Review of Baki: The Great Raitai Tournament Saga
Completed Baki Part 3 11:10PM 5 Jun 2020 - Review contains minor spoilers If we take Baki Part 3 (Season 2) at face value and compare it to its prequel, I think it was inferior in every aspect possible. In this recently released part, we mostly see through Mohammed Alai Jr, the son of the former legendary boxing champion Mohammed Alai which is one of the main reasons why this part didn't connect as well as the original story line did... Story: 6/10 When fans are excited for a sequel of their favorite anime series, it becomes a make or break decision whether a sequel maintains thehype from its prequel or fails to meet a shred of that hype. I was extremely excited for the sequel of Baki, I binged it for my own personal satisfaction but I did notice a few details in the plot that aren't as attractive as the first season. Firstly, Season 2 takes on a unique view point of Mohammed Alai Jr - the son of former legendary boxing champion Mohammed Alai who has made it his main goal to pursue victory against Baki. At first, this is not the case as we see Baki attend the Raitai Tournament where he finds the cure for his poison (from the previous part) as well as joining forces with his abusive father to fight against the past Raitai Tournament contestants. Around episode 6-11 we are more or less in the shoes of Mohammed Alai Jr who is in love with Baki's girlfriend. Love affairs and unique point of views are basically all that part 3 has to offer in terms of plot progression and shock value, not many scenes involved Baki being a badass or progressing the plot through himself so this part seems a bit redundant but it was still as entertaining as it was at surface level.
Art: 7/10
Baki is known for its clean and graphic art style, so much so it compromises with animation to compensate. This design choice can be a good and a bad decision: it is good because it has extremely badass action scenes and the attention to detail is managed on a frame-to-frame basis. However, it can be bad because in order to compensate for the clean and highly detailed art style there are quite a lot of stills that pan across the screen or have a still subject and moving background. I would have preferred to have an average art style but fluid animation comparable to UFOTABLE produced series.
Sound: 7/10
No qualms about sound.
Character: 8/10
Character development is probably one of the greatest points of the series, especially in part 3 where the premise may still be in development as we see Baki face his old man Yuujirou. In terms of character development, Baki Part 3 did well - the features I mentioned in the plot section of this review as a bad way to manage plot progression throughout the 13 episodes contributed to developing Baki as a character. The love affair as well as the deep development of Mohammed Alai Jr helped to make Baki grow much more powerful over a shorter span of time. I am a bit concerned because this season saw very little physical involvement of Baki apart from the beginning and a few scenes here and there but overall it makes sense to add suspense.
Overall: 7/10
I feel this series is deserving of a 7/10, after all the hype dies down surrounding the release of part 3 the overall rating will also become tame (so far around 7.70) If Baki had more involvement in the series it would have been a nice watch but seeing him less reminds me of the failure of One Punch Man Season 2 where Saitama got 3 notable scenes fighting villains in the entire second season.