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Baki Gaiden - Scarface Spinoff Manga Goes on Hiatus
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
This year's 24th issue of Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine revealed on Thursday that Keisuke Itagaki and Yukinao Yamauchi's Baki Gaiden - Scarface manga will go on indefinite hiatus.
The manga revolves around the character Kaoru Hanayama. Itagaki and Yamauchi launched this spinoff of the Baki manga in Akita Shoten's Champion RED magazine in 2004, and then in 2008 and 2009 the two authors published the manga intermittently in both Champion RED and Weekly Shōnen Champion. The two authors ended the manga abruptly in 2009, and then resumed it in October 2014. Akita Shoten published the seventh compiled volume (seen right) in February 2016.
Yamauchi previously drew Baki Gaiden: Kizuzura, another spinoff of the Baki manga. The manga launched in the inaugural issue of Bessatsu Shōnen Champion magazine in 2012, and ended in 2013.
Itagaki's original Baki The Grappler martial arts manga ran for 42 volumes in Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine from 1991 to 1999. The manga has more than 63 million copies in circulation. The series has received two television anime adaptations and an original animation video. Baki, the sequel manga, ran for 31 volumes in Weekly Shōnen Champion from 1999 to 2005. The manga recently inspired an original anime DVD (OAD) adaptation that depicted the "Most Evil Death Row Convicts" arc. The OAD was bundled with a limited edition of Itagaki's 14th Baki-Dou manga volume in December 2016. The manga is inspiring a new anime adaptation of the "Most Evil Death Row Convicts" story that will premiere this summer on Netflix in Japan.
After the Baki sequel manga finished in 2005, Hanma Baki then ran in the same magazine from 2005 to 2012. The Baki-Dou sequel series launched in Weekly Shōnen Champion in March 2014 as the third sequel to the original Baki The Grappler manga, and it ended on April 5. The manga's fifth part is in the works.
