Baki Hanma

ℹ️️**Notice**This character is a **crossover character** and is therefore is **not canon to Glad you Came.**

**Baki Hanma** (範馬 刃牙, *Hanma Baki*) is the main character and protagonist of the Baki the Grappler franchise. At thirteen, he decided to take his training into his own hands to perform more intense training in his father's footsteps. He later aims to defeat him. Baki first fought in the no-rules arena at fifteen and went on to become its champion. He is the son of Yuujirou Hanma and Emi Akezawa and the half-brother of Jack Hanma.

He is known as the "Champion" (チャンピオン, *Chanpion*) of the Underground Arena in Tokyo Dome. In the fourth manga series, he is often called "the World's Strongest Boy" (地上最強のガキ, *Chijō Saikyō no Gaki*).

## Personality

Baki is usually a carefree, laid-back, hard-training, and sometimes an aggressive teenage boy throughout most of the series. Baki strives to defeat his father, Yuujirou Hanma, who is indisputably considered the strongest man alive. However, Baki's dream is not to replace Yuujirou as the strongest man alive, but only to become strong enough to defeat him.

Baki trains on a near-constant basis, day and night, attempting to hone his skills as quickly as possible. As a relatively well-known martial artist (among those aware of the Underground Arena), Baki frequently tends to get into fights with various people quite often, sometimes intentionally, other times by terrible luck circumstances (usually the latter). Baki realizes that the fastest and only way to get stronger is to battle other people stronger than himself, so his body will get stronger and learn from the experience because this is an aspect of the Hanma bloodline. However, at one point, Baki realized that his way of fighting was very different from Yuujirou. He said that building relationships with strong opponents gives him incredible strength, while his father believes that everyone should be brutally crushed to gain absolute power. Baki is also often too merciful to his opponents, which always makes Yuujirou angry.

Baki has a strong sense of love and respect for those close to him. He is known to be very protective of his girlfriend, Kozue Matsumoto. He can become aggressive if she is threatened, such as when Sikorsky kidnapped her, and Baki hunted him down immediately to defeat him. By the second series of the manga, he's shown to be highly attached to his girlfriend, who acted as a great source of strength for him through her constant love and emotional support. Later, however, it has changed somehow, and they probably started to see each other less. At a certain point in the manga, Mohammad Alai Jr tried to gain Kozue's affection, which led to complications in the relationship between her and Baki. Possibly that's what caused this change.

His intelligence is immensely high in terms of martial prowess, a resourceful and tactful fighter who uses multiple styles of combat at once when facing his adversaries. Makes use of savvy and rather pragmatic tactics to gain an advantage over opponents, such as using his blood to blind them. Knows how to effectively rattle someone's brain by a positioned punch to the chin. Capable of imagining and even outright interacting to some degree with mental visualizations of creatures and individuals to develop new stances and techniques without the need of them physically being there. At the same time, a significant portion of his time primarily focused on training or fighting much of his formal education is spent sleeping in class.

Usually, Baki never actively fights with anybody weaker than him and has no desire to hurt any of the thugs that constantly try to attack him. This version of his personality was shown an enormous contrast later in Grappler Baki, though, when Baki was 13. At this point in the story, Baki is a cocky hot-headed punk who is always looking for a battle with those he wants to prove himself to. He likely developed this attitude because of his urge to be as strong and like his father. This aspect of his personality is short-lived, though, as by the end of Baki the Grappler, Baki becomes his kind, laid-back self again while still trying to surpass Yuujirou. By then, he proclaims that he doesn't want anymore to be the strongest man alive. Still, he'd be happy to be even slightly stronger than his father, even claiming that if Yuujirou were the weakest man in the world, he'd be glad to be just the second most vulnerable. However, when finally Yuujirou acknowledges him as the strongest boy in the world, Baki starts to feel bored and detached, accepting the challenges from Musashi Miyamoto. The second Nomi no Sukune is a way to relieve his boredom and feel himself again tethered to the world.

Baki is also very polite towards people while not training or fighting, showing good and refined manners, probably for being born and raised in a wealthy family with luxuries until he was 13 years old. Although polite, Baki can be very provocative to his opponents to get them to fight him using their full strength. He believes that a true fighter doesn't need rules excuses or conditions to fight, considering that if he wants to, he just has to do it and that's it.

His relationship with his father is very ambiguous and sad. Baki almost always speaks about him with great reluctance and anger. At the same time, it can be seen that Baki is not indifferent about what Yuujirou thinks about him. Although they are even deadly enemies, Baki and Yuujirou can play as a team when needed (just like during Great Chinese Tournament). They both never say it directly, but they feel a strange family connection between them, even if Baki sometimes calls his father by his name. This can be seen when Baki invites him to dinner or when they suddenly start to play a scene where they both pretend to eat an imaginary meal together during their battle. Baki and Yuujirou seem to have strong emotions for each other, although those feelings are not typically family. The deeper psychological aspect of their confusing relationship is best shown during their final fight in the third manga series. Also, even though he wants to defeat his father, Baki respects Yuujirou's strength, openly acknowledging him as the most powerful creature in the world. Rumina Ayukawa pointed out that despite he considers Yuujirou his enemy, they way Baki describes his father's strength suggests that he somewhat admires him.

He eventually develops the demon face on his back when fighting his brother, but only for a fleeting moment. Unlike Yuujirou, he chooses to control his killing intent and fight his battles fair and honorably no matter the outcome. Many of Baki's unusual training methods often earn him the admiration of many of the fighters of the Underground Arena; for example, shadowboxing, or visualizing fighting an opponent, is a big part of Baki's regimen - sometimes, his visions take an almost human form and given he can easily remember and replicate any technique he sees this gives him a considerable edge over his opponents, as he can "fight" them and learn their weaknesses before actually fighting them.

## Abilities

Baki's strength is constantly growing throughout the series. Baki's initial introduction at the very beginning of the series, 17-year-old Baki was already the champion of the Tokyo Underground Dome. In the beginning, Baki was shown to bench press over 320 lbs when training. At first, Baki was shown to be on the same level as Mount Toba, a wrestler who was shown to be strong enough to easily defeat Junichi Hanada and crush his bike in the process. 17-year-old Baki's strength grew more, until he was strong enough to face Kureha Shinogi, and defeat him. As Baki's never stops getting stronger throughout the series, it is difficult to set a definitive level to his strength. At the start of the anime, Baki at age 13, was able to defeat 37 of 100 thugs by himself. When he confronted Kaoru Hanayama, he was shown to effortlessly overpower several men trying to hold him back, and kick Hanayama's 250 lb desk out the window with ease. He was shown fast enough to catch a knife thrown at him from 15 feet away.

Baki's strength increased more during his fight with Gaia, when he learned to utilize his endorphins to boost his strength and speed. When he activates his endorphins, it also allows his body to react and move on its own, without his conscious effort. By the time 13-year-old Baki faced Yuujirou Hanma, Baki was shown strong enough to tank Hanayama's punches (which are powerful enough to split a fence open), without damage. He was able to push Hanayama's 350 lb body 30 meters away with a punch and proved to be faster than boxer named Yuri Chakovsky, by easily dodging all his punches. Baki had enough stamina to fight for 12 hours straight with Hanayama and Yuri without stopping, all while wearing a 45 lb training belt, proclaiming the 12-hour session as a warm-up.

In the second series of the manga, when Baki is 17, he has shown much improvement. While in gym class, Baki was shown to do 10 pull-ups in 2 seconds (breaking the pull-up bar in the process), jump 20 ft in the air over a 20 ft gap from a standing position, and broke his arm cast into pieces by simply flexing his arm. He was fast enough to effortlessly dodge a thug's chain weapon with a rock attached to it for blunt damage, while the thug was able to swing his chain at speeds of over 100 mph. He also took a knife out of another thug's hand without the thug even seeing him do so (the thug could swing his knife back and forth in his hands at imperceptible speeds to the human eye). Baki fought one of the escaped convicts, Sikorsky, and won easily by smashing his nuts. His fight was interrupted twice by Biscuit Oliva. Baki was shown to able to kick Oliva who has a weight of 180kg using a back kick. Baki also fought with two escaped convicts at once, Sikorsky and Ryuukou Yanagi, and was able to defeat them easily. When Baki was poisoned by Yanagi, he participated in the Chinese Tournament and cured his poison. His body was renewed and Baki remarked that his body feels light like a feather. Baki easily defeats Shunsei Kaku in 2 seconds without the opponent landing a hit. It should be noted that by this time in the story, Baki can be considered one of the strongest characters in the series, with his strength, speed, stamina, and an arsenal of techniques being superior to most everyone else (excluding Yuujirou Hanma, Biscuit Oliva, and Kaiou Kaku). Baki is not seen fighting much at all throughout the rest of the second series though. Baki's last fight with Mohammad Alai Jr was an easy victory and Baki effortlessly outclassed and almost killed him, until Alai Sr intervenes.

In *Hanma Baki* series, Baki decides that the only way for him to get stronger is to send himself to the same prison that Biscuit Oliva is contained in, and fight him. To do so, Baki kidnapped the US President under heavy security just to request to be sent to The Arizona Prison to fight Oliva. To get Oliva's attention, Baki escaped the most secure prison by dodging bullets and defeating the prison guards in a split second. Even when he was cornered by 5 guards holding M-16's, Baki was able to take the buttons off their uniform and crack the glasses of the Director. Hence, he was able to reverse the situation by taking them hostage even though they have guns. Baki was eventually able to fight Oliva and he kicked him so hard that Oliva was sent flying. Baki was also able to stand up and kick Oliva after being slammed into concrete walls and falling from the top floor of the prison. He was able to knock out Oliva by utilizing the 0.5 second when Oliva was getting ready to move. Baki manages to succeed over Oliva in a bout of pure strength, by a brawl of fists until Oliva loses.

Baki was able to withstand Pickle's "Test of Strength" attack, while the latter charges at Baki with the force to rival a Triceratops. Baki was able to knock down Pickle in two moves, using a double leg kick and a high roundhouse kick to Pickle's face. Baki was able to endure the pain and survived a leap to death with Pickle from the top of the kourakuen arena. Baki demonstrated his genius prowess by knocking out Pickle by gently tapping his chin. Baki was able to avoid Pickle's attacks by barely dodging them at skin breath. Baki also demonstrated his mastery of the Five Animals martial art, combing all of the dinosaurs' style and making Pickle see the illusion that he is more dangerous than the dinosaurs. Close to the end of the fight, Baki was able to match Pickle's speed and pushed him back. Baki challenged Pickle to an all-out fight, with Baki losing due to Pickle using a jujutsu technique (Aiki). However, Baki was able to instill fear into Pickle, thus making him the victor.

By the end of the third series, before Baki's ultimate fight with his father, Baki is shown to be so strong, that he can completely vaporize a punching machine pad, with a casual punch. At this point, it can be safely assumed that Baki is possibly the second strongest character of the series (being equal to or greater than Kaku Kaiou). Baki was shown to still be vastly inferior to Yuujirou however until Baki's demon back had activated. When Baki's demon back appeared in his fight with Yuujirou, he was shown to be powerful enough to actually hurt Yuujirou (this being something that no other character had been shown to be able to do). Baki ends up losing to Yuujirou when they have a punch-out until one falls, although there is still enough of a difference between them that Yuujirou is able to stop and let Baki attack him, as Baki is no longer able to effectively fight due to injuries and exhaustion. However, Yuujirou admits in the end, that he can no longer be called the only strongest creature alive, as Baki is worthy of being considered Yuujirou's equal due to him forcing him to use more effort than he had in the past.

The hand-to-hand combat techniques used by Baki are also varied in nature. Which are developed and expanded throughout the series, his combat style is clearly mixed martial arts integrating movements of various doctrines this would be mainly karate and pro wrestling, and in his minority judo, kempo, jujutsu, this includes both original movements and movements of his previous rivals and opponents obtained through his training, creativity and experience. He is known for his unusual training methods which include shadow boxing while imagining that his next opponent is actually with him. This allows him to anticipate every move of his opponent in the actual fight and also helps him spot their weaknesses much before the combat. Despite not being able master any style of combat instantly like his father, Baki is able to learn them much faster that others and coupled with his imagining make him near equal to Yuujirou.

### Techniques

* Eye-Poke – used against Yasha-Zaru.
* Endorphin – used against Yasha-Zaru for the first time.
* Death Concentration – used against Yasha-Zaru for the first time.
* Ippon Ken – used against Kaoru Hanayama.
* Rear Naked Choke – used against Kuraishi and Yuujirou Hanma, for example.
* Roll Kick – used against Kurokawa and Yuujirou Hanma.
* King Tiger – used against Shuumei Kanou for the first time, later used against Yuujirou Hanma.
* Bow and Arrow – used once against Atsushi Suedou.
* Seiken – basic karate's technique; used once against Koushou Shinogi.
* Submission – one of Baki's signature moves from first series; used against Koushou Shinogi for the first time.
* Dropkick – used against Mount Toba.
* Suplex – used against Mount Toba, for example.
* Goutaijutsu – powerful fighting move based on the seiken from karate; used against Kureha Shinogi for the first time, and later against Biscuit Oliva.
* Enzuigiri – used against Kanji Igari.
* Front Neck-Lock – used against Kanji Igari for the first time.
* New Cobra – Baki's original move; used against Kanji Igari.
* Single-Leg Figure-Four – also Baki's original move; used against Kanji Igari.
* New Swastika – another Baki's original technique; used against Kanji Igari.
* Jumping Backdrop – used once against Kanji Igari.
* Antonio Driver – Igari's original move; used once against Kanji Igari.
* Spinning Lotus – used against Kaiou Retsu and Jack Hanma.
* Soccer Ball Kick – used once against Jack Hanma.
* Shining Wizard – used once against Jack Hanma.
* Cord-Cut – involves cutting a nerve of an opponent; used once against Jack Hanma.
* Mach Punch – an extremely fast punch executed using progressive movement of the big toe, ankle, knee, hip, waist, shoulder, elbow and wrist; used once against Jack Hanma.
* Arm Breaker – Igari's original move; used once against Jack Hanma.
* Demon Face – used once against Jack Hanma.
* Backhand Blow – used once against Sikorsky.
* Axe Kick – used once against Sikorsky.
* Whip Strike – the user loosens up the whole body and treats it like a whip; used against Ryuukou Yanagi, Pickle and Yuujirou Hanma.
* Yawara – used once against Kaiou Ri.
* 0.5 Second Unconscious – Baki's special skill; used against Biscuit Oliva and Yuujirou Hanma.
* Slap – used once against Pickle.
* Triceratops Fist – used against Pickle and Yuujirou Hanma.
* Cockroach Dash – used against Chiharu Shiba and Yuujirou Hanma, for example.
* Hand Pocket – used once against Yuujirou Hanma.
* Aiki – used against Yuujirou Hanma.
* Shocking Footwork – used once against Yuujirou Hanma.
* Three-Level Attack – used against Musashi Miyamoto.
* Ultra High Level Sen no Sen – used in his fight with Musashi Miyamoto.