A young woman with chin-length hair and a neutral expression stands in the foreground of a blue-lit room. In the background, a blonde man with a white sports coat and sunglasses sits in a chair.
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This story about immortality, grief, and the importance of emotional connections is interrupted by the presence of blunt, strawman villains who exist not as characters but as plot devices to show the “humanity” of the protagonists.
Despite its enthusiastic embrace of playful exaggeration and dramatic pageantry, Baki the Grappler shouldn’t be written off as mind-numbing entertainment for the masses. A critical analysis of Baki as contemporary anime, and a part of pop culture more broadly speaking, can help us all better understand how performative masculinity functions—and why it is so potentially dangerous.