Baki Hanma vs Kengan Ashura (2024)

Anecdotes

Baki the Grappler is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Keisuke Itagaki. It was originally serialized in the shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Champion from September 1991 to 1999 and collected into 42 tankōbon volumes by Akita Shoten. The story follows teenager Baki Hanma as he trains and tests his fighting skills against a variety of different opponents in deadly, no-rules hand-to-hand combat.

Production

When asked how he is able to continue the series for over 30 years, Keisuke Itagaki said he believes it is because of all the eccentric characters; "It's not me who comes up with the story, the characters create it." He said he learned the importance of creating interesting characters in his first ten minutes at Kazuo Koike's Gekiga Sonjuku school for aspiring manga artists, which he joined in 1987.

Itagaki said he gives even the toughest male characters their own kind of beauty. He created Baki Hanma by copying an illustration of a girl by Keibun Ōta and adding masculine touches, such as raising the eyebrows and thickening the neck. He used feminine eyes in the style of artist Pater Sato as reference for those of the character Kaoru Hanayama.

Itagaki imitated the ending scene of the 1982 American film Rocky III for the match between Antonio Igari and Mount Toba in Grappler Baki Gaiden. When it was announced that the Baki Hanma series would be ending in ten chapters, Itagaki had not yet thought up what he would draw. He also said that he originally decided that Baki Hanma would be the end of the franchise.

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