So after Jack bit the living soul out of Sukune in chapter 120 and called Baki to the arena in 121, he straight up spent the entirety of chapter 122 challenging everyone and anyone. Baki, Motobe, Gaia, Doppo, Katsumi, Shibukawa and in his mind...Yujiro. Now some of these make complete sense while others honestly don't. Wanting revenge on Baki, Yujiro and Motobe is completely justified but wanting to fight Katsumi is a little surprising, as well as Doppo and Shibukawa who are arguably past their prime and on a much lower level than him currently.
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| Source: Keisuke Itagaki, Weekly Shonen Champion |
I think the best way to think of this is in a way where Jack doesn't necessarily want to test his power, but rather his Goudou, way of the biting martial art. Imagine Yugioh GX season 2, where Zane is only participating in the GX tournament to test the power of his new Cyberdark deck. Same vibe. Jack even says none of them have what it takes and is only ever bothered when thinking about Yujiro, buuuut we have seen how this overconfidence has led to his downfall in the past, particularly against Pickle and Motobe.
Before I start listing the fights I'm excited about, lemme list the ones I'm not really excited about. Jack vs Shibukawa happened all the way back in the Maximum tournament (who only OGs remember lol) and Jack was the clear winner. This was back when Jack still had his real teeth, but was still relying on his bite as seen by Gouki barely escaping with his foot intact so again, this is just Jack wanting to chomp for the sake of chomping. Similar story with Doppo, who is more or less on Gouki's level, but as the most skilled Karate practitioner instead of Aiki. If these guys got whooped by Alai Jr, them standing any chance against Jack is a jooooke. More fights I'm not too excited about are against Baki and Yujiro gasp. What blasphemy lol. The only reason I'm not too pumped about these fights is because they seem so far in the future that getting excited now would make no sense. Jack himself said he basically plans to go through 5 other guys before the Baki and Yujiro rematches soooo yeah, not gonna be seeing those any time soon.
Another fight I don't wanna see is Jack vs Pickle round 2. Pickle's my favourite Baki character and his fight with Jack is possibly my favourite in the series. Buuuut, modern society has not treated Pickle too well with him being limited to eating dogs and living in the sewer. It seems he still manages to get a decent amount of protein judging by the pile of bones we saw in the sewer, but I don’t think that's a sustainable way for him to get stronger considering he's used to full on dinosaur meat. If Itagaki wants to power him up, he could let him run loose in the African wilderness and find some savannah to hunt wild lions, rhinos and giant elephants like the one Yujiro killed. Although he's technically the oldest character in the series (sorry Kaku), his physical age is still young so he has more potential to grow as long as he gets nutrients similar to what he would have required back in his era. As Pickle stands now tho, it's hard to tell if he's stronger or weaker than the latest form of Jack and I don't wanna see my boy lose lol.
Now that we got the old geezers and the fights for waaaay into the future outta the way, lemme share some battles I'm hyped for. I'll be ranking em from least to most anticipated, but I do wanna see em all.
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| Source: Keisuke Itagaki, Weekly Shonen Champion |
Gaia's fight with Jack should realistically be one of the
most one sided fights in the series as Gaia's track record is honestly trash.
Just about his only win was against Sikorsky (which was actually a great fight)
after Jack already roughed him up. The reason why I wanna see this fight is
because of Jack's implied relationship with Gaia. I doubt they're best friend
or anything, but Jack did tag out with Gaia against Sikorsky so it looks like
they do have a somewhat friendly relationship behind the scenes. On top of
that, although Gaia's pretty much a bottom tier strength character, his
environmental style of fighting has always been interesting.
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| Source: Keisuke Itagaki, Weekly Shonen Champion |
Katsumi is a character I didn't care too much about initially. He had a phenomenal fight against Hanayama in the Maximum tournament, but also got one shotted by Retsu in the next match, which left me with a mixed perception. However, he earned my complete respect in his fight against Pickle, which is easily one of the best in the entire series. The amount of determination he showcased in that fight was unbelievable, much like everyone who faced my boy Pickle only to end up with missing body parts. This is a good segway into explaining his current appeal as a character.
Not only has he improved as a fighter by beginning to master Kung Fu, but also as a medium as weird as that sounds. Retsu now lives on through Katsumi, which essentially makes him two characters in one (a literal fused character in dragon ball logic lol). We even saw him acknowledge Retsu's soul being a part of him when Retsu's hand started moving on it's own in his Sumo arc fight, which allowed him to use both Karate and Kung Fu/Chinese Kenpo. It would be cool to see how a mixture of these highly technical combat styles will perform against Jack's simple, yet effective way of the biting.
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| Source: Keisuke Itagaki, Weekly Shonen Champion |
Hanayama and Baki were the only two underground fighters who had 0 trouble winning their Sumo arc match, despite that one panel after the Baki vs Yujiro rematch, which implied Hanayama will never get stronger. Well, he's still an absolute monster and his most recent victory was proof of that. The interesting thing is, I don't remember Jack ever interacting with Hanayama, so it'd be entertaining to see what their trash talk and resulting brawl will be. We need to see Hanayama get a boost in power. He's still one of the younger characters so it's not farfetched to see the guy who casually beat up a megalodon get stronger.🦈
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| Source: Keisuke Itagaki, Weekly Shonen Champion |
Unchained has unfortunately moved down the Top 10 list of Baki's strongest characters and judging by his shattered ribs, he may not be returning to the series any time soon. If he does manage to gets back tho, and get even stronger by hurling tanks or something, a fight between him and Jack would be awesome. We have no evidence of Jack's demon back yet and a powered up Unchained could have enough brute force to make him awaken it. It would also be fun to see if Jack's metal teeth can bite through Oliva's ridiculously THICC muscles that can tank shotgun shells.
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| Source: Keisuke Itagaki, Weekly Shonen Champion |
Motobe's fight with Jack is one of my least favourite fights in the series much like Pickle vs Musashi and Sukune vs Unchained. The two things all three of these fights have in common are their nonsensical endings and overall bizarre power scaling. I can understand if the master swordsman Musashi is more skilled than the prehistoric caveman Pickle, but that scene where he overpowered him physically in a hand lock made 0 sense considering the dude hunted and ate dinosaurs and even Yujiro had to use a trick to make sure he wasn't overpowered by his brute force. Additionally, Sukune picking up Unchained like a baby and ending the fight without even trying, while also breaking all of Oliva's ribs is a slap in the face to Unchained's legacy. Similarly, Motobe Izo who was one of the weakest characters in the series and who got eliminated by some no name Yokozuna in the first round of the Maximum tournament beating Jack was completely ridiculous. OoOoOoH bUt He'S a MaStEr WiTh WeApOnS
BRUUUUH. If you don't get your goofy ahh outta here with that. This was just horrible, dogwater writing and remembering that fight still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. No idea why Itagaki decided to boost one of the lamest characters so much in the Musashi arc, but I'm glad his boost is seemingly over. Jack eating him alive is something I've wanted to see for a whiiiiiile.
In conclusion, Jack’s currently my 5th favourite character after Unchained, Guevaru, Hanayama and Pickle so this whole list was just me fantasizing about some dream fights I have. More Baki content on the way! $ee ya ✌ Follow me to get notified whenever I post!
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