Baki Hanma wants to beat his father, and BAKI never lets you forget it. The 2018 Netflix anime adapts Keisuke Itagaki’s manga, covering the second part of Baki the Grappler, and it runs two seasons and 39 episodes. It first aired June 26, 2018, and last aired June 4, 2020. While Baki trains to surpass his legendary father, five violent death row inmates break out of prison around the world and descend on Tokyo to take him on. TMDB users score the series 8.1 out of 10 across 1,396 votes. That is about right.
Trailer, via Netflix.
Toshiki Hirano Directs at TMS Entertainment
Toshiki Hirano directed BAKI at TMS Entertainment. Fujio Suzuki handled character design, and Tatsuhiko Urahata oversaw scripts. Those names matter because the show’s consistency comes from them. This is not an origin story. It drops you into a world already built and already convinced that disputes get settled with fists.
Netflix began streaming BAKI in Japan on June 25, 2018, and outside Japan on December 18, 2018. Japanese television channels then began airing it, starting with Tokyo MX on July 1. The show reached Netflix before broadcast, which shaped how audiences found it.
Five Inmates Descend on Tokyo
The first season has a clean hook. Five inmates escape custody and travel to Japan. Each one is a different kind of threat, and each wants the same target: Baki, in a fight, to the end. Tokyo becomes the arena.
Netflix renewed BAKI for a second season on March 19, 2019. On March 5, 2020, it was announced that the main staff at TMS Entertainment would return, with a new character designer and art director added. The 13-episode second season covers the “Great Chinese Challenge” and the Alai Jr. arcs and was released exclusively on Netflix on June 4, 2020.
Nobunaga Shimazaki Voices Baki Hanma
The cast carries the material. Nobunaga Shimazaki voices Baki Hanma. Akio Otsuka voices Yūjirō Hanma, the father who functions less as a character than as a wall his son keeps hitting. The show understands that the father does not need screen time to dominate. He dominates by existing.
The inmates get real weight. Kenjiro Tsuda voices Sikorsky. Takehito Koyasu voices Doyle. Issei Futamata voices Ryūkō Yanagi. Banjo Ginga voices Dorian. Chafurin voices Speck. That is a lineup of voice actors who can make a threat land without raising their voices, and the show lets them work quietly.
Sora Amamiya as Kozue Matsumoto
The supporting cast fills out the world. Yoshihisa Kawahara voices Katsumi Orochi. Sora Amamiya voices Kozue Matsumoto, the closest thing the series has to a normal human anchor. Mugihito voices Mitsunari Tokugawa. Takayuki Sugo voices Doppo Orochi. Bin Shimada voices Gōki Shibukawa.
The genres tell you what you are getting: Animation, Action & Adventure, Crime, Drama. The crime element is not decorative. These are death row inmates, and the show treats their arrival as a genuine threat to the city rather than a tournament bracket. That grounding keeps BAKI from floating away.
“Beastful” and “Resolve” Set the Tone
The first season’s opening theme is “Beastful” by Granrodeo. Its ending theme, “Resolve,” is performed by Azusa Tadokoro with lyrics by Miho Karasawa. Both do the job a theme song should do: they tell you what kind of show is starting before the episode does.
The second season changes the music. Its opening theme is “Jounetsu wa Oboete Iru” by Granrodeo, and its ending theme is “Dead Stroke” by Ena Fujita. Granrodeo staying on the opening is a small continuity the show earns. The ending switch fits a season that moves into new territory.
The Great Chinese Challenge and Alai Jr.
The second season is where BAKI’s structure shows its seams. Covering two arcs in 13 episodes means the show has to move fast, and it does. The “Great Chinese Challenge” and the Alai Jr. arcs are distinct stories, and stitching them into one season gives the back half a different feel from the first.
This is the part that will divide people. The first season has a clean frame: five inmates, one target, Tokyo as the arena. The second season has to build on that without the same clean hook. It mostly works, but the focus shifts, and the show asks you to care about new fights before the old ones have settled.
While martial arts champion Baki Hanma trains hard to surpass his legendary father, five violent death row inmates descend upon Tokyo to take him on.
BAKI is a fighting anime that refuses to pretend otherwise, and that refusal is its best quality. It does not waste time on subplots that do not end in a fight. It does not soften its antagonists. The five inmates are genuinely dangerous, and the show lets them be dangerous.
The training thread is the emotional core, and it is thinner than it should be. Baki’s drive to surpass his father is stated clearly and repeated often, but the series spends more time on the inmates than on the son’s interior life. That is a defensible choice. It also leaves the central relationship underdeveloped relative to how hard the show leans on it.
The 8.1 out of 10 score from 1,396 TMDB votes reflects a series that does its job well without transcending its genre. The two-season, 39-episode run is tight enough to avoid the bloat that kills longer shows. The Netflix-first release gave it a global audience it might not have found otherwise.
What BAKI leaves you with is a specific lesson about adaptation. Itagaki’s manga runs long, and the show chose to cover the second part of Baki the Grappler rather than start at the beginning. That decision assumes an audience that already knows the world, and it pays off in momentum while costing the series its introduction. A viewer arriving cold gets fights without a foundation.
The second season’s arc-stitching is the weakest part, and the father-son thread never reaches the depth it promises. But the first season is genuinely effective action animation, and the whole run holds together better than most series in this space. BAKI picks the fight and wins it on its own terms.
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