Baki-Dou: The Invincible Samurai is available on Netflix now.
In a world of cartoonishly ripped men whose only goal in life is to hone and prove their strength in a series of no-holds-barred, weapons-free fights, one’s greatest enemy is not a mighty foe; it is yawning boredom. This is the initial set-up for Netflix’s latest anime offering: Baki-Dou: The Invincible Samurai, and it makes for an entertaining, surprisingly relatable entry point for viewers new to the franchise.
Based on Keisuke Itagaki’s massively popular manga, Baki-Dou: The Invincible Samurai is the fourth series adaptation of the Baki story, following two seasons of Baki the Grappler (2001), two seasons of Baki (2018), and two seasons of Baki Hanma (2021). The franchise follows the battles of Baki Hanma (voiced by Troy Baker and Nobunaga Shimazaki), who begins the story as a teen underground fighter. In the hopes of growing strong enough to best his cruel father in combat, he travels the world to battle others.
By the time Baki-Dou: The Invincible Samurai starts, Baki has settled the score with his father, Yujiro “Strongest Creature on Earth” Hanma (voiced by Kirk Thornton and Akio Ōtsuka), and is left feeling aimless. He still trains, but it is without urgency, excitement, or purpose. Baki isn’t the only one—all the world’s fighters are caught up in this ennui, and it’s unexpectedly relatable. I may not be an anime muscle man, but I know what it’s like to feel a lack of purpose, seemingly exacerbated by the profit-driven humdrum of the modern world. It also aligns Baki with fans at home, wondering if the franchise will ever again be able to match the intensity of its father-son brawl.
In the world of Baki-Dou, the big-swing solution to our collective boredom isn’t easy but it is possible: bring history’s greatest samurai swordsman, Musashi Miyamoto (voiced by Sung-won Cho and Naoya Uchida), back from the dead. The task is spearheaded by Mitsunari Tokugawa (voiced by Matthew Yang King and Mugihito), the martial arts-obsessed billionaire who funds and runs the Underground Arena where our characters face off. (Note: I believe Tokugawa to be this franchise’s true villain.)
Tokugawa comes up with the crazy resurrection plan as a way to reinvigorate his international stable of fighters, and he hires a team of scientists (and his psychic sister) to make it happen. Viewers who are here solely for the battle sequences may be bored by the first few Baki-Dou episodes, which focus more on how Miyamoto is resurrected than martial arts, but the series is stronger for its slow-burn start. It allows us to better understand Baki’s boredom, while also providing context for Miyamoto’s return. As the series progresses, and Miyamoto is left to adapt (or not) to the modern world on his own, the Dr. Frankenstein-like selfishness of Tokugawa’s act serves as subtext for all that follows.
The creativity in how ferocity is depicted—from inside a fighter’s head to as described on an evening news report—keeps the face-offs in Baki-Dou from turning stale.
Actually, this isn’t the first time Baki has fought a fighter resurrected from the past, but it arguably works better here due to the narrative space given to Miyamoto’s character early in the story. He died in the Sengoku-era and woke up 400 years later in modern-day Tokyo. Overwhelmed by the changes, his code of combat becomes the only way for him to make sense of the world. In that sense, he fits right in with most of the story’s characters. In other ways, of course, his samurai-era perspective acts as a counterpoint to these contemporary characters. His interactions with them—from conversations to combat—make up the backbone (not an intentional reference to how Miyamoto was cloned) of this series.
While Baki-Dou may ease us into the series’ martial arts moments, once they come, they are precise and dynamic, making use of the unreal limits of the format to make each jump, jab, and launch into a convenience store come to life. The combat of Baki-Dou is not simply one of strength, but also a level of skill that ascends to the supernatural. Baki senses Miyamoto’s resurrections before the clone fully revives, drawn in by a mysterious and distant heartbeat. Miyamoto is so powerful that his visualizations of how a swordstrike might go can cause real pain to his opponent. The creativity in how ferocity is depicted—from inside a fighter’s head to as described on an evening news report—keeps the face-offs from turning stale.
As a franchise, Baki has never been known for its animation, but the utilitarian creativity displayed in Baki-Dou works for the world and looks the best it ever has. Baki-Dou director Toshiki Hirano told Animation Magazine that he hadn’t watched much of the previous Baki incarnations before helming 2018’s Baki. “Since visual expression and directing methods continue to change over time, I didn’t place particular emphasis on the earlier adaptations,” he said, adding that he was influenced by live-action samurai films like the 1970s Lone Wolf and Cub series, which is also a manga adaptation.
Instead, Hirano built his visual style around the Baki manga, and it shows in the finished product, which sometimes recreates panels exactly as they appear in the source material. Depending on how you feel about this level of visual faithfulness in adaptation, mileage may vary. “I think the hand-drawn style better suits the facial expressions and performances of the characters in this work, compared to CG,” says Hirano. “The most challenging characters to animate are those with a lot of line work. Effectively depicting their action scenes is something we struggle with every time.” In the age of AI, for a story that is at least partially about the ethics of rogue science, the hand-drawn style gives the anime additional thematic depth.
But Baki-Dou’s greatest strength may just be how fun and funny it is. The series strikes the perfect tone by allowing its characters to take its absurdist world unflinchingly seriously while never taking itself too seriously. An opponent gets irritated when Baki’s eyes fill with water as he fights to keep a yawn down mid-fight. A sunglasses-wearing psychic granny surprises a team of scientists by dropping some organic chemistry knowledge. It can’t be all fighting, and Baki-Dou gets creative about how to build out its world and its characters by both leaning into and subverting shonen expectations with equal humor.
Frustratingly, the 13 episodes released on Netflix only represent the first part of the Baki-Dou arc, which means viewers will have to wait for another part to drop before we see the conclusion of this chapter of Baki’s growth. However, as the measured pacing of Baki-Dou’s first part proves, sometimes there is value in the waiting.
