Baki the Grappler or Grappler Baki (グラップラー刃牙) is a manga and anime series by Keisuke Itagaki. It was originally serialized in the Weekly Shonen Champion from 1991 and 1999, lasting 42 collected volumes. It was followed by two sequel series, New Grappler Baki (バキ, Baki?) (serialized from 1999 to 2005) and Baki: Son of Ogre (範馬刃牙, Hanma Baki?) (which began in 2005 and currently in serialization).
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* Baki Hanma (範馬刃牙 Hanma Baki): The main character, and son of Yujiro Hanma. He has been training in martial arts since the age of three, and has trained under various teachers and coaches throughout his life. At the age of thirteen, he decided to take his training into his own hands and left the coaches to perform more intense training "in his father's footsteps." He later meets with his father and becomes disillusioned as to his father's true character, and afterwards, aims to defeat and kill him. His fighting style is called "total fighting," and includes techniques from many different martial arts. He fights Arudi Regan in round 1, Zool in round 2, Igari Kanji in round 3, Retsu Kaioh in round 4 before facing his brother in round 5 and the finals of the tournament. He eventually develops the ogre face on his back when fighting his brother, but manages to suppress it. Unlike Yujiro, he chooses to control his killing intent and fight his battles fair & honorably no matter what the outcome. Baki has encounters with all the escaped convicts in the Search for our Strongest Hero series and has just defeated Bicuit Oliva and is now faced with a new challenge against the Prehistoric man Pickle.
* Yujiro Hanma (範馬勇次郎 Hanma Yūjirō): The father of Baki and Jack Hammer/Hanma. He is the strongest creature in the world, and is known to have mastered all styles of unarmed combat. His repertoire apparently includes all of the well-known fighting styles (such as boxing, tae kwon do, judo, jujutsu, wrestling, street-fighting, and so on) as well as some more esoteric ones (such as the udonde or uzunde style, an actual system used in the Motobu style of karate). He has been fighting on the battlefields, using only his bare hands, since the age of sixteen, when he fought against both American and Vietcong in the Vietnam War. Since then, it appears that he has obtained respect from the American forces, and has begun fighting as a kind of mercenary for them. It is said that when he stopped fighting for survival but for pleasure during the wars the image of the demon's face appeared on his back.
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- Summary: Yujiro had finally found his match: Pickle, the prehistoric man that had been revived from an iceberg (on defeating a T-Rex).