Daily Cartoon: BAKI Ep. 21 “Punishment”

Welcome to our final week of Baki recaps! We’ve made it to the homestretch so let’s get right to business and close this out.

Since getting to Part 2, this show has gone completely off the rails, but now that Baki has punched his V-Card he’s ready to become the fighter we’ve all heard he could be. People get motivation from all sorts of things and sex is one thing that is tried and true in society so good for Baki.

When we left off, Baki was taking on the dual forces of Yanagi and Sikorsky and they quickly realized that he was now too strong for either of them to take on single-handedly so they were going to have to form their version of Voltron if they had any chance at defeating the young fighter. It’ll still be a tough nut to crack because sex has leveled up Baki to serious levels, but these bad guys always have some tricks up their sleeves when they are in fact wearing sleeves.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI Ep. 20 “Saga”

Welcome back to another cartoon recap as we close out our fourth week of Baki on Netflix! As I’ve said, this has become a tough watch since moving into Part 2, but with just a week of episodes left to cover there’s no turning back now.

To recap, Doyle has blown up the Shinshinkai Dojo which killed nobody, but somehow, Biscuit Oliver was killed by a meteor and Retsu was killed when he fell into a crack in the ground during an earthquake that apparently claimed no other lives nor has left any damage anywhere else in Tokyo.

I’ve said it from the beginning, but this show is really the anti-tourism advertisement for Tokyo. High-powered monsters fighting in the streets and now the addition of meteors and contained earthquakes? FOH, bro. No thanks.

Counting today’s, we have seven episodes remaining and it’s amazing how my tone has shifted for this show. Where as I was once excited to get to the next episode and see what would happen next, I’m no dreading it and just pushing myself to get to the end since we’re close enough to see the finish line. Yikes.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a solid half-hour here to close out the week, but once again, not getting my hopes up.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI Ep. 19 “Admission of Defeat”

Another day, another episode recap on your favorite blog! We’re closing our fourth week of Baki and I’m anxiously awaiting the conclusion. This show has become a tornado of mish-mash and I don’t even think the writers knew what was happening from episode to episode.

Remember Biscuit Oliver? He got a big push for a few episodes and then got completely taken off TV. Baki? It’s his fucking show and he’s like the least important person in the whole damn thing! I just don’t understand anything. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Is this what anime is like? I’ve said that I’ve never really been into anime so maybe it’s great to the people who actually like it. I was really digging the first half of this series, but it’s just taken a turn and made it hard for me to stay invested it.

We’re dealing with the fallout of Doyle having blown up Shinshinkai so maybe that will get fun. You know Doppo Orochi ain’t gonna take this lightly so maybe that fight will be awesome. Let’s find out.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI E. 18 “Thanks”

Welcome back to another episode recap as we wind down all the available episodes of Netflix’s Baki. Season 1, Part 2 has been a major disappointment thus far and, if I’m being honest, I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon.

The story has just been wildly all over and it’s been very difficult to become invested in any kind of arc or character. Maybe that’s too critical for what’s just supposed to be a beat ’em up action show, but why would I care about the fight when I don’t care about the people fighting?

In addition, the show seemed to blow it’s wad on all the good action in Part 1 so while, yes, this is still nuts in most situations, it doesn’t compare to the stuff they’ve already shown us. Maybe things will get better. Who knows? Maybe all these characters that the show has forgotten have huge resurgences. I’ve lost my confidence in this. Let’s see if it can get it back.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI Ep. 17 “Dad!!”

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.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI Ep. 16 “Slash”

Welcome to a brand new week of episode recaps! This will begin our fourth week watching the Netflix series Baki and, my god, has it really shit the bed the past few days.

Feel free to go back and read the prior blogs, but – to make a long story short – this show just has no idea what it’s doing story-wise and just throwing fight scenes in the middle of everything so maybe you’ll forget about everything else.

Well, hate to break it to the writers, but I don’t forget anything, especially not to the degree that they’ve forgotten the entire premise of the show.

Counting today, we’ve got 11 episodes to go and I’m really hoping that this doesn’t become a hate-watch for me to get through. I can understand that not every episode is going to be great, but the past few days have been really bad and even before that, the show had just gotten away from any kind of story. Hopefully that changes soon. Preferably today since I don’t want to sit through another stinker.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI Ep. 15 “Tremendous Muscle Power”

Welcome to your Friday cartoon recap! Coming off a subpar showing yesterday let’s hope Baki gives us something with a bit more direction today.

Just to recap: Tokyo Police has finally has enough of their city streets becoming an arena for some of the most vile criminals in the world to try to kill each other. You would think that this would have been an issue from the beginning, but no, it took a while for them to get to that point.

They’ve enlisted the help of Biscuit Oliver who is an American prisoner apparently based on Street Fighter’s Balrog. Oliver handles the biggest criminals the government can find in exchange for a luxury lifestyle in his prison.

Oliver’s brought to Tokyo to round up the remaining death row escapees and it looks like he’s already got one of the three when he appeared to kill Sikorsky at the end of yesterday’s episode. But knowing what we know about this show, Sikorsky is not dead and will never die because nobody in this show can die no matter what.

The Mr. Oliver train rolls on as we try closing the week strong. I’d like to see this show get back on some kind of track as the entire premise of it has consistently devolved as the show’s gone on.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI Ep.14 “Ungranted Freedom”

Welcome back to another exciting cartoon recap! Today, we’ll begin Part 2 of Season 1 of Baki on Netflix which – to simplify things – I’m just calling “Episode 14” since there’s really no line of demarcation between Parts 1 and 2.

Yesterday, we met Mr. Oliver: an American convict who doubles as a mercenary for hire who is more than happy to assist the government with capturing some of their more high profile suspects so long as he is provided with certain fringe benefits. As Tokyo police are trying to find a way to stop the madness currently taking place on their streets, it is suggested to them to bring in Mr. Oliver to round up the three remaining death row escapees still on the loose: Doyle, Yanagi and Sikorsky.

Speaking of Sikorsky, he’s started some static with Baki and even took Kozue, Baki’s love interest, as a hostage to spur Baki to come get some. Good plan in theory, but something tells me Sikorsky will look back one day and chalk this up as an egregious error in judgment.

With that said, we begin Part 2.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI E.13 “Mr. Oliva”

Welcome back to another Baki recap! Today we launch into the final episode of Season 1, Part 1 and I’m sure it’ll be a doozy because, I mean, every episode thus far has definitely been something.

I’ve stopped trying to follow along with the idea that there’s some kind of fighting tournament going on right now because, well, the show seems to have abandoned that concept as well in favor of just having people get attacked and then needing to settle scores without anyone really getting killed off or eliminated.

I mean, there was Spec getting beat up and then his body breaking down into a frail 90 year-old man and yesterday it appeared as if Dorian had lost his mental capacity to continue to be a threat in this battle, but with the way people keep returning in this series, I’m not going to be able to count out anyone until the show has completed and I’ve been forcefully told otherwise.

So where does that bring us? Glad you asked! After becoming the focus of this show, Dorian has finally tasted defeat and his mind has reverted to that of a small child who wants candy. Baki and Kozue are keeping their flirtations going, but – following a date – Kozue was captured by Sikorsky in what I’m sure is an attempt to draw Baki into a fight.

There’s a lot going on and even though this is the Part 1 finale, I’m not expecting some kind of definitive conclusion on anything simply because it doesn’t feel as if the show has been built that way. Sure, anything can happen, but coming into today, it feels as if we’re more approaching halftime than full time. Only one way to find out. Let’s hit play.

Daily Cartoon: BAKI E.12 “Candy”

Welcome back to another Baki recap! This is the penultimate episode of Part 1 and, to be honest, I have no idea where this show is going or how they’re going to leave this off. It appears as if there was about six months in between drops of Part 1 and Part 2 so I’m assuming there has to be some kind of cliffhanger consistent with each episode, but I don’t know whether or not it’s going to be something “huge” to leave you with that “ohhhhh dip” feeling or just another fighting moment that leaves you with bug eyes over what just happened which is basically par for the course in these chapters.

Twelve episodes in, I can truly state that I’m happy I went out of my comfort zone a bit and started checking this out. Anime has never really been my thing even though it has definitely influenced some of the shows I’ve been into over the years, but this series has a nice frantic pace and the fight scenes are unlike anything I’ve ever been accustomed to.

Yesterday left us with Doppo Orochi challenging Kaioh Dorian with Doppo having been able to break Dorian’s hypnosis power enough to be able to keep focus and continue fighting the actual person rather than the illusion that Dorian is able to project as we’ve seen in other fights (most notably against Kato in Dorian’s underground lair). For the first time, Dorian is being pushed to the point where he starts to think he may be in a fight he can’t win.

We did actually get a check-in on Baki who was again on a date with his maybe-not-quite-yet-official girlfriend Kozue, and though they are not interrupted, they are being watched, this time by Baki’s own father Yujiro Hanma who is supposedly one of the stronger characters in this universe.

All this and more as Part 1 winds down! Let’s get to it!