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Baki the Grappler Manga Gets Stage Play in December

Keisuke Itagaki's Baki The Grappler martial arts manga is inspiring a stage play that will run at the Shinjuku Face — a Tokyo venue used for martial arts events in recent years — from December 4 to 8. Daisuke Tanaka is directing the play and penning the script. Hideaki Okuzumi is choreographing the fight scenes.

The cast includes:

• Yūgo Satō as Baki Hanma
• Momoka Ōnishi as Kozue Matsumoto
• Shō Higano as Katsumi Orochi
• Haruto Sakuraba as Kaoru Hanayama
• Riku Noma as Kaiō Retsu
• Rita Aizawa as Kiyosumi Katō
• Masafumi Yokoyama as Atsushi Suedō
• Zenitsu Hashimoto as Gerry Strydum
• Kotarō as Izō Motobe
• Akira Tanaka as Mitsunari Tokugawa
• Shinobu Kōga as Matsuo
• Yōhei Takemoto as Kizaki
• Yūji Higuchi as Takayama
• Yūto Mihara as Miyasaka
• Takayuki Kohiruimaki as Shūmei Kanō
• Kōzō Takeda as Doppo Orochi
• Hiroshi Ryōgoku as Yūjirō Hanma
• Yūki Ishizawa and Yūya Sugiyama as Ensemble

Itagaki's original Baki The Grappler martial arts manga ran for 42 volumes in Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine from 1991 to 1999. The Baki sequel manga ran for 31 volumes from 1999 to 2005. Media Do releases the manga in English. After Baki, Itagaki published the 37-volume Hanma Baki manga in Weekly Shōnen Champion from 2005 to 2012. The first Baki-Dou manga, the overall fourth manga in the franchise, launched in Weekly Shōnen Champion in March 2014 and ended in April 2018 with 22 volumes. The manga is inspiring an upcoming anime.

The new Baki-Dou manga launched in Weekly Shōnen Champion in October 2018, and it ended last June. (The new Baki-Dou manga uses different characters for "Baki" in the title from the previous Baki-Dou manga, although it retains the name "Baki-Dou.")

The new anime of Itagaki's Baki (New Grappler Baki: In Search of Our Strongest Hero) manga debuted its first season on Netflix in June 2018 inside Japan, and it ran for 26 episodes ending in December 2018. Netflix posted the first 13 episodes outside of Japan in December 2018, followed by the second half of the first season in March 2019.

The Baki: Dai Raitaisai-hen anime then debuted worldwide on Netflix with all episodes at once in June 2020. Baki Hanma is the third Baki series on Netflix, and a sequel to the Baki: Dai Raitaisai-hen series. The anime debuted worldwide on Netflix in September 2021 with all 12 episodes.

The second season of Baki Hanma debuted worldwide on Netflix in July 2023, with the "Tale of Pickle & The Pickle War Saga" story. The anime's "The Father VS Son Saga" story debuted in August 2023.

Sources: Baki The Grappler stage play's website, Comic Natalie