Thanks to the landmark manga Baki the Grappler, mangaka Keisuke Itagaki became a household name in the anime and manga communities. There was nothing like Itagaki’s art and writing. Itagaki’s status as a living legend was cemented by his intense attention to detail, verbose fight dialogue, brutal fights, and monstrous facial expressions.
While Baki fans know and love Itagaki for being the mastermind behind Baki Hanma’s quest to become the greatest fighter in the world, they only know the bare minimum about the author. This is because, like many mangaka, Itagaki values his privacy. Thankfully, some information and trivia about Itagaki’s life were made public.
10 Keisuke Itagaki Has Been Working On Baki For Almost 30 Years
Baki has been a part of the anime zeitgeist for as long as the community can remember. The still-ongoing mainline manga has six parts, it has a bunch of spinoff titles, and the anime is currently adapting the third part, Baki Hanma (or Baki: Son of Ogre). It should come as no surprise that Itagaki has been making Baki for more than 30 years.
Itagaki started Baki in 1991, making it around 32 years old. It’s still far from its conclusion, even if the underrated Baki grew up and resolved many of his conflicts. Baki Dou, the fifth part, just ended this year. Shortly after, the sixth part Baki Rahen was announced. Itagaki has no plans of stopping Baki’s decades-long saga any time soon.
9 Keisuke Itagaki Is One Of The Most Successful Mangaka In History
Ever since its debut 1991, Baki the Grappler sold more than 85 million copies. This means that every Baki tankobon sold around 600,000 copies each. Thanks to these consistently strong sales, plus the manga’s enduring popularity and positive reception, Itagaki is recognized as one of the most successful mangaka working today.
For comparison’s sake, Baki sold more than Yoshihiro Togashi’s classic shonen manga Hunter x Hunter. Baki also has some of the best sales figures among ongoing shonen manga, beating Jujutsu Kaisen and the imperfect My Hero Academia. These figures aren’t set in stone just yet, but Baki‘s success is undeniable.
8 Baki The Grappler Was Only Keisuke Itagaki’s Second Manga
Itagaki was so synonymous with Baki that, to most manga readers and anime viewers, it seemed to be his only work. Not only did Itagaki write and/or draw other manga, but Baki was only his second work. Itagaki started his manga career with Make-Upper in 1989. It was a short-lived, three-volume manga about a muscular beautician.
What’s interesting about Make-Upper was that even if it wasn’t a gritty fighting manga, it showed traces of what would become Itagaki’s signature style and Baki‘s trademarks. The expert beautician beautified his clients with comically exaggerated violence, like literally rewiring a lady’s brain by first jamming his fingers into her eye sockets.
7 Keisuke Itagaki Had A Cameo As Mitsunari Tokugawa’s Sniper
One of the Baki fandom’s favorite jokes was that Mitsunari Tokugawa’s nameless sniper was the strongest fighter in the world. This was because he single-handedly took down the uncontrollable Yuujiro Hanma, Baki’s father and the “Strongest Creature in the World,” with a tranquilizer dart. Fueling the sniper’s myth was his similarity to Itagaki.
It isn’t uncommon for mangaka to draw themselves in a cameo. Itagaki’s cameo stood out because it could read as a cheeky power fantasy. Yuujiro is the most feared “creature” because of his lack of physical and emotional limits. It made sense that Itagaki, Yuujiro’s creator, would be one of the very few people to defeat him and leave without a scratch.
6 Keisuke Itagaki’s Explicit Baki Chapter Was (Kind Of) Banned
The most explicit moment in Baki‘s manga didn’t involve a brutal fight or grave injuries. Instead, it was the first time Baki and the problematic Kozue slept together. Sex scenes aren’t all that rare in more mature shonen manga, but Baki’s and Kozue’s 84-page tryst was so erotic that it was basically banned from Weekly Shonen Champion.
The special (whose title roughly translated to “Sex Edition”) was printed on the publisher’s seinen line. It currently has no official reprint or translation. In true Itagaki fashion, everything was highly detailed and exaggerated. Fans loved Itakagi’s heightened take on a love scene and were disappointed by the anime’s toned-down version.
5 Keisuke Itagaki Designed Bruce Irvin’s Alternate Costume In Tekken 5
One of the Baki fandom’s biggest dreams is to see Baki Hanma be a guest fighter in a fighting game like Tekken. This led to many fanmade trailers that imagined what Baki’s announcement trailer would look like and how he’d fare against Kazuya Mishima. Little did these fans know that Baki is already part of Tekken, at least in spirit.
For the exceptional Tekken 5, Itagaki was brought in to design one of Bruce Irvin’s alternate costumes. Although Bruce didn’t have the same borderline-monstrous physiques that Baki‘s characters were known for, his alternate outfit was an almost one-to-one translation of Itagaki’s design. Unfortunately, Bruce was one of Tekken‘s underused characters.
4 Keisuke Itagaki Served 5 Years In The JGSDF
Before he became a world-famous mangaka, Itagaki served five years in the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force. Itagaki chronicled his military service in an autobiographical manga, whose title roughly translates to “Narashino 1st Airborne Brigade of My Youth.” Those expecting overt patriotism or nostalgia are gravely mistaken.
The biography began with Itagaki becoming a giant phallus after getting a super-soldier formula. More comically vulgar escapades followed, like his desperation for a toilet break. The manga also caused some confusion among fans of the dark classic Berserk when its first chapter was uploaded alongside Chapter 370 without any explanation.
3 Keisuke Itagaki Was A Pro Boxer
Despite its exaggerations of the human anatomy and martial arts, Baki was the kind of manga that only someone with deep knowledge and love for competitive fighting could make. Unsurprisingly, Itagaki fit the bill. What most readers may not know is that Itagaki had experience as a pro boxer who competed in amateur boxing leagues.
Itagaki trained in boxing during his military service. He even competed in Japan’s premier sporting event, the National Sports Festival. With this kind of training and background in combat sports, it’s safe to assume that Itagaki used his experiences in the pro fighting leagues as a reference and inspiration for Baki.
2 Keisuke Itagaki Has A Degree In Shorinji Kempo
Itagaki has been practicing martial arts longer than even the most dedicated Baki fans would assume. Case in point, Itagaki has been practicing Shorinjo Kempo ever since he was a teenager. He joined tournaments, and he earned a degree in Shorinji Kempo. Although he doesn’t fight as much as he used to, Itagaki is still a respected fighter.
Shorinji Kempo is said to be a Japanese variation of Shaolin Kung Fu. It’s also Itagaki’s favorite technique. Recently, Itagaki was featured in a Japanese documentary about martial arts, where he showed his Kempo skills. He was also filmed trying out new forms of martial arts, like Bruce Lee’s self-made Jeet Kune Do and the Israeli style of Krav Maga.
1 Keisuke Itagaki’s Daughter Created Beastars
Beastars was one of the best sleeper hits of the 2010s. What was first dismissed as a “furry anime” turned out to be one of the best new romance anime, an achievement in digital animation, and a surprisingly mature take on the concept of anthropomorphic animals. The shojo-leaning Beastars was also made by Itagaki’s daughter, Paru Itagaki.
Paru was suspected of being Itagaki’s daughter for the longest time, and she only confirmed that this was true in 2019. Paru initially hid her family ties to avoid accusations of nepotism and to establish herself as a mangaka first. Before Paru’s confirmation, her sharing the surname of the Baki mangaka was a common joke among readers.