| Plot: Undefeatable fighter Baki Hanma takes on the Shinshinkai karate school in a tournament which leads him fighting in their own underground arena. Once there he must fight or be killed by constipated looking fighters. Review I originally planned on making a separate section for animes when this movie came on, but in the end I thought it just wasn't worth it, especially when it comes to the case of Grappler Baki. I like animes, even if some of them I don't have much interest in. Hell, if something is even remotely Japanese, I'm usually the first one to watch it. However, Grappler Baki is a whole different can of worms. It's based off the 40+ issue manga of the same name. How they managed to make that many out of a concept like this is beyond me. There's a reason why the title isn't ringing any bells here. Grappler Baki is a forgettable "one shot" (an extended first episode is shown and then there are no more episodes to be found) anime to a T. It's 45 minutes long, a solid forty of those minutes being Baki pounding on people. Character development? No such thing here. There's only overconfident and downright obsessive fighter Baki Hanma. The kid doesn't even go to school, instead he just reads martial arts books and hangs photos of people he wants to fight in his room. The kid is also happy-go-lucky and it really is disturbing. Never before have I seen someone so happy to be getting the living hell beat out of them. Baki is also unstoppable in every way. Punching him in the face will result in a broken hand with the bones sticking out. This has crossed the line to becoming just plain stupid. There is 0% questioning the outcome of the fights. He can read his opponents, stop their punches with his face, and learn and master a new martial arts style within a month. Just exactly why should I be rooting for this annoying, cocky bastard? On the other end of the spectrum we have his opponents who sway from giving us cutesy, smiling faces and making constipated grimaces while trying to brutally injure Baki. That about covers the "characters". I highly recommend if you want to sit through this that you do it with the Japanese dialogueversion, because the English is too damned painful. The voices somehow manage to fit in with the constipated looks the characters give, making it a very unintentionally humorous moment indeed. The voices are as cliche as you can possibly get. Words fail to describe the cheesiness of the voices. Most of the dialogue of which is spent on yammering on about some fighting arena or a fighting style. If it's one thing this anime barely succeeds on, it's violence. Baki and every other fighter enjoy maiming each other in semi-interesting ways. The most notable being that of Shinogi's cord-cutting technique. But this still isn't enough to save Grappler Baki, it just goes to show how unoriginal it is. It's basically a poor man's Fist of the North Star. Even Baki's yell and looming shots of the opponents with colored auras are reminiscent of Fist of the North Star. The fact of the matter is it's an anime with a story that could've been told in ten minutes, which leaves us with what boils down to two stretched-out fight sequences (that aren't even that interesting to begin with) and a mediocre anime in every other area. If you just can't get enough of animated, beefy, constipated-looking martial artists breaking each other's arms with a splurt of blood, then this might be okay for a watch. But you'd have to be pretty hardcore about your animes to watch it. If you want a bit of quality put into your anime as opposed to any old anime, avoid this 45-minute schlock anime. Just skip it. |
| Rating: *1/2 |
| Review by Jim |
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