Welcome back, friends. It’s another Baki recap here and things are slowly but surely swirling down the toilet. Things have gone completely off the rails and with only ten episodes to go, I honestly don’t have all that much faith that they’ll get it back on track before then.
When we left yesterday, Hanayama was trying to convince Baki to come get beautiful girls and leave “her” behind. “Her” meaning Kozue who was none too happy that Hanayama didn’t even respect her enough to say her name.
Doyle was also greeted by Kosho Shinogi who is a friend of Katsumi Orochi known for “cord-cutting” technique which means he can slice through things with karate chops. Kosho is desperate to be in this tournament and insulted he wasn’t asked earlier. Why wasn’t he asked earlier? Because the last time he was in one, he got his shit pushed in by Baki.
I mean…sounds like enough of a reason for his invite to get lost in the mail.
We’re on the countdown now. Ten episodes to go so let’s get with this and do that work.
Season 1, Part 2, Episode 17: Dad!!
Back in the hotel where we left off yesterday and Kosho is freaking out over how Doyle plans to attack now that he has triggered all of the spring-loaded blades from his joints. Kosho finally decides he can’t wait any longer and as he tries to make a move, Doyle hits a detonator that he had implante in him and triggers an explosion that sends Kosho flying backwards. He’s dead, but not dead. He should be dead, I mean basically his face would be melting from the explosion. But we know better. Not dead.
Gary Strydom, US Army guy, is still there and saw the whole thing and he says Doyle didn’t fight fair. Doyle laughs that off and says, “if you need a gun to win…use the gun.” Doyle then states that he doesn’t want to be fighting champion or famous or rich, he just wants to be known as the strongest in the world. Sounds like a Catch-22 to me because being something like “strongest in the world” would appear to come with fame and riches. I don’t know…just spitballing here.
Baki is sleeping when Kozue knocks on the door so they can talk about feelings. I kinda tuned this out just like I would if it was happening for real, but finally she leaves and now Baki can finally get some well deserved sleep.
…Until Kozue comes back. Baki senses her, but still plays it off as if he’s sleeping as Kozue gets down to her unmentionables (oops! I mentioned them!) and slides into bed with Baki where she takes the position of the big spoon.
We interrupt this episode with a Zack Morris timeout because we need to talk about Kozue.
You’re telling me that your way cute neighbor who is not shy about saying how into you she is also is willing to be the big spoon?! Marry this girl right fucking now! Every single time I bring up wanting to be the little spoon, my plans go up into flames worse than trying to land the plane on the aircraft carrier at the end of the first level of TOP GUN on NES.
So, Baki, if you’re reading this because you have a lot of free time since you’re barely in your own show: marry Kozue now and be the little spoon forever.
OK. Time in.
Baki is nervous as shit as he goes over a hundred different scenarios in his head on how to play this. Finally he works up the courage to spin around sha-la-la-la kiss the girl, but when he does, he sees the glowing eyes hovering above them of his dad, Yujiro.
Yujiro apparently was stopping by to offer some advice on the birds and the bees and tells Baki and Kozue to fuck like bunnies until they can’t take it anymore. Sure, that’s solid advice, but at least he could have left a bottle of lube, a feather duster and a cookie sheet behind since they’d need that. Yujiro leaves after giving his great dad-talk, and Baki and Kozue make plans to get it in the next time they’re together since this just feels weird right now.
Retsu is out having a nice seafood dinner when he watches an entire roast pig being brought to a man seated alone. Retsu is all, “there is no fucking way that dude’s going to eat the whole thing,” but sure as shit, money devours the entire pig – bones and all, only leave what appears to be a small droplet of dipping sauce on the plate – in seconds. Retsu recognizes the man to be Jack Hanma a Canadian fighter who – get this – took an insane amount of steroids to develop one of the stronger bodies on the planet.
They actually show a clip of scrawny Jack swallowing pills by the handful and shooting himself up with gas so he can grow since that whole milk commercial was utter bullshit.
Oh, did we mention he’s also the son of Yujiro Hanma and half-brother of Baki Hanma? Because he most certainly is both of those as well.
We get a whole flashback sequence which includes a fight between Baki and Jack in which Baki defeated his brother in a tournament final so I guess there’s going to be a lot of static there now that Jack’s back in town.
We cut away to the hospital where Kosho Shinogi is laying in heavy wrappings following the explosion at the hands of Doyle. See? Told you he wasn’t dead. He’s being looked over by his brother, Kureha Shinogi, a fighter himself who doubles as a doctor and uses his medical knowledge as an advantage in his fighting life.
Retsu is out shopping when he runs into Doyle in the elevator. They lock eyes and lock hearts, but aren’t going to start a fight right in the center of a department store. Doyle suggests they instead go for a drink where they discuss Doyle using explosives against Kosho. Retsu says that fighting is fighting and Doyle takes that as an invitation to try to set Retsu on fire, but the Kaioh is ready for it and throws a quick blade into Doyle’s eye as we hit the credits.
Final Thoughts
I just have to accept that Part 2 is a completely separate show from Part 1 and that, yes some of the characters may crossover, but the the tone and direction couldn’t be more different.
There was nothing in today’s episode that was overly bad or anything, but there’s also nothing that I got hyped about.
OK, maybe that’s not true: Yujiro showing up in Baki’s bedroom and telling him and Kozue to fuck until they can’t fuck’s no mo’ was pretty good. But aside from that, everything is just kind of there.
This show has a really bad habit of completely forgetting about characters when they get overly attached to a single one. When it was Kaioh Dorian, nobody else mattered except for those who were directly involved with him. Mr. Oliver had a few episodes as the top guy and now he’s been completely missing for a couple of days. Doppo Orochi is MIA. Up until he came up on Baki yesterday at the river, Hanayama had been forgotten about since he defeated Spec.
I get that you have these characters so you can roll through them and keep things from getting stale, but it’s just not done in a way that keeps them all meaningful and fresh. Each time someone comes back (like Hanayama yesterday, for example) you have to wrack your brain to remember who this guy is and why this matters.
All this while they’re still introducing new characters into the fold daily adding additional layers to the confusion as well as keeping the bar above the maximum occupancy allowed by law.
It’s just way too many people and when you have such a glut, you end up watering down way too many of them. It’s a real problem for this show at this point and something I honestly don’t expect them to rectify before we finish the season.
Tomorrow we’re back to keep plugging along as we enter the home stretch.
Until next time.
Joe
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