Baki

Alright, I don't have the time or energy to fully translate 108 right now, but I'll give you the key points in as much detail as possible.

#1. Baki has been training in hikikomori mode - he actually uses that word. He describes how his skin, muscles, etc are now considerably stronger. He intends to kill Musashi. He's talked to Yuujiro, who told him about Musashi's weird personality/behavior. Doppo is surprised by this; comments that there is usually only one survivor from a fight with Musashi. For some reason, Baki wants to fight/kill Musashi in a "pure match".

#2. Musashi abandoned the Pickle fight because he saw Pickle as infantile, but hard to break. Since Pickle doesn't pick up on the same social cues as everyone else, Musashi presumably just left when he realized Pickle wasn't going to fight him all-out. He makes an internal note about the purity of the fighters.

#3. Musashi has been reunited with his own *personal* swords, taken from his grave/place of death. Tokugawa sent someone to pick them up and personally bestows them unto Musashi, who thanks him deeply. Tokugawa dismisses the thanks, saying that they were Musashi's effects in the first place. As Tokugawa moves to hand the covered blades to him, the cords binding the swords' covers undo themselves, as if by their own volition. Musashi laughs to himself about it, and happily proclaims that the blades have undressed themselves to return to his side once more.

Where is Itagaki going with this? First it was about "real weapons", then it became about warfare, then it became about weapons in general (Motobe), then it went into the hand-acting-as-the-sword bit, and now it's back to "real weapons" again, I think.

And you guys don't know it yet, but Motobe is basically the designated "gatekeeper" for fighting Musashi now. That means that we may actually see a true, all-out Baki vs Motobe fight. How fucking hype are you for that? Infinite memes, infinite dreams.

Thoughts? Opinions? Wishes? Predictions?

I wish for the series to stay, and end, while being this good.

Here's the cords magically untangling.

that's a good wish
I wish for that too

A got into Baki a couple months ago, saw the anime, read the second and third series(?) and im immensely enjoying this fourth(?) one, especially Musashi. It's easily one of, if not the most enjoyable manga i've ever had the fortune to stumble upon.

>my superhuman dad told me that our long-dead cloned samurai friend who had his soul torn from the afterlife and implanted in the clone body had a different personality than is historically documented
>I know, weird, right?

Oh yeah, by the by, I *am* working on fixing chapter 257 of Son of Ogre, it'll just be a bit. Redraws. Fucking horrible.

>Where is Itagaki going with this? First it was about "real weapons", then it became about warfare, then it became about weapons in general (Motobe), then it went into the hand-acting-as-the-sword bit, and now it's back to "real weapons" again, I think.

imaginary slashes were a mistake, I get the fact that at certain point you mentally envision the damage you receive, I also understand Itagaki wanted to show possible outcomes without killing his characters, but it made all these characters that got their faces blown up look like if they were against a swordsman they will try punching him. In Doppo's short he fights totally different against the swordsman, but here he just thinks Musashi will not see his movements, a fucking swordsman that is known for his brain reaction speed...

Dont think theres a rush, still will be good to have it out.

I had a good laugh when I looked at the raw and it said something like "hair that's always on end has now fallen", and checked Ritualscan's TL to see it as "With his hair standing on end"

Oh, oh wow dude that's... Yeah.

>imaginary slashes were a mistake...
While I mostly agree, I do have to say that I like Shibukawa's reaction to it. It's like malice, masochism and rejection of the premise of the imaginary slashes all at once.

Baki deserves more love. I think the art style turn people off, but I found it pleasing after a while

All we gotta do is finish the first series, and then the floodgates will open. Nobody likes watching a crappy anime in order to get to the rest of the story.

Just how many chapters are left to be translated? Are we still talking hundreds?

20 volumes in, 24 to go. Hurray.

Honestly, I'd love to get chapters out much faster, but in the first series, Itagaki scrawled all over pretty much every fucking page. It's fucking awful to deal with and takes an unfair amount of time, even if OniRyu and I were both doing equal shares of that work.

I mean, look at this shit. It's fucking retarded.

Just know that your efforts are appreciated.

>wishes
I wanna see Motobe get whipped like a fucking mule. Also, I'd love to see a continuation of Musashi and Yujiro.

thank you for your words
it's always nice to hear something positive on the baki front

but why? Motobe is >= Musashi

>And you guys don't know it yet, but Motobe is basically the designated "gatekeeper" for fighting Musashi now. That means that we may actually see a true, all-out Baki vs Motobe fight. How fucking hype are you for that? Infinite memes, infinite dreams.
I don't expect that at all, since I can't see neither Motobe vs Musashi nor Baki vs Musashi not happening. I think they will just both fight him, in that order.

I want to see motobe win baki again

To be fair, Motobe won Baki when he went all "Oh no worries Yuujiro, imma keep you safe from big bad Musashi" with a straight face.

>Wishes?
I wish the first part would be translated already.

o cool this is still up

How come Musashi hasn't visited his school that he founded hundreds of years ago yet?

Isn't there a controversy from his swordsmanship school where it split into two distinct schools that argue about how canon their swordsmanship is to Musashi's original swordsmanship?

So Baki went literally full cocoon mode.

Tokyo is on the absolute other side of Japan from where his school is/was. It's literally a 14 hour minimum drive, and we've already seen how much Musashi hates cars. I can't imagine they would be able to get him in a plane easily either, when they could just as well send someone to Higo/Kumamoto to get his stuff.

There is that controversy, which is unbelievably ironic given the name of his school.
"Niten Ichiryuu". "Two Heavens, One School".

That's an interesting thing to bring up, though. I guarantee you that, if Itagaki wants to bring those schools into the story, neither will prove even close to correct; Musashi'll thwomp them like he did the kendo guy, and just leave.

Yep. I wonder if Kozue still visited him. I also wonder if Kozue's dead.

This is gonna sound dumb, but I'm a bit of a newcomer to the series, could someone lay out the chronology/order of the manga and what has been translated properly so far?

I've been trying to get into Baki for a long time, it looks and sounds amazing from what I've gathered, but where to actually begin and what is available really confuses me. Is the OVA actually the beginning('s adaptation)? I'm just confused honestly.

Why would she be dead?

Grappler Baki. Not fully translated; we're working on it.
New Grappler Baki. Fully translated.
Son of Ogre. Fully translated.
Baki Dou. Ongoing.

No idea what the OVA covers, because I've never seen it.
There's an anime series - 2 seasons - that covers the entirety of the first series. That's usually what people use to bridge the gap. The early scans of series 1 are piss-poor though, so you might want to just watch the anime instead of reading Grappler Baki. You'll understand how the art evolved if you read it, though. Totally up to choice.

cus we haven't seen her in forever

This is the order:
>Grappler Baki
There's an anime adaptation with 2 seasons, the part covered by the first season is scanlated so far. The OVA adapst a small part from the start.
>New Grappler Baki
>Baki Son of Ogre
>Baki Dou
Currently ongoing.

Her arc with Baki is just finished and less women the better.

Thank you both, very helpful! I read about the translations for Grappler Baki earlier in the thread, I think I'll probably slowly read those, I'm not too big on anime lately, more of a reader.

Thanks though, I'd been skimming over parts of it that I came across and the series is a total blast. I'm in love with the artstyle too, I can see how some people would be put off by it but I think it's amazing.

Baki's a teenager in love. You can't really just make her disappear without some repercussions. I didn't quite like her stuff that happened in the second series, but if you re-read it, it breaks up the monotony of the fighting quite a bit. She's a useful tool for Itagaki, and I can't see why he'd just pretend she wasn't there anymore.

I'm guessing she will be an issue if Baki is going for a kill.

I think so, too. What if she brings him back to a less edgy version of himself? I think I could dig that. The only fun characters we have right now are Kaku and Shibukawa. Return of old Baki would be pretty fun.

>baki gets upper hand on musashi
>BAKI YOU RETARD

I can see it.

By the way, why was Baki renting a room from Kozue's mom? In the kid arc he had that graffiti'd house, and in New Grappler Baki he's back in it. The obvious explanation is that Itagaki just hadn't thought of it before the kid arc, but is there an in-universe reason?

>why was Baki renting a room from Kozue's mom?
That was simply where Baki wanted to live. I imagine he had intended to put the past - the horrible "fuck you"-type graffiti and such - behind him, and just focus on fighting. Kozue knew Baki's life story, and knew that that house/shack had great significance to Baki, so that's where they moved once they decided to become lovers. He came to embrace the past, I guess.

If you don't recall, she leaves Baki a note asking him to find her, and he just goes to that shack knowing that she'd be there. It's not like it was his first choice home.