Finally found the time to write about Baki's Musashi arc anime and you know what... I had a blast.
Right off the bat I gotta say these were some of the easiest 13 episodes I've ever watched in terms of pacing. The fact that I was really hyped about it definitely helped, but I finished the whole season in 2 sittings, which is pretty rare for me nowadays. Surprisingly, I've seen some discourse online about the pacing actually being slow and all that's telling me is these people likely didn't read the manga. If you're an anime only for Baki I can totally see how this season's pacing may feel dragged out especially in the beginning, but as someone who has read most of the manga, I promise you they did a stellar job. For reference, the main Baki story has over 1300 chapters... yes that's more than One Piece. For an even further reference, the Musashi arc alone is almost 200 chapters collected in 22 volumes. Considering the fact that we got 13 episodes this season, I'm assuming the other half will also be 13 for a total of 26 episodes for the whole arc. That means they're adapting almost an entire volume of manga per episode, which is awesome cuz it also doesn't feel rushed.
The next major thing I wanna touch on is Musashi's design. I HATED this mf in the manga! He looked so... uncanny especially his eyes, which were in a constant state of bewildered bafflement. I get that's the whole point considering he's this "stranger in a strange land" archetype of a character, but that look didn't disappear from his face even when he was calm (or really any other emotion). I also know his face looks this weird because it's supposed to reflect who he was and all of his actions in the past, but I'm happy to say the anime does him major justice. He doesn't look nearly as uncanny as in the manga and that one change alone made him a much more likable character for me.
In terms of the animation I will say I've noticed overall marginal improvement from the previous seasons, but it's mostly on par as a whole. It still looks like a decent amount of fights have that dreaded slideshow look which has become common for the series, but it's not terrible and at least it doesn't have any of that 2018 CGI. Even though it doesn't reach the lowest lows of the previous seasons, it also doesn't reach the highest highs. To this day the 2 scenes in Baki which I consider to have the best animation are the first half of Hanayama vs Speck and the Katsumi plastic bag training scene. Nothing in that season really reaches those levels, but overall I would say it's more consistent than before. Lastly, the opening and ending are nothing notable, which is a shame cuz I like a good amount of the previous ones.
Alright, time to talk about the fights. I might have mentioned it before somewhere, but this is the arc where the writing starts going a bit downhill and the powerscaling of some characters starts getting inconsistent. My biggest issue while reading the manga was the MASSIVE power boost given to Motobe Izo who was a literal nobody before this arc. His record until this point consists of exclusively loses and no results. He was low diffed by the yokozuna in the literal first round of the Maximum tournament, loses to Yujiro and has a quick skirmish with Yanagi. He was such a minor character before Itagaki decided to randomly turn him into the Batman of the series where if you give him enough prep time and allow him to use weapons he can beat just about anyone (except Yujiro). I always thought this was total horseshit, but I will say the anime makes his rise in the series more believable than the manga. You would not believe the state of shock I was when I saw Jack Fucking Hanma losing to Motobe. I still think that's easily the worst fight outcome in Baki, but I was nowhere near as shaken up about it while watching the anime lol.
Baki also feels... intentionally nerfed. I fully understand the need to build up the new main "antagonist" of the arc by low diffing the main character, but Baki losing so swiftly twice in a row especially after his fights against Pickle and Yujiro never sat right with me. When he lost to Pickle at the beginning of the Pickle arc it made sense cuz a literal prehistoric dinosaur hunting caveman kicked him across the length of the entire underground arena and sent him crashing into the upper seats. On the other hand, Musashi just slams him and it basically has the same effect. I get the need to give him that legendary samurai status, but it's another fight outcome that never really made sense considering he took much more abuse from both Pickle and Yujiro.
I consider this to be the arc where Itagaki's mentality in terms of powerscaling his own characters changes drastically and for the worse, but on the other hand you could argue it's a more realistic portrayal of fighting. What I mean by that is how it becomes much more obvious that one character is never truly more powerful than another, which rings true in real life as well. Upsets like Motobe vs Jack, Musashi vs Pickle later on and even when Hanayama gets randomly knocked out by Junichi Hanada are prime examples of this. Wait... you're asking who Junichi Hanada is? Come oooon how could you not remember??? After all it's not like the last time we saw him doing anything was the Maximum tournament... it's not like his design was completely changed to the point where no one even recognized him when he "returned" in the series... it's not like he's a literal npc background character who hasn't been seen in the story in decades.
This guy shows up, throws Hanayama, knocks him out and leaves. If you're a Baki fan I don't need to remind you how much of a powerhouse Hanayama is to the point of making Yujiro bleed from his nose (which did in fact happen in the Musashi arc, but for some reason was removed from the anime). The one takeaway we can all learn from this is powerscaling in Baki has basically become impossible because Itagaki removes various layers of plot armor from certain characters. Basically, anyone can get jumped and if they get caught off guard, they're gonna take an L regardless of any previous feats or how much of a top tier they're considered in the verse. The sole exception is Yujiro.
Last thing I wanna touch on is the final fight between Yujiro and Musashi. This was a little underwhelming and done better in the manga. It kinda feels like they didn't give it the importance that it needed consudering it's the final battle of the season and not the whole arc. There wasn't really anything incredibly wrong with the adaptation, but it looked like they didn't put in the effort to make it special either.
The last shot of Yujiro and Musashi walking together was probably the one scene they should have nailed, but it also looked better in the manga.
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