Ask John: How Much Grappler Baki is There?

Question:
I was wondering if there was more to the Grappler Baki series after parts one and two. It ends and just leaves you with nothing and then says something like “Grappler Baki Resolution.” I was just wondering if there was more?

Answer:
Grappler Baki has never been a big success in America before, but may still have its moment in the limelight in the future. Itagaki Keisuke’s Baki the Grappler premiered as a manga in Shonen Champion magazine in 1991 and was popular enough to last through 42 volumes of collected manga. Since then, the manga has been expanded with reprints, side-stories and a sequel manga series titled, simply, “Baki,” which has 17 collected volumes in Japan as of this writing. The first manga series is now being translated into English for American readers in the pages of Weekly Raijin Comics.

Grappler Baki first became animated in a 45 minute long OAV released in 1994 that adapted the early chapters of the manga. The OAV was not tremendously successful in either Japan or America. Somewhat surprisingly, the series was optioned for animation a second time in TV series format. The Grappler Baki TV series premiered on TV Tokyo on January 8, 2001 and became quite successful. The first 24 episode long season was directly continued in the second 24 episode TV season called “Grappler Baki Saidai Tournament Hen” (Grappler Baki: Maximum Tournament Chapter). Despite wildly erratic production quality, strong characterizations and amazingly choreographed, extremely violent and brutal martial arts fighting sequences made the TV series an addictive guilty pleasure. At 48 episodes, the TV series adapted the entire 42 volume manga series. However, since the Grappler Baki manga itself never addressed a climactic fight between Baki and his father Yushiro, the animation likeswise never presents this final battle.

Finally, Grappler Baki was also turned into one of the earliest Playstation 2 games, released in December 2000- a 3D fighting game titled Grappler Baki: Baki Saikyo Retsuden. The game was developed by Tomy, a company not normally associated with producing video games, which, according to the reviews I’ve read, may explain the mediocre quality of the game.

The Grappler Baki TV animation has not been announced for American release, but should Gutsoon Entertainment decide to expand their translating efforts beyond Raijin Comics, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them announce the Grappler Baki TV series as one of their first anime titles.

Thanks go out to Tony for assistance with this article.