Baki S1 Ep1

[Raymond Freedman]

Asmuch as I hate it... Kenichi wins now. His verse is much more superhuman. Don't get me wrong, as fighter Kenichi is zero (look at his every fight, he only wins after his enemy is tired from beating shit out of Kenichi), but his durability won't let Baki damage him. Baki might know every single martial arts and as we see in manga uses it's extremly good and extremly cruel, but if he can't even hope to damage Kenichi skin... well he loses.

@blackwind: It's not baki's actual combat speed, it's like a dash. He can't sprint like that for 20 meters or something, but he can reach that speed instantly, which is what makes it special. Essentially, he can deliver a full speed running blow in basically a single step.

Dodging bullets is light work in Baki as well. He actually was able to match his father blow for blow by the end of their fight, n Yujiro is the kinda guy who can casually blitz a 200 lb bow before the arrow even leaves the string. Also keep in mind Baki can imitate any h2h technique/style he sees immediately.

Beyond this, while Ken can dish it out, IIRC Baki's fight with his dad opened by him getting pile driven off a skyscraper...both contenders gave massive damage soak, but outside of comedy feats (with which Ken does stomp, of course), Ken does seem a few degrees more squishy than baki. Nothing at all against Ken, his soak/endurance is insane, but Baki has eaten things that would wreck Ken's day without comedy protection (breaking fingers with his eyes, tanking "dress" right into a car, tanking a skyscraper drop), and he is far more comfortable than Ken in combat just in general.

Having finished all of Kenichi (which honestly is one of my favorite manga) and only read the last several chapters of Baki Dou (as of December 2019) I would have to say that Baki would win. Honestly their universes are probably comparable. I've seen all of the Baki anime adaptions and from those, the various examples people have cited, and the latest 25ish chapters of Baki Dou its fair to say the verse's are comparable enough. To cite a couple examples in Baki we have seen buildings shake due to the immense power of Yujiro's presence and in HSDK we see similar results as three master class fighters are fighting. Additionally the Yujiro stopping the earthquake feat is a pretty powerful example. Selvokaz acts like it isn't but there is no point to the mangaka showing that happen unless his punch is what made the shaking stop, especially given that is not his style. Also he appears to do so casually. Him not showing any other feats near that level means very little as he isn't really ever showcasing his full power, but more importantly striking power is a far different thing than lifting strength. Musculature strength contributes to striking power, but they aren't really the same thing. So the earthquake feat stands as impressive and even more than being a feat of power it shows technique, control, and power. Powerful enough to affect tectonic plates is one thing and that is impressive, but it is also shown as a small impact crater which is impressive as it means that he didn't just pummel the ground but punched it exactly how he wanted. We know he is capable of more destruction as we have seen it before, but this was about something more than just destructive force.

Also all of this is aside from the real question which is Kenichi vs Baki. Since Baki is still ongoing when I am writing this I am going to use the last chapter Kenichi pre epilogue so he is not yet master level for fairness because otherwise we don't really have feats for that Kenichi which means he could be low level master or closing in on Grandmaster(unlikely). Additionally if anyone has specific examples for these categories, additional categories I had not considered, or constructive criticism please add it to the discussion.

Strength: This one I have the same problem but reversed. Kenichi is undoubtedly strong, but I have found it hard to find the full extent of this where as Baki's strength is fairly obvious given his continually outmuscleing superhumanly strong opponents. I would give this edge to Baki.

Speed: Here I am really only concerned with combat speed. Here Kenichi's Seikuken would give him a big advantage defensively, but again they seem fairly comparable. Defensively I would give Kenichi the edge here as his Seikuken is formidable and he regularly trains with people at least comparable to Yujiro which has repeatedly given him a defensive edge against oponents that should be far too fast for him. Offensively I would say its too close for me to call. slight win to Kenichi, but only minimally.

Stamina: Complete wash. They are both maniacs that keep fighting well beyond when they should be not only defeated, but broken and dead. I feel fully confident in saying they are essentially equal here.

Technique:This to me seems the most important factor. Kenichi at the end of the series (pre-epilogue) is at the top of the Disciple class, but has not yet crossed the threshold of Expert. Baki as a series doesn't seem to rank their fighters like this, however I would place him in at least equal to Kenichi if not higher. He is consistently shown to be learning from the best martial artists of the world in his fights. Baki as a series seems less focused on the technique of things than the physical side of things so without having read all of it I am finding it hard for specific examples to justify this other than citing his various victories against the strongest martial artists and fighters in the world, but the fact that he can fight with Yujiro who we can assume was being serious this is at the very minimum equal to fighting a high level master opponent, as evidenced by the earthquake feat and skyscraper, and we already know that Kenichi is far below this level. But since this is only conjecture I will say that even if I considered them at the same level of mastery I would still give it to Baki for one final reason: how they develop as fighters. Kenichi's strength lies in the fact that he is constantly training harder than anyone and in his fights he puts all the things he has learned together to make them work. Baki is actively learning new things in his fights. For Kenichi he doesn't learn a new thing he simply understands what he has been taught on a deeper level. Baki seems to come to entirely new levels in the middle of a fight and learns on an instinctual level from his opponent while fighting. Sure Kenichi has beaten prodigies before, and he has beaten special bloodline martial artists, but I honestly think Baki is something completely different than what he has faced. I think this would either be a Baki stomp, or they would both take a severe beating before Baki finally learned how to overcome Kenichi. Even if Kenichi is initially better than Baki Kenichi is noted as being a slow starter so atleast in the beginning Baki would get off some good damage which would likely be enough to slow him down in the late fight enough for Baki to survive long enough to figure out how to beat him. If you want to discount this then you would also have to strip Kenichi of his Shonen Boy powers as well which means no last second revelation that allows him to beat the prodigy that he shouldn't even be able to touch. Ultimately as much as I hate to admit it I think Baki takes it.

Now Yujiro vs. Hayato you people are crazy. I'm not even touching that one. At the very least I would want to wait until Baki is fully over so I can read all of it, but even then honestly I don't think Furinji vs. anyone can truly be done unless it is an absolute stomp in one direction or the other. Only 2 other people of even close to his level were shown. He fought one of them on page, but we really aren't able to see anything in those fights that allows us to scale them adequately. That is other than the superhuman stamina and awareness that they displayed. Though now that I have said that I fully expect someone to make me eat my words on that one by showing me exactly how to scale that fight.

Now end of series Kenichi whom defeated Hayato offscreen; would STILL LOSE, even Baki was above the U.S army by the time he defeated Pickle. He was equal to Musashi around the time he fought his dad as stated, and as we know Hayato and the missle feat even if wanked to Tsar bomb level; would only be about City level. Whereas Yujiro is above any Nuclear weapon PERIOD; and Baki scales to him.

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