Baki (Grappler/New/Son of Ogre/Dou)

[ungora]

Aug 7, 2016 4:33:55 GMT shenlong said:

That fight is a bit unconfortable, but really, every fight with Pickle is unconfortable. I mean, here is an ancien caveman thing miraculously alive after having been preserved for millions of years, and what are people doing with it ? They put him in an arena to see if he's stronger than a dude who does kung fu. That whole arc of Son of Ogre is about people that kept sending martial artists to beat Pickle up for sports. Pretty fucked up if you ask me.

What's odd too, is that when Pickle showed up and sexually assaulted a woman journalist , people were asking for him to recieve punishment, but their government refused and protected him somehow.

Then after several grapplers attracted to Pickle due to their lust for fighting only to be brushed away by Yujiro, there were army representative basically pleading Yujiro to not kill Pickle because he was considered a treasure for humanity, and Yujiro agreed to this.

When the grapplers started to actually fight Pickle, it was never a fight to kill him, Retsu explained it, they just wanted to fight because they all felt driven to this.

And after a while they got a vote on what to do with Pickle, and if i remember well it was to put him back to the ice, not to kill him.

But in the case of the Musashi fight, it's very different, Musashi from the start come with his best sword, the intent is then obviously not to just to fight for fighting but to kill (or he would just have done the same as when he defeated Baki, only hand technique) similarly to the Retsu fight.

So basically this is more of an execution than a fight, i think that's what is rubbing me wrong there, because it's obvious Pickle has no chance considering Itagaki made Musashi equal to Yujiro. Wouldn't even be surprised if Musashi let Pickle wound him in the shoulder on purpose.

[shenlong]

Well, from the reader's spoint of view, once Musashi had a draw with Yujiro, every fight beyind that seems unfair, true. That said, I don't think Musashi going in ready to kill Pickle is that much worse than how Pickle was treated as a fight toy before. I mean, ok, nobody was out to kill him and it was voted to put him back on ice (wasn't the vote to decide whether to put him back in the fridge or to let him live in modern times, though ? Was is about killing him ?). And yeah, Yujiro was asked not to kill Pickle, but the thing is none of this was ever about what Pickle could have wanted.

Pickle is a treasure for humanity as a scientific discovery. He's useful because he can be studied. He's also valuable for fighters because they want to test themselves against some ancient beast-man. It's never about treating Pickle as what he is, which is a person who slept through time and wakes up in an alien world. His only values are being as a living fossil and a strong being.

Musashi is just one more fighter. The only difference is that he comes from a cultural context where fights to the death are common place and cutting someone in half isn't that big a deal for him.

[boi]

But isn't it true that Pickle wants to fight strong people too? When Hanayama fought him for a short period, he said that Pickle is a warrior just like them, and wants to fight strong people. And it is clear this is true. When Baki was fighting Yujiro, Pickle got so excited that he interrupted the fight.

Heck, when Baki said that he would not fight Pickle because it would not be fair to Pickle, Pickle kicked Baki into the stands. However, I don't like that Musashi is trying to kill Pickle.

[shenlong]

You can look at things that way, but by that same logic, what is forcing Pickle to fight Musashi ? He could just run away and I'm pretty sure Musashi would lose interest. Also, well, Pickle is a caveman with very little understanding of the human world. To me, it like if a severely mentally handicapped man turned out to be really strong. Just because they're willing to go fight (and eat) people doesn't mean people should jump on the occasion.

[boi]

Well, I don't believe anything is "forcing" him to fight Musashi. Pickle is doing it out of his own free will. And I mean, Pickle isn't dumb. He figured out a little bit of Aikido after witnessing it once.

Although he may believe that fighting is the only thing letting him live, which is actually sort of whack.

And didn't he actually start talking to Strydum in the end of his arc in Son of Ogre? He said something like "Thanks for keeping your promise" or something like that. Did he forget to speak again?

[onepenguin0]

Pickle doesn't actually speak to Strydum; it's Itagaki's creative license of thought translation. You know, like how he has animals 'speak' their thoughts sometimes. He basically 'says': "You kept your promise, here's a present."

It's said somewhere earlier - I don't remember when - that Pickle only eats stuff that he fought/killed and that were a challenge. That's how he got strong (presumably), and that's why he's fighting Musashi now. It's in one of my translations around here, I think: Pickle thought about it, realized Musashi would be an amazing meal (because he's harder to defeat than a stegosaurus or whatever), and subsequently starved himself until they brought Musashi to him. It was either that or let him die. Hey, I just had an impossibly great idea - let's talk about the morals of technical assisted suicide re: Pickle, and the rest of the Baki universe. Because that'll be fun, or something.

Baki Dou's on break this week, for whatever reason. Olympics or whatever. Ho-hum.

[boi]

I actually don't really understand the point of this fight. I mean, Baki lost extremely quickly against Musashi, and Baki is stronger than Pickle. What makes anybody think that Pickle could beat Musashi then?

[shenlong]

You could ask the same about Retsu really, or anyone who's gonna fight Musashi. But let's be fair, I don't think Baki could really go all out when they fought. Retsu put up much more of a fight against an armed Musashi and yet Retsu's much less strong than Baki. I don't know, Baki was like the first guy to take on Musashi when he got out of the tubes, he didn't know anything about how he would fight and he certainly didn't have the right mindset. The whole thing kind of felt like he got smashed before he could get going. He didn't have the demon back or the dinosaur mimick. If they fight again, it will be different. If. Maybe Itagaki decided the manga was now about Musashi and how Motobe's going to try and stop him. Baki seems like he's been kinda left on the side.

[boi]

Yeah, I wonder who will actually stop Musashi. I don't want it to be Motobe - if Motobe wins, what's next? Will everyone try to fight Motobe next?

And the problem I have with this entire series is that weapons are suddenly OP. And apparently it is completely fair if you use them in a fight, so where does it stop? What if Motobe brings a machine gun to the fight against Musashi? Or one of those elephant tranquilizers that was apparently enough to bring down Yujiro?

This entire thing is a slippery slope, and I hope Baki shows up and shows that fighting barehanded is still where it's at.

[onepenguin0]

Aug 12, 2016 22:01:03 GMT boi said:

Yeah, I wonder who will actually stop Musashi. I don't want it to be Motobe - if Motobe wins, what's next? Will everyone try to fight Motobe next?

And the problem I have with this entire series is that weapons are suddenly OP. And apparently it is completely fair if you use them in a fight, so where does it stop? What if Motobe brings a machine gun to the fight against Musashi? Or one of those elephant tranquilizers that was apparently enough to bring down Yujiro?

This entire thing is a slippery slope, and I hope Baki shows up and shows that fighting barehanded is still where it's at.

Being shot isn't exactly damaging in Baki anymore. Also, yes - I would absolutely love to see a fight of Baki vs a bloodthirsty Motobe (think him during Yanagi fight).

[boi]

Yeah scratch the machine gun part. Apparently, old swords are more damaging than guns in the Bakiverse.

But my point still stands. Since weapons are allowed, is the guy who released the chloroform to capture Pickle stronger than Pickle? Obviously not, right? Then if Musashi wins with his swords, is Musashi really "stronger" than Pickle?

Although Musashi no longer needs his swords I guess, and can do it barehanded. But what about when Motobe beat Jack? Is Motobe really "stronger" than Jack?

Jeez, this weapons thing in Baki is making my head hurt.

[dannythm]

Aug 13, 2016 5:50:09 GMT boi said:

Yeah scratch the machine gun part. Apparently, old swords are more damaging than guns in the Bakiverse.

But my point still stands. Since weapons are allowed, is the guy who released the chloroform to capture Pickle stronger than Pickle? Obviously not, right? Then if Musashi wins with his swords, is Musashi really "stronger" than Pickle?

Although Musashi no longer needs his swords I guess, and can do it barehanded. But what about when Motobe beat Jack? Is Motobe really "stronger" than Jack?

Jeez, this weapons thing in Baki is making my head hurt.

The series until now has been about being the strongest, in a modern martial arts sense, in a sports sense, but Musashi what's bringing to the table is a different concept, the old fashioned one of survival, we fight to the death, and the strongest is the one that survives, no matter the means necessary for it.

And this is why Motobe is worried, because history tell us that Musashi can be a dirty bastard when it comes to surviving (not that he has needed to be yet) like getting late to the fights so his opponent was more nervous, moving in a way so the sun burned his opponent eyes, start the fight with the swords already unsheathed, running away and then attacking from he back when the opponent has given up on chasing him, and so on. And the Baki cast has certain honor, and they obey certain ethic rules when fighting, and Musashi WILL take advantage of those if necessary to survive.

Musashi is strong because he can survive, not necessarily because he is strongest than Pickle or Yujiro.

[ungora]

I wonder if Musashi will not die actually fast in the serie, the reasonning is that his cloned body was grown in incredibly short time, hinting at a very increased metabolism.

It could also explain how ridiculously strong he is, and there's the old Lao Tzu saying "The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long" , with his metabolism being so fast that his body is delivering incredible feat of strength.
But fast metabolism means also that body decay faster.

[dannythm]

So 121 is here blog.yuncomics.com/archives/1750504

It seems that for Musashi the fight is ended, I wonder if Pickle will accept that?

[boi]

I'm pretty sure Pickle lost all of his limbs at this point. I think Pickle sort of has to accept that he lost.