Baki Hanma recently premiered on Netflix and sooner, rather than later, fans have been inquiring as to a possible third Baki Hanma season, i.e. the fifth season overall of the popular Baki anime. The bizarre world of martial arts created by Keisuke Itagaki has gained a lot of fans over the years and we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about season 5 of the Baki anime.
There is currently no information on a possible season 5 of Baki (or Baki Hanma). The fourth season premiered on Netflix on September 30, 2021 so it’s still rather early to tell whether we’ll see the fifth season, but there certainly is enough manga material to adapt so the possibility is palpable.
This being said, there certainly are rumors about the fifth season of Baki circulating online, which is why we are going to analyze all the known and unknown information about the show and tell you everything you need to know.
Will there be a Baki season 5?
Baki Hanma premiered on Netflix on September 30, 2021, with all twelve episodes being available for immediate streaming. Now, Baki Hanma is the third ONA season of the Baki anime and the third one to air on Netflix, after the two seasons of the Baki anime, which came out in 2018. Previously, two episodes of the Baki the Grappler anime aired in 2001.
The structure of the Baki anime is, as is with the manga, rather complex, mostly because of there being several adaptations but without a clear structure; the Netflix adaptations are standalone sequels to the original anime, but that is practically all that connects them.
Let’s give an overview of the whole structure. This is everything that constitutes the franchise, by release date:
- “Baki The Grappler: The Ultimate Fighter” (OVA, 1994)
- Baki the Grappler (anime series, 2001)
- “Baki: Most Evil Death Row Convicts Special Anime” (OVA, 2016)
- Baki (ONA series, 2018–2020)
- Baki Hanma – Son of Ogre (ONA series, 2021)
Now, as you can observe yourselves, the franchise consists of two individual OVA episodes (1994 and 2016), the original anime series (two seasons, 48 episodes in total, which aired in 2001), a new ONA anime series (which aired from 2018 to 2020, with 39 episodes in total), and its sequel ONA series which has 12 episodes in total and premiered on September 30, 2021.
The release order doesn’t, sadly, match the actual in-universe chronology of the franchise, which you can check in our article, but that’s really not the issue. What you do have to know here is that all the animated material is part of the same canon anime universe and that the new ONA series are actually a continuation of the original anime series, although the plots are connected only loosely.
This doesn’t matter on a general level, not really, as the ONA series doesn’t really contradict the original anime in any way, which makes it easier to watch. This was just a short summary so you can follow the somewhat confusing structure of the series. So, what does this tell us about a potential season 5?
It tells us that there certainly is material for more. The adaptations we have seen so far have not used all of the manga and there is more than enough material to adapt for a potential fifth season of the show. This being said, we still don’t have any precise information on a potential fifth season so, while we can speculate that there might be one, we don’t actually know anything.
Baki season 5 release date
Since we don’t know whether Baki will even get a fifth season, we can’t really speculate about the release date, especially since the franchise doesn’t have even a slightly consistent release schedule, with more than decades passing between some releases.
Let us see how the releases happened:
| # | Title | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Baki The Grappler: The Ultimate Fighter” (OVA) | August 21, 1994 |
| 2 | Baki the Grappler, season 1: “Kid Saga/Underground Arena Saga” | January 8, 2001 – June 25, 2001 |
| 3 | Baki the Grappler, season 2: “Maximum Tournament Saga” | July 23, 2001 – December 24, 2001 |
| 4 | “Baki: Most Evil Death Row Convicts Special Anime” (OVA) | December 6, 2016 |
| 5 | Baki, season 1: “Most Evil Death Row Convicts Saga” | June 25, 2018 – December 16, 2018 |
| 6 | Baki, season 2: “Great Chinese Challenge Saga/Godlike Clash of the Kids Saga” | June 4, 2020 |
| 7 | Baki Hanma, season 1 | September 30, 2021 |
As you can see, we had a seven-year pause between the first OVA and the first season of the anime, which aired in 2001. Then we had a pause of 15 years between the anime and the second OVA episode. Two years have passed before we saw the first season of Baki and another year and a half before the show’s second season. Baki Hanma was ultimately released after another year and a half.
The most recent iteration, as we have said, was released on September 30, 2021, and based on how often Netflix releases its Baki adaptations, we assume that a new season won’t be on before 2023, or late 2022 at best, but we cannot exclude the possibility that it won’t appear before 2024 or at some later date. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Baki season 5 trailer
There is no trailer for the fifth season of Baki, which ultimately makes sense because we don’t even know whether we’ll have a season five or not. If Netflix does announce a new season, depending on its planned release date, a trailer might appear sometime during 2022 or 2023, but we can’t really give any precise timeframe.
Baki season 5 plot
The basic plot of Baki is simple – fighting, fighting, and more fighting! But, the fighting was divided into several manga arcs and the franchise, thus, has a large(r) plot that oversees the evolution of its characters. Now, the Baki Hanma ONA that aired in 2021 adapted two arcs from the manga – the Combat Shadow Fighting Saga and the Great Prison Battle Saga. So, what’s in store for a potential season five?
The Baki Hanma manga has three remaining arcs that can be adapted: the Pickle Wars Saga, the Warrior’s Struggle Saga, and the Strongest Father and Child Quarrel Saga. The Pickle Wars Saga is certainly the most important among them, as Pickle is an important character in the franchise, so this arc is the likely candidate for an adaptation.
The Pickle Wars Saga’s summary reveals the following: “Following Baki’s battle against Biscuit Oliva, the world’s scientists discover Pickle – a caveman from the prehistoric era. Pickle is then taken to Mitsunari Tokugawa where he battles a lot of powerful fighters.” Pickle is one of the strongest Baki characters in the franchise so it would be beneficial to see him on screen. Plus, Baki has to fight the Ogre.
But what if the producers decide to skip or shorten this part, and just wrap up the Baki Hanma plot? Well, Baki-Dou continues after Baki Hanma and that is a completely new series and also the most recent installment in the manga series; it is a sequel to the original Baki the Grappler manga and it continues to build on the protagonist’s story.
The plot summary reveals the following: “After the conclusion of the epic battle between father and son, Baki Hanma continues to fight in the underground arena and train nonstop, but he always has to suppress his yawn caused by the overbearing boredom. No amount of stimulus or danger can bring excitement to him at this point.
Now, with the inclusion of the Prime Minister of Japan in the loop, a massive cloning project is attempting to clone Musashi Miyamoto, one of the fathers of martial arts in Japan. Another fight of historical proportions awaits Baki.”
So, the plot obviously has a lot to offer and the story of Baki Hanma certainly has more than enough material for at least three new seasons, if not more. If you want our honest opinion, a potential fifth season would certainly conclude the Baki Hanma storyline, as Pickle is a character that simply has to be introduced, and we also have to see Baki fight the Ogre.
Now, while there are a lot of interesting stories to adapt, later on, we think that it would be better to wrap this story up first before dwelling into the world of Baki-Dou. Baki Hanma offers some of the best moments in the whole franchise and it would be a complete shame to see some of the stories not being adapted for the big screen.
Baki season 5 characters
As for the characters, the main characters – those that have survived, of course – are certainly going to make a return and will probably be voiced by the same characters.
Now, additional seasons will certainly introduce a lot of new characters as well, but since we don’t know which manga arc is going to be adapted next (the show doesn’t really follow the manga completely), we cannot even assume which characters are going to make their debut in the potential new season.
