Netflix’s Baki Hanma Season 2 release date is confirmed for July 26, 2023, the Summer 2023 anime season. These episodes will cover The Tale of Pickle & The Pickle War Saga story arcs.
What’s more, the Baki Hanma Season 2 Part 2 release date is already confirmed for August 24, 2023. The 2nd set of episodes will feature The Father VS Song Saga.
New cast members include Takeshi Kusao as Pickle and Nobuo Tobita as Albert Payne.
The Baki Hanma sequel will be Baki Season 5 in the overall series. The next season will feature the titular hero Baki taking on a prehistoric caveman named Pickle in order to develop new martial arts techniques.
The fourth season was a direct sequel to Baki: Dai Raitaisai-hen (Baki: The Centennial Tournament Saga) and it began adapting the Baki Hanma manga series. That’s why Netflix changed the title and restarted the counting of the seasons.
The new anime’s story focused on Baki Hanma as he’s challenging his father, Yujiro Hanma, who is known as the Ogre in martial arts circles. But first Baki needed to train so he purposefully got arrested and was sent to a high-security prison where “Mr. Unchained” Biscuit Oliva was held. With that victory behind him, Baki will be focusing on a completely different type of opponent.
The first several seasons of the Baki anime were created by animation studio TMS Entertainment, which is known for other anime such as Detective Conan, Lupin III, and ReLIFE.
In 2021, the studio released Spirit Chronicles (see our story on Spirit Chronicles Season 2), Megalo Box Season 2, and finished the Fruits Basket reboot project (the Fruits Basket Season 3 anime finished but a 2022 Fruits Basket: The Story of Kyoko and Katsuya has been announced). In the future, the studio is confirmed to be releasing the Dr. STONE Season 3 anime.
The studio staff that is making Baki Hanma Season 2 hasn’t been announced yet. But most of the main staff returned for making the new series.
The first several seasons of Baki were directed by Toshiki Hirano (Rayearth, Dangioh, and more). Fujio Suzuki (009-1, New Getter Robo) was the character designer.
Tatsuhiko Urahata (Tsuredure Children) wrote the scripts for the Baki anime. Kenji Fujisawa produced the music. Tetsu Kojima was the executive producer.
In addition to the main returning staff at TMS Entertainment, there were two new additions for Baki Hanma. There was a second character designer named Shingo Ishikawa and a new art director named Masanori Nishiyama.
The Baki Hanma Season 2 OP (opening) theme song music and ED (ending) haven’t been announced yet.
For the first season, the Baki Hanma OP “Unchained World” was performed by Generation from Exile Tribe, while the ED “Treasure Pleasure” was performed by GRANRODEO. Previous Baki seasons have included music from GRANRODEO.
The Baki Hanma Season 1 release date was on September 30, 2021. All 12 of the episodes were streaming exclusively on Netflix.
- Updated March 28, 2022: Added Baki Hanma Season 2 trailer announcement.
- Updated March 22, 2022: Baki Hanma: Song of Ogre Season 2 is confirmed to be in production.
This article provides everything that is known about Netflix’s Baki Hanma Season 2 (Baki: Son of Ogre Season 2/Grappler Baki Season 5) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Why the Baki “Season 5” release date is split up
Considering the ongoing popularity of the series it’s inevitable that Baki Hanma Season 2 would be renewed. The anime TV series is also likely to be multiple seasons since the Baki Hanma manga is already finished and was almost as long as the original series (see the manga comparison section for more details).
In fact, the original trailer for Baki Hanma even teased later story arcs, including the father vs son arc! Thus, it’s very likely that TMS Entertainment has its production schedule planned out in advance based on producing multiple cours, or seasons as Netflix labels them.
The planned production schedule is comparable to a split-cour anime, which is when a single season takes a broadcasting break for several months before releasing more episodes.
Since the studio is giving itself plenty of time in its scheduling, that’s why the Baki Hanma Season 2 release date on Netflix is being divided up by a month.
Netflix’s Baki: Son of Ogre Season 2 anime is the Japanese Grappler Baki Season 4
Anime purists are probably wondering why this article is referring to Baki Hanma Season 5 when it would technically be the fourth part of the overall anime series.
The reason is that the Baki anime seasons were labeled differently by Netflix when the previous anime was released internationally.
Netflix U.S. also sets up American audiences for binge-watching where an entire season is released at once. Often times a multi-part season will be split up into multiple cours for the international release.
A “cour” is a three-month unit of TV broadcasting usually composed of 11 to 13 episodes.
The first season of the Baki the Grappler anime was originally released on Netflix Japan as a two-cour season from June 25 through December 17, 2018. Therefore, since the first 26 episodes were considered a single season in Japan all of the upcoming anime were enumerated differently in Japan.
Therefore, some English-speaking anime fans who follow the Japanese season numbering conventions may refer interchangeably to Baki Hanma Season 1 (Baki: Son of Ogre) as being Baki Season 3.
To add to the confusion, there were actually two seasons released way back in 2001 that adapted multiple story arcs from the original manga. The newer Baki 2018 anime series didn’t bother re-adapting those story arcs. That means that Netflix’s Baki: Son of Ogre could be considered the Japanese Baki Season 5 (or Baki Season 6 based on Netflix’s standards).
Fortunately, labeling the seasons will become much easier moving forward. Netflix has exclusive rights to streaming Baki Hanma so they will set the standard for the numbering of the seasons.
Baki Hanma manga compared to the anime series
The story for the new Baki anime is based on the second part of the Gurappura Baki (Grappler Baki) manga created by writer and artist Keisuke Itagaki. Started in 1991, the overall Baki manga series has five parts already.
The first part was simply called Grappler Baki and it ran until 1999 and ended with book Volume 42.
The first manga sequel, New Grappler Baki: In Search of Our Strongest Hero, ended in 2005 with Volume 31.
Manga Baki Part 3 was called Hanma Baki (Baki: Son of Ogre) and it ended in 2012 with Volume 37. The Baki Hanma manga is divided up into four story sagas: Oliva’s Fortress, The Prehistoric Menace (Pickle Wars), Retsu Kaiou’s Boxing, and then Yujiro vs Baki.
Manga Baki Part 4 was called Baki-Dou (Baki: The Way) and it ended in 2018 with Volume 22.
Manga Baki Part 5, now called Baki Dou or Bakidou, began in October 2018 and it’s still ongoing in Weekly Shonen Champion magazine.
The first Baki manga series never received an official English translation but the New Grappler Baki manga is now available on Amazon and Comixology in English. By August 2019, the English translation caught up with the ending in New Grappler Baki Volume 31.
Unfortunately, the English Hanma Baki manga series hasn’t been released yet. For the other series, there are plenty of unofficial fan-made scanlation projects that are completed.
The two seasons of the Baki 2001 anime adapted the first 42 volumes of the first manga part. Anime fans who found the new anime confusing should probably dust off the prequel and watch it for the backstory and the Maximum Tournament story arc.
The 2018/2019 Baki anime season adapted almost 20 volumes of the “Most Evil Death Row Convicts” story arc of the New Grappler Baki manga, with Episodes 25 and 26 beginning the adaptation of the Great Chinese Challenge arc (Volumes 18 through 27).
The 2020 Baki: Dai Raitaisai-hen (Baki: The Centennial Tournament Saga) anime finished adapting both the Great Chinese Challenge saga and the Godlike Clash Of The Kids saga (Volumes 27 through 31).
The Baki 2021 anime began adapting the Baki: Son of Ogre manga series. The good news is that there is plenty of source material for Netflix to continue making anime episodes for years to come.
Considering the length of the Hanma Baki manga, it will probably take three cours to adapt — based on the anime’s pacing — which means it’ll be finished by Netflix’s Baki Hanma Season 3 (Baki Season 6).
The stopping point for Baki Hanma Episode 12 corresponded to manga Volume 10, the ending of the Great Prison Battle Saga. That means the Baki Hanma Season 2 anime will adapt the Wildman War – Pickle Wars Saga, which ran from manga Chapters 79 through 185.
Hanma Baki Season 2: Pickle Wars anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
The Baki Hanma anime’s first season put the titular hero on the road to his final confrontation with his father, Yujiro Hanma. In order to become stronger, Baki was purposefully sent to prison. Now, he’s choosing yet another extreme alternative method of training: fighting literal cavemen.
Following Baki’s battle with “Mr. Unchained” Biscuit Oliva, scientists discover a gigantic caveman from the prehistoric Jurassic/Cretaceous era. The primitive man was discovered perfectly preserved in a rock formation that pickled him and allowed him to survive the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. Hence, the name Pickle.
Due to his great combat ability, Pickle is taken in by Mitsunari Tokugawa and is forced to fight against increasingly powerful foes. Meanwhile, Baki undergoes intense training in order to transition from animal-based karate forms to developing his own techniques. He’s also given advice and guidance by Retsu and Kaku Kaioh.
Baki must fight against Pickle’s raw strength by enhancing his techniques. Baki’s image training eventually allows him manifest specters of the dinosaurs that Pickle battled in the past, but will Baki’s new martial arts techniques be enough to defeat Pickle’s final form?
Unfortunately, anime fans will need to wait until Netflix’s Baki Hanma Season 2 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!