Maximum Tournament saga that the series officially starts to run on over-the-topness and Rule of Cool, and introduced weird characters like Pickle, a revived Caveman, and THE Miyamoto Musashi, who is portrayed as being so good at swordsmanship that he doesn't even NEED a sword and can make people feel like they've been cut through technique alone.
  • The sidestory, Baki Gaiden - Retsu Kaioh Isekai Tensei Shitemo Ikkō Kamawan! (Baki Side Story - Retsu Kaioh doesn't mind even if it's in another world!). It features Retsu Kaioh in a stereotypical medieval fantasy isekai setting, with the exception that Retsu is still relying on his martial arts prowess as he fights against fantasy monsters that are typical to the setting, such as Hydras, Goblins, Cyclopses, but the real draw is that he finds himself getting into encounters with various historical figures, such as a magic-using Amakusa Shiro, and it's also shown that he'll fight Musashibo Benkei, Napoléon Bonaparte, and Al Capone, among others. There's also the fact that he's using the setting itself as entertainment by fighting every monster and hostile fighter he comes across for the sake of it.
• Creator's Pet: Yujiro, Full stop. You could tell Itagaki completely fell head over heels for him the minute he started giving him Jerk Justifications in the later series. It doesn't help that he keeps upscaling the full scope of Yujiro's strength every arc. In the beginning, Yujiro went from being easily taken down by tranquilizer darts to shrugging off a literal bolt of lightning for up to five minutes like it was nothing. Then there's just the way Itagaki started downplaying all of the atrocities Yujiro committed over the years, where all his victims started forgiving him, and the story suddenly trying to make him seem like more of a wise and good person than he really is. What really cemented this in recent times were his actions in Chapter 100. See Crosses the Line Twice below for more details. The kicker? Baki's series-long goal ends up being all for nothing when he loses his final fight with Yujiro. Meaning all his crimes go completely unavenged, and the story acts like this is a good thing. No matter what the main characters do or how hard they train, none of them can ever hope to catch up to Yujiro's level. It gets really egregious whenever the story does introduce ancient characters like Pickle or Musashi, who actually can realistically beat Yujiro their fights with him are always cut short and never followed up on. Even his rape of adventurer Joe William is treated as okay, where the experience made Joe "realize the woman in him," and has been going on more dangerous adventures ever since to try and change that. Yujiro can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants because no one has (or ever will have) the strength to stop him.
• Crosses the Line Twice: An unintentional example with the 100th chapter of the 2nd half of Baki-dou. It starts off with an explanation that Yujiro's body produces so much testosterone that he sees everybody else, regardless of gender, as female, to showcase how manly and badass he is. This is further demonstrated by him... raping a male hiker while lustfully caressing him and even kissing him on the mouth while doing so. The fact that he went so far as to kiss and caress him makes it seem like Yuujiro genuinely found him enticing enough that he couldn't help himself as well as the fact that there's no explanation as to how this even happened or came to be, combined with the aforementioned exposition about Yujiro's body and him seeing everyone else, man or woman, as female, which has never even been implied or mentioned before is such a bizarre and flimsy attempt at making Yuujiro still appear heterosexual in spite of his actions suggesting that he is genuinely experiencing feelings of lust for the hiker makes the whole chapter an unintentional example of Black Comedy Rape.
• Crossover Ship: For whatever reason, certain fans on 4chan and Reddit have taken to shipping Jack with Elma from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. Presumably, it's because of Elma actually being a dragon who could easily take on Jack in a fight, as well as the two of them often seen dining on something.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: In Son of Ogre, Yujiro decides to give Baki the "World's Strongest Man" title after their fight and walk away content, and Baki is okay with that... but Baki didn't defeat Yujiro (even after all of his training, it's still impossible). Yujiro gave Baki the title because he's the only guy in the entire series that made Yujiro so much as actually break a sweat during a fight. By all means and purposes, he remains a Karma Houdini.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Speck is called "Florida Man" by fans, due to the submarine that functioned as his prison being located off the coast of Florida, as well as his general batshit crazy personality.
  • Many tend to refer to Ali Jr as "The King of Simps".
  • Motobe is sometimes referred to as "Memetobe", as well as GOATobe, due to his all around impressive performance when he actually gets to prepare for a fight, especially his portrayal in Baki-dou, where he gives a Curb-Stomp Battle against Jack and later manages to defeat Musashi after a very difficult fight.
  • Since the fourth and fifth manga series are both named "Baki Dou", some fans instead refer to them as "Musashi Dou" and "Sumo Dou" (or "Sukune Dou"), respectively (after the major character in either series).
• Fountain of Memes:
  • Yujiro Hanma. Many of the fandom inside jokes and memes stem from him, such as the various constant exposition dumps about him and things he's done, getting labeled as a Memetic Molester after the 100th chapter of the 2018 version of Baki-dou, and even just the way he's drawn sometimes by Itagaki.
  • Much like Yujiro is one, his son Baki shares his status as a fellow Fountain of Memes as well, such as the various instances of him shadow-boxing using his imagination being made fun of mercilessly due to overselling how effective shadow-boxing is, especially the scene where he imagines a 100kg Praying Mantis and actually gets hurt by it, him thanking a cockroach for giving him the inspiration for the Cockroach Dash move causing cockroaches to become a Memetic Badass in the fandom, among other things.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With, of all things, Beastars. Mostly due to their shared over-the-top nature and the fact that Paru Itagaki was revealed to be Keisuke Itagaki's daughter.
  • Fans of Kengan Ashura tend to gravitate towards this series thanks to their similar premises and Keisuke Itagaki's own endorsement. Both shows being advertised together by Netflix helped. Similarly, the same can be said with a lot of other Rated M for Manly anime series. They even have a crossover chapter for the thirtieth anniversary of Baki.
  • Booty Royale: Never Go Down Without a Fight! has been called a Distaff Counterpart to Baki and has an overlapping fandom: both series include a lot of well-researched and very homoerotic martial arts action.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The ONAs are huge in Latin America, where they are far more discussed and memetic than in most other places, which is further helped by the excellent dub work (see He Really Can Act and Memetic Mutation bellow).
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the Most Deadly Convict Arc, Doppo messes with Doyle by claiming Retsu was cut in half by the earth swallowing him up. In Baki-dou Retsu meets his end after being cut down by Musashi Miyamoto.
• He Really Can Act: The Latin American Spanish dub has an interesting case in the case of Alfonso Herrera as Baki: While Herrera had some previous experience as a movie and TV actor, this is his first role in dubbing anime, and while at first his performance was a little bit off in the first episodes, he really improves later on, especially in the second season when Kozue is kidnapped and Baki goes apeshit against Sikorsky, really showing he can do a good performance, especially when compared with the rest of the veteran All-Star Cast.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the English Dub for the 2018 Netflix series, Doppo is referred as the God of War while being voiced by Steve Blum who previously voice Ares from the God of War series.
  • A variation of this happens in the Latin American Spanish dub, as Doyle (voiced by Idzi Dutkiewicz) fights against Doppo later on. Dutkiewicz voiced Kratos in God of War (PS4).
• Ho Yay: Jack and Pickle trying to bite each other in the face, due to them looking less like they're trying to maul each other and more like they're passionately making out.
• I Knew It!: A Fanon joke was that Paru Itagaki, creator of Beastars, must be the daughter of Baki 's creator Keisuke Itagaki, based on the artists’ shared surname and the two series being released in the same magazine (Weekly Shonen Champion). A French newspaper article apparently confirmed their relationship, which was further confirmed without a doubt in an interview in Champion.
• Love to Hate: Yujiro Hanma is often made the object of light-hearted mockery by his detractors that don't completely hate him due to just how insanely and unbelievably over the top he is, and many expositions on how inhumanely strong and durable he is are made fun of, usually by making up parodies of them that depict him in scenarios that range from mundane, yet out of character, such as going down a slide, or completely bizarre and nonsensical while still making them seem like a superhuman feat, as well as him being labeled as a Memetic Molester who lusts after other men thanks to the 100th chapter of the 2018 edition of Baki-dou.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Fans have taken Yujiro being the strongest creature on the planet and ran with it, comparing him to fighters from other media like Street Fighter and Tekken. To the point of calling him the shonen equivalent of Chuck Norris.
    • However, his true Real-life equivalent would be none other than....Brock Lesnar, of all people. No seriously, Brock Lesnar is the real-life version of Yuujiro Hanma.
  • Motobe is often portrayed as a Batman-like figure who can defeat anybody or anyone given enough prep-time, thanks to his VERY impressive record of victories and feats whenever he gets to wield weapons, as he gave Yanagi a Curb-Stomp Battle and nearly defeated him if it weren't for Yuujiro randomly appearing. Baki-dou also managed to help improve his reputation in fan's eyes by having him give Jack Hanma a brutal and crushing defeat, as well as him not only giving Miyamoto Musashi, the main antagonist of that series, one hell of a fight, but actually managing to defeat him and living to tell the tale despite getting gruesomely injured.
  • The Sniper with a tranquilizer rifle who managed to take out Yuujiro, as well as nets. This comes from a bizarre scene in the Maximum Tournament arc where Yuujiro gets shot with tranquilizer darts by a sniper and is captured in a net. This feels incredibly jarring, due to Yuujiro's current portrayal that has him being even more ridiculously strong and powerful than he was in the beginning of the series. This has led to fans depicting the tranquilizers and net as being so powerful that not even Yuujiro can handle them.
  • "Cockroach-sensei", a cockroach that Baki comes up with the idea for his Cockroach Tackle technique with due to observing how they're able to reach their max speed from the moment they start moving, causing Baki to thank it for giving him the idea for the aforementioned technique. The fact that he went out of the way to thank it was found bizarrely amusing by Baki fans, causing the fandom to jokingly depict cockroaches as martial arts masters who are all on the level of Kaku Kaioh or Doppo Orochi.
  • The giant mantis Baki visualizes when shadow-boxing for his fight with Yujiro. Before the fight, Baki says that insects like the mantis are the perfect fighters, seeing as they have almost no weaknesses and can easily lift things many times their own weight, being able to jump to insane heights, and even lack the weaknesses most humans have. And if one ever were to grow bigger than a human, they'd be virtually unstoppable. Naturally, many fans caught on with this and now treat mantises in general as the strongest combatants in the series, on par with Yujiro and the African Elephant.
  • The Air itself. Yes, you are reading this correctly. As it has no true or real form regularly, it can take on the form of whatever opponent (from Retsu, to Iron Mike, but the Mantis takes the cake) Baki imagines during his shadow-boxing, and replicate their moves to a tee, visually manifest their forms for Baki's close friends and family to see, and can even HURT Baki. The air is such an effective training partner for Baki throughout the series, that some really consider it to be the true strongest fighter in the series.
  • Domoe Kozue, the depiction of Kozue in the Baki Domoe parody strips, due to there being multiple gags having her referencing Yuujiro's scenes, with her as Yuujiro, such as her recreating the scene where he karate chopped Yuu Amanai's collarbone so hardly it deformed his chest with a crossdressing Pickle in the place of Yuu, causing Pickle, one of the physically strongest characters in the series, who should be cited as actually being so strong that Yuujiro had to use a technique to overwhelm him, to uncontrollably burst into tears, screaming in agony at the top of his lungs as Kozue effortlessly caves in his body with a single chop, as well as recreating the veiny Nightmare Face that he made when flexing every muscle in his body to defend against the pain from getting hit by Baki's Benda when the latter tried to fight a cat she found that resembled Baki for trying to scratch her before she recreates the scene where Yuujiro sent Baki flying with a single slap, instantly defeating him. Aside from all the Yuujiro references, there's also another strip where she kills a cockroach, a fellow Memetic Badass after she recreated the scene where Retsu Kaioh rapidly tossed countless knives at Doyle by stomping on it, interrupting Baki's internal monologue about the cockroaches speed and durability as he mourns it.
• Memetic Loser:
  • The only thing people remember Ali Jr. for is getting curb-stomped trying to impress a girl that wasn't into him. Being "the king of simps" isn't a nickname one gets out of respect.
  • Sikorsky, due to his less than impressive record in the Most Evil Death Row Convicts arc. The fact that he breaks down begging for mercy during his fight with Gaia was pretty much a Never Live It Down moment for him.
  • Yuujiro Hanma is subjected to this for the same reasons that Goku is subjected to; namely by having completely random characters give him a Curb-Stomp Battle to jokingly suggest that they're far too strong for him, as well as fans making fun of him by making him out to be some sort of weakling by taking various events involving him and distorting their context, like joking that he was so weak that he couldn't even open the door in the scene where somebody manages to prevent him from opening a door by holding it shut.
• Memetic Molester:
  • Yuujiro Hanma himself, due to the 100th chapter of the 2018 version of Baki-dou detailing that he raped another man for no apparent reason as part of an exposition that his body actually produces so much testosterone that he sees everybody, regardless of gender, as women. The sheer tasteless and nonsensical nature of this, as well as how alarming it is to see after Yuujiro has been portrayed as significantly more mellow after Son of Ogre has caused a case of Never Live It Down for Yuujiro's character, causing many fans to portray Yuujiro as being all too eager to rape other men. Some have even compared him to the Booty Warrior from The Boondocks.
  • Baki Hanma is also subjected to this, thanks to Chapter 2 of Hanma Baki having him slap Rumina Ayukawa, a child, on the rear end and then invite him into coming to his basement with him. He slapped him as away of going soft on him, but also non-verbally communicating just how outmatched Rumina is by sending him flying but leaving him unharmed otherwise, and him inviting him to his basement was simply to show off how to be strong by shadowboxing a giant mantis. It's also been joked that Yuujiro's idea of bonding with Baki would be to "share" Joe Williams (the man that Yuujiro raped.) with him.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The idea that the Hanma's grow stronger through sex is often named PP Training by the fans, many thanks to AR Manga.
  • So many fans refer it as Ippo's Bizarre Adventure whereas others would refer it as a Rated M for Manly human-focused version of Ren & Stimpy.
  • Yuujiro's only weakness? Doors. ^ExplanationFrom an Early-Installment Weirdness moment, where Yuujiro finds himself unable to open a door because someone is holding the handle on the other side. Fans began joking that Yuujiro's sole weakness is his inability to open doors.
  • Yuujiro's greatest enemy? Sniper-kun and a net. ^ExplanationDuring the Maximum Tournament arc, when Yuujiro tries to crash the tournament, Tokugawa manages to take him down by launching a net at him and having snipers shoot him with darts filled with rhino tranquilizer. This became a popular "Never Live It Down" moment among the fans, especially given how utterly overpowered and undefeatable Yuujiro becomes later in the series.
  • Okay, [X] is pretty strong, but can he rip through a deck of cards? ^ExplanationDuring Hanayama's first appearance, his strength is shown by him ripping off a chunk from a deck of cards. Fans began joking about it being the ultimate test of strength.
  • "Now that you've got no more urine in you, how are you going to get out of this tetrahedron?"^ExplanationA notable scene that will pretty much always be brought up when talking about how weird the series is. It's common to also point out that in-context, the scene is even weirder due to the major player being a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Che Guevara.
  • 100kg Praying Mantises ^ExplanationBaki makes himself go through a grueling training session by shadow boxing against a giant mantis, citing how bugs are able to easily carry things that weigh more than them, and jump far beyond their own height, among other things, with him describing Mantises as the perfect fighters. The absurdity of this has caught on with the fanbase, and 100kg Mantises are treated as a Memetic Badass of sorts within the fandom. The literal fact that the anime team even gave the mantis its own unique boss theme in the show does nothing to mitigate this.
  • Retsu Kaioh is the best waifu. ^ExplanationRetsu Kaioh is inexplicably referred as the "best waifu" in the Baki fandom, likely because of his Nice Guy personality, as well as how he is shown to be very good at cooking, a stereotypically feminine trait.
  • Motobe will protect you. ^ExplanationMotobe is one of the few people who recognizes how much of a threat Miyamoto Musashi is, and actively tries to protect everybody from him, to the point where he downright tells them in person, even to Yujiro Hanma. This has made some fans jokingly portray Motobe as some guardian-figure who's constantly obsessed with protecting everybody.
  • Yuuichiro Hanma is a stoner. ^ExplanationYuuichiro is jokingly portrayed as a stoner due to the constant relaxed smile he has on his face that makes him look like he's high, as well as him being shown to be a relatively laid back and even carefree person.
  • Jyaku Kaioh is a Japanese Vsauce. ^ExplanationThe character Jyaku Kaioh bears a resemblance to Michael Stevens, one of the channel's hosts, due to having a bald head, glasses, and a beard, which caused him to jokingly be labelled as such in the video "Retsu Kaioh in a nutshell" by AR Manga, which quickly caught on with the fandom.
  • Everybody was kneeling out of respect. ^ExplanationA particular panel from Baki: Son of Ogre chapter 135, which shows an entire auditorium of Shinshinkai Dojo members kneeling in reaction to Katsumi's dedication during his fight with Pickle. Often used as a reaction image.
  • Retsu's head lying on the hospital bed. ^Explanation A popular image of Retsu lying on the hospital bed after his maiming in his match against the caveman where it's edited to be solely his head on the pillow. The image was popular in Baki-centric internet communities for years but started being shared around the mainstream following the adaptation of the Pickle arc in March 2023.
  • Apple fritter enjoyer ^Explanation A nonsensical meme depicting Yuujiro as representing everyone who likes the taste of apple fritters, attributing his impossible muscularity and feats to simply the power bestowed by the food.
  • Amongst the Latin American fandom, it's extremely popular to use the ONAs' footage for meme templates, usually accompanied by a slowed-down reggaeton or Latin trap song and/or involving characters like Baki, Yujiro Hanma or Biscuit Oliva, mostly due to its over-the-top nature.
    • Besides Baki and his father Yujiro, Biscuit Oliva is also an absolute Fountain of Memes in Latin America, with many of his phrases (such as his "love speech") being very common copypasta and/or shitpost material.
  • Titsniff the Goblin ^Explanation A bizarre, made-up character in the vein of Graggle Simpson, that's an edited version of Baki Hanma himself, changed to be smaller in size, completely bald, and nude, as well as having a Gag Nose due to being his "Goblin Sidekick", as he's often placed alongside Baki in edits of panels, with the poster claiming he was always there.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Many fans out there tend to think that Doppo and Shibikawa were being sore losers for challenging Mohammad Ali Jr to a rematch after he was already beaten down by Jack. They're completely ignoring the fact that the two old men, along with all their friends, regularly fight against the worst the criminal underworld has to offer. And that simply "not being at your best" isn't a good enough excuse if your enemy really wants you dead (The Five Death Row Convicts alone proves that). Shibukawa and Doppo, along with Ali Sr. himself, were merely trying to teach Jr this lesson if he truly wanted to survive in the kind of world they live in and become a real fighter. It doesn't help any that Jr himself regularly treats the whole thing as one big game anyway, and would've eventually gotten himself killed for his troubles had Baki not been stopped at the last minute.
  • Kaku Kaioh in his "prime" as a musclebound youth who disregards technique has somehow been interpreted as a menace and a powerhouse by the fans, in spite of the fact that the entire point of Kaku Kaioh's character is to demonstrate how deadly somebody would be with an obscene amount of skill and technique would be irregardless of how big or strong they are, as he's a little old man who forces Yujiro to take him seriously in their fight.
• Moral Event Horizon: Yujiro's brutal and deadly maiming of Emi, while their son (and everybody else) is incapable of doing anything to stop him.
  • Earlier in the series Yujiro killed the Yasha Ape after it became Baki's friend and then proceeded to mock Baki with Yasha's decapitated head.
• Narm: Every instance of shadow-boxing, due to how absurdly exaggerated it is. It gets even worse with the introduction of Nomi-no-Sukune II, as he's shown training by doing Shadow-Sumo, which is basically imagining grappling with a physically impossible sumotori. The fact that this winds up getting a massive crowd of people to see said sumotori and even fall over once Nomi-no-Sukune II "wins" against his imaginary opponent by tossing him has been mercilessly mocked by even the most open-minded of fans for how ludicrous and unbelievable it is even by the series standards.
• Narm Charm: The constant exposition dumps. They appear in almost every fight, ranging from things like explaining who a character is and the things they have done, to literally the most asinine things like explaining how effective stomping is in a fight by detailing how even getting stomped on by a child would be dangerous to a fully grown man, and the same obvious exposition on how useful biting is by detailing how a trained martial artist could handle letting a kid hit him non-stop for five minutes straight without defending himself, but wouldn't be able to handle the kid deciding to exclusively bite him, as well as making the use of bizarre metaphors and similes for the most minute things, such as comparing the testicles to having a heart located in the place of them to describe how painful and debilitating getting kicked in the groin is. They manage to be incredibly fun to read, thanks to a combination of appealing visuals that illustrate the scenarios and a third-person perspective rife with Description Porn as the narrator addresses you.
• Nausea Fuel: Many things in the series, but most of the characters are drawn so muscular and with such little body fat that they look disgusting. It doesn't help that the art style makes them look realistic while simultaneously looking cartoony, making the characters look creepy as hell. Some viewers even compared Itagaki's art style to Rob Liefeld. And while Itagaki definitely knows how to draw muscle (to the point the characters tend to look like they've been flayed alive), he would sometimes mess up their proportions big time, such as this shot◊ where Baki's legs are twice as long as his upper body.
• Never Live It Down: Yuujiro has been permanently labeled as a Memetic Molester by the fandom due to him inexplicably raping another man for no reason in the 100th chapter of the 2018 version of Baki-dou, as well as threatening to rape Tokugawa in the same chapter.
• The Scrappy:
  • Despite his Noble Demon character development, many still hate Yujiro for his many atrocities across the early parts of the story. Especially when it became clear Baki (or anyone) was Never'' going to be allowed beat him. His raping of Joe Williams did nothing to alleviate this.
  • Check most online forums and you'll find that many people aren't fond of Katsumi. This stems mostly from his early incarnation as an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy who near-effortlessly beats more fan-favorite characters, such as Hanayama, only to end up getting his ass handed to him inevitably.
  • Tokugawa has also come under fire after the Pickle and Musashi arcs, where his incessant desires for always wanting to see a good fight end up helping get Retsu maimed (and later killed), and a whole bunch of other characters and innocent bystanders harmed in the process. And even when called out by other characters like Dr Payne, he just deflects blame and for the most part, took no responsibility for these events.
• Seasonal Rot: Let's just say recent chapters have not gone over with the fans very well. By now, Baki and Yujiro have already had their big final fight (which Baki loses). Naturally, you'd expect for the story to end there, but it doesn't. The story is now following a very predictable pattern: Introduce a new powerful antagonist, hype up his back story and training background, have him effortlessly defeat several fan-favorites to show off how good he is, only for him to still fall short in skill and power to Baki and especially Yujiro.
• Signature Series Arc: Four major contenders so far:
  • The Maximum Tournament for some.
  • The Five Deathrow Convicts Saga for many.
  • The Father-Son Conflict Arc for others.
  • And lastly the Musashi Arc that finally showed us the long-eluded swordsman.
• Superlative Dubbing: The English and Latin American Spanish dubs of the series are very well done.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Western fans have this criticism of Muhammad Ali Jr. They feel the character failed to live up to the potential several characters in-universe, even Yujiro himself, stated he possessed after Aji Jr. started a losing streak before leaving the series forever. Several viewers even suspect Itagaki changed his mind on the character and decided to write him out with said losing streak.
  • A lot of fans feel the same way about Ryuu Kaioh, the master of Retsu Kaioh, due to having an utterly badass design, as well as him being implied to be incredibly powerful due to him being the master of Retsu himself, who is already one of the strongest characters in the series. He unfortunately gets swiftly disposed of in no time by Yuujiro, to the disappointment of many fans.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • The buildup that Dorian had fell flat when he got utterly curbstomped by Doppo and later mentally regresses when he makes a realization that his dirty fighting means that his entire goal of seeking defeat is purposeless as he's never won by his definition of the term.
  • Yujiro mentions that he's had children all over the globe, yet the only ones we see are Baki and Jack, in spite of the Hanma genes having high chances of spawning highly strong people, leading to fans wanting to see a Hanma family reunion tournament between all of Yujiro's children.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: The fighting manga genre on acid, or one unwittingly documenting the author succumbing to CTE as an actual practitioner of martial arts. At first the series is fairly realistic, albeit pushing your suspension of disbelief. After the Maximum Tournament though, all bets are off. By the time you reach Son Of Ogre you'll be wondering what the hell the author was on.
• Too Cool to Live: You will be missed, Retsu Downplayed in that it got him his own side story as a result.
  • Even the guy who killed Retsu belongs here. After spending the entire arc as a near unstoppable badass (and who wasn't even that bad of a guy) who plowed through many characters, and was one of the few people who could actually damage Yujiro easily with raw strength, Musashi more than won a lot of fans. And many were disappointed by his sudden return to the afterlife. Though given how Tokugawa is keeping his body in suspended animation, it's possible he may return one day.
• Ugly Cute:
  • Dorian, when he gets mentally reduced to a child after being defeated by Retsu Kaioh, due to the innocent, doe-eyed look in his blue eyes, as well as him rambling on about how he loves candy and his father and mother in an adorably high-pitched, mumbly voice, courtesy of his voice actor, Banjo Ginga. The look of pure, child-like joy and excitement he gets when he hears Retsu tell him he's going to get him as much candy as he wants manages to be bizarrely adorable to an extreme degree, in spite of him being a heavily muscled, elderly man with a clearly aged face.
  • Miyamoto Musashi. He looks really strange and even unsettling due to his odd, cat-like face and wide staring eyes, but his bizarre, child-like innocence, wild curiosity regarding the modern world, and his genuinely friendly and respectful nature can make him endearing in a strange way. There's also him hugging Tokugawa goodbye out of genuine gratitude for everything he did for him when the police come to escort him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Yujiro, after his Noble Demonic Character Development. Needless to say, his sheer Jerkassery and Invincible Villainy still make him such a Hate Sink in the eyes of many fans. He shares at one point he feels bad for how his strength crushes his own dream but it sounds pretty hollow given he didn't even seek his mother for comfort as a baby but demanded to be fed according to the narration.

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