Baki Hanma – Season 2 Episode 20 Recap & Review

Their Own Way

Episode 20 of Baki Hanma Season 2 commences with a battle between Baki and Chiharu, with Baki taking a beating. Chiharu leaps in to deliver an uppercut and connects fully. Baki takes the full impact of the punch, but remains unaffected. He returns 3 fatal strikes to Chiharu leaving tears in his eyes. Baki continues to walk over Chihura and into the house.

Later that day while returning with groceries, Chiharu obstructs Baki’s path once again. This time Baki doesn’t wait for Chiharu to strike first and punches him in the face before he can finish warming up. He mocks Chiharu, claiming he will demonstrate the Chiharu style.

Infuriated by this, Chiharu jumps to deliver a powerful punch but Baki doesn’t dodge. Instead, he leans into the punch, letting it connect fully with his face. Baki sustains minor injuries, however, Chiharu’s finger bones are broken to pieces.

Baki mocks him once again calling it the Chiharu way and sees a flying kick heading straight toward his face. Baki once again pulls himself back and launches his face right into the kick, allowing it to connect fully. This results in Chiharu’s shin bone being shattered.

Baki continues to taunt Chiharu. Chiharu challenges Baki to show him more of his style as he holds his arm out with his forefingers extended. Chiharu makes his intentions of aiming for the eyes clear and Baki accepts the challenge.

Baki offers to thrust his eyes into Chiharu’s fingers. Chiharu accepts the offer and holds still. Baki uses the Cockroach Dash to intercept Chiharu’s fingers with his newly found speed. On impact, Chiharu finds his fingers broken and blood dripping out of Baki’s eyes.

Initially, Chiharu did not have any intentions of crushing Baki’s eyeballs, but Baki’s movements were too fast to retract.

Back at the ring, Retsu lays flat on the canvas after taking punches from Joe. He recalls Kaku teaching him how to deal with the brain crashing against the inside of his skull – he has to synchronize with the brain movement. Falling short of time, Retsu slams his head at the perfect moment to bring the two in sync and regains his senses.

Retsu stands up on the count of 9 and faces Joe. In between rounds, Retsu seeks advice from the Coach, but everything that happened in the ring was beyond his comprehension. He simply advises Retsu to do his best.

Retsu remembers the advice from his master on fighting mid-air. Fighting someone attacking from above limits them to only defense. He uses the tactic to land fatal blows on Joe as boxing struggled with such a tactic. Retsu manages to knock Joe down, but Joe picks himself up before the 10 count.

As the fight continues, Retsu realizes Joe is now fighting instinctively. He gets hit by the full force of multiple of Joe’s punches. Joe manages to attack despite him being in mid-air. Retsu feels the full wrath of Smoking Joe’s perseverance.

Retsu resorts to using his final attack as a bump appears on the tip of Retsu’s glove. Retsu delivers a fatal punch right on Joe’s Philtrum sending him into a temporary state of Paralysis. The Philtrum being a meeting point of several nerves is a delicate pain point and striking it can leave a fighter close to death or even dead. Joe collapses to the ground.

Joe shows a good sportsman spirit and appreciates Retsu for enabling him to meet and speak to his dead dad while paralyzed. Retsu wishes to inform Joe about the move, but his hand is held up by Bolt, the reigning champ as he congratulates him.

On returning back to Hanayama, Chiharu shares the details of the fights with Baki. Hanayama particularly takes an interest in the gauging of the eyes, however, they don’t make complete sense to him. Chiharu also describes the Cockroach Dash as he describes Baki’s speed to be that of a bullet train.

The Episode Review

This episode completes both fights, although the fights still seem redundant. The chapter fails to add a strong purpose Baki’s fight with Chiharu. The only valid explanation that stands as of now is Hanayama testing Baki’s fighting spirit before he goes up against Yujiro.

Up until now, Retsu’s new career has already got him face-to-face with the reigning heavyweight champion. Retsu’s part in this season seems to hold significance, as half the runtime of the past 2 episodes has been dedicated to his fights. Seeing Retsu seemingly close to fighting the champion it’ll be interesting to see what path he chooses next.