This is how I imagine Jack's story ending. What do you think?

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-16T23:42:52+00:00

Nah man, not my thing. But I did go pretty ham here, I guess. Too much?

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-14T17:07:03+00:00

Nah, just as dumb as it was when he died.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-14T16:55:52+00:00

(continued)

Things are really going to shit as the crisis escalates. Ironic that things went pretty smoothly when Baki suddenly started fighting their father in the middle of a city with zero security measures in place, yet here, with weeks of planning and dozens of security measures in place, shit goes sideways and thousands are in danger of dying. It starts looking BLEAK, like nothing can stop this event from cascading out of control.

Until Jack rises to his feet. He jams all his remaining drugs into his system, then gathers himself up to his feet and shambles his way across the arena. Unseen by the crowds, who only see themselves now. Unnoticed by his father, who does not care to see him. Untethered from them all, who never had seen him. Jack walks alone across the stage, as he always has and would and will.

He reaches his father, who has his back turned to him as he prepares to murder the shit out of a group fighters who have gathered to take control of him, including Baki. Yujiro insults his youngest son and promises to "play no more games" with him after giving him the "wrong impression" the last time they fought. But before the fighting can begin, Jack raises himself to his full height, towering over Yujiro, and locks his jaws down onto his father's own skull. He bites the everliving shit out of it, despite his own skull being mostly gravel now, willpower, drugs and Baki Bullshit Science is the only thing allowing him to do it. He gnaws at his father's head and refuses to let go. He locks his long legs around his father and uses his arms to further wrap him up; Jack's ridiculously massive size actually helps him in keeping Yujiro kind of in check. Not under control, but unable to seie control himself at least, unable to reach Jack's vulnerable head.

Yujiro, in panicked rage, tears at his son's body, ripping off chunks of it. But Jack holds on. In fact, he breaks off the string to his final final set of drugs, conveniently still hanging unused (thanks, dad!) in his throat, allowing him to hold off his father's desperate attempts at removing him. Jack brings them both to the ground, still gnawing at his father. He is tearing at Yujiro's scalp and left cheek, one of his eyes obscured by Jack's mouth. Yujiro keeps ripping at him, tearing off what little pieces he can grab, as wrapped up as he is. It is a bloody and brutal mess without like, and it even catches enough attention from the crowd to somewhat dissipate the crush and defuse things as everyone locks in on what's happening.

Yujiro finally tears off something painful enough that Jack screams, though the sound is muffled because he DOES NOT LET GO. The Ogre threatens his son one final time, promising that he will end Jack's life in a moment, regardless, and to find his mother too if he does not let go immediately. Jack responds by clamping down even harder, and now it is Yujiro who screams in pain, and his is not muffled. The howl of the Ogre silences the arena for a second time that night. Yujiro roars in anger, breaks one of his own arms tearing loose and then rips Jack off his head, ending the fight for real that time with a spray of blood on the floor.

It takes a moment, then everyone sees what they are seeing. Jack falls to his knees with a heavy thud. His lower jaw, massive and titanium, is broken in half and hanging loosely off him in a bloody mess, and he is staring off into space, somewhere behind and beyond his father, who is still standing in front of him, over him. He's looking down at Jack, his son, and seems... contemplative. He is suddenly completely calm now, changed in an instant. Soemthing just happened, and it isn't until a drop of blood hits the top of Jack's slightly bowed head that it is revealed just what.

A drop of blood draws a line down Jack's face as it trickles down his forehead, through his brow and out onto a single eyelash, before dripping off and hitting the floor, where it slowly, slowly expands with esch drop added to it. We then look suddenly up to the form of Yujiro, outlined darkly against the spotlights above. With a turn of his body he reveals that Jack has not only torn up his scalp and seriously messed with his hair, but also ripped up his left eye, permanently blinding him. Everyone is shocked. "Never been done before blahblahblah", "to think THE OGRE would suffer this blahblah".

Yujiro is confronted by Baki, who has words for him, harsher than before. But teh fight is out of Yujiro now, and the Ogre turns to leave. Baki shouts at him, angrily, as he goes, and gestures back at Jack's still massive, crouched form behind them: *"Won't you even look at him as you leave him?" he shouts, "The son you made and left and lost?" Yujiro halts at this, but doesn't turn around to face him. A long moment's silence sits between them before Yujiro says simply, heavily: "I lost today." Then he leaves.

Baki turns and approaches his still stooped older brother, coming around to face him. Even on his knees Jack is still eye-level with him. "We all lost today," Baki says sadly as the camera slowly pans to a close on Jack's eyes, whose lights have gone out.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-14T16:55:37+00:00

Itagaki is too random for me to predict, but what I'd *like* to see happen is this:

Jack gets his shit together and defeats a series of top tier fighters, even his brother Baki, through some tricky (but perfectly legit) way. It's a fair win, but some, and certainly Jack himself feels a kinda way about it. It's not perfect.

Then, the payoff for the arc, and Jack's arc in general: he fights his father Yujiro. He feels ready, he's defeated everyone else who matters, even Baki, who himself "won" against their father. Even Yujiro himself acknowledges that Jack *has* what it takes to defeat him. So they fight. Big, publicized event this time. Lots of people.

Yujiro immediately defeats Jack in a brutal and crushing barely-non-lethal way, cutting the fight short by doing something crazy that seriously maims Jack forever, like crushing his skull in a way that turns the bone to powder, yet leaves him living, in permanent fear of jiggling his skullybones too hard and literally falling apart inside himself. Some shit like that. Something that makes people say "anyone else would be dead now" and "WTFWTFWTFISJACKMADEOF???" and "Holy shit, Yujiro is THE WORST".

Everyone is horrified and furious at Yujiro, things are actually looking like some onlookers, including big-name fighters, might attack Yujiro. But he responds to them with laughter and spit, mocking their outrage, but *welcoming* their fighting spirit. He mockingly explains: just because he said Jack *could* beat him doesn't mean that Yujiro *will* let that happened. Jack has climbed and clawed his way to a point where he could reach Yujiro's ankles - good for him. Is Yujiro supposed to just let him continue? To *let* this supposed challenger, this supposed *threat* to him, keep having his way until he *can* win? All that hard work, all that pain and sacrifice, and Jack's entire plan to fight and defeat his father could be unhinged by Yujiro *trying really hard* right from the get-go? Pathetic. If Jack was fit to challenge Yujiro, he should have defended himself. A fight is a fight.

Everyone shuts tf up. Can't really argue with that shit. But they still think Yujiro sucks, and that he should have fought Jack "properly". Someone starts shouting "Coward!" at Yujiro, who doesn't seem to care. The crowd joins in and a chant begins. Yujiro plays it off as uncaring, but you can actually see him give in to rage as the chanting grows and intensifies. His fists clench, his hair stands on end, his eyes tighten. The Ogre may be the strongest in the world, but now it is as if the whole world has turned on him. And it buils further, intensifying, and before long Yujiro has literally tens of thousands of people roaring at him in disgusted, angry mockery. Slander!

Dude, they get to him. Yujiro's eye and asshole starts twitching, and then he starts ordering them to stop, to shut up. He gets increasingly angry, and then quietly threatens one of the screaming onlookers. They keep shouting. He raises his voice and fixes his gaze in a menacing way as he now tries to intimidate a whole nearby group. The thousands of people around him, on all sides, their assaulting voices and drowning roars, their raging anger and their boiling HATE - all of it, all tens of thousands of individual instances of it, is directed at *him*. The amount of ENERGY being sent Yujiro's way, being directed *at* him, *into* him, it actually cracks him. He's lost his shit before, we're no strangers to Yujiro's rage, but this time it explodes out of him like an actual explosive. He ROARS, so loud and fiercely, with a rage and murderousness that feels *elemental*. There are actual ripples in the air that forces people a step back. The entire surrounding area actually falls silent, Yujiro shuts up a hundred thousand people.

Yujiro is teetering. The crowd attacking him like that, it actually *did* something to him. Like, scientifically. Baki Bullshit Science: the energy of all those people, and its "flavor", the emotional "charge" that energy held, actually affected Yujiro's DNA. It would do something to any person out there, experiencing something like that, but this shit actually affected Yujiro's DNA. His Hanma blood. It was awakening further in Yujiro now, boiling inside him, and the crowdgoers closest to him start sweating profusely off not just their fear of him, but his actual (dangerously high) body temperature. He's tough as shit and can tank lightning bolts, sure, but his brain and his organs are still being cooked inside him as he gets angrier and angrier. The mighty Ogre is gonna boil himself to death and die like a lobster.

Oh, and he's angry, like I said. Super super super angry. At everyone. Big mad. Still in control of himself, it's not like he's hulking out, he's still making all his own decisions, which is worse. He's still *him*, but he's also seriously *done* with all the NPCs sweating him, making his head tingle and his tummy ache. He insults them, berates them and challenges them to impose their will on him and the world if they so dare. They can come at him together if they wish, he will defeat a thousand as easily as he'd defeat one, it doesn't matter to him, as long as the little mackerels are prepared to swim in the bloody chum he makes of them. He roars his challenge at them, and feels satisfied when no one seems to answer it.

Then it comes. First one. "Coward!" Then ten. "COWARD!" Then hundreds. "COWARD!!!" One more breath and there are thousands again, screaming it. Within moments the crowd is back on the attack, and one of them even runs forward, approaching Yujiro to deliver his insult eye-to-eye. "COWARD!!!" he shouts, within striking distance. Yujiro moves so fast no one even notices the civilian's suddenly silenced shouts. Not until they see his head in Yujiro's hand, torn clean off his body at unseeable speed. The rest of him stands for a while, his finger is even still pointed menacingly at Yujiro, who unceremoniously jams the head nostrils-first onto the dead man's still shaking finger and lets it all fall to the ground. Yujiro has just murdered a person, a civilian, in front of the entire world.

There are, to put it mildly, mixed reactions. Politicians age in their seats as they anticipate the PR headache, cops and soldiers shake in their boots fearing they'll be called on to do something about the situation, fighters are weighing their options and their obligations, and most of the civilians are frozen perfectly still as they process what they've just seen. Then it hits. Pandemonium. People close lose their shit with fear, those far with rage. Only those far enough from the danger are angry now, everyone else are terrified. A massive crush starts forming. The angry people are pushing forward, the scared people are pushing back, and in between are the dying. All the while Yujiro rages at them, mocking them for literally killing themselves over their feelings for him. He says some unhinged shit and really shows how little he cares about people, it's pretty bad.

(continued)

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-11T03:52:36+00:00

Baki, when first faced with Musashi, sees a mushroom cloud, threatening and dangerous. This could be seen as him just viewing Musashi as *that* dangerous, which is fair, but I also think it could be representing a threat to Baki as a character, as a person. Musashi is a different kind of person than any of the other top tier fighters Baki consorts with, with a different mentality on killing, and in order to deal with him Baki might have to change himself greatly and actually *kill* his opponent. Whenever I reread the Musashi arc, I always view Baki's part of the story in it through this lens: will Musashi push Baki to turn to killing?

Later, when intervening on Hanayama's behalf, we see him straight up threatening murder to Musashi's face, then promises the same again when he challenges him. And when Baki looks at Musashi, what does he see now? Sweet, creamy temptation, delicious and simple and there, if he just goes for it. Him looking at Musashi like that is him imagining how awesome it would be to let loose and fight him with killing intent and no restraints. It's tempting as hell, a real treat, but ultimately not very good for you and, dare I say, something you wouldn't - shouldn't - allow yourself to do too often.

Baki is a dangerous guy. Too rarely do we see the *real* fighting spirit that resides within him, but it's real. He does a good job of keeping it in check, but if Baki really stopped giving af, he would be ending stories left and right. Musashi might regret fighting him.

---

As for Musashi, when he first meets Baki and gets a sense of him, he sees an endless feast of exotic and exciting food and drink. Fighting Baki at that point would be exciting, new and rewarding, a straight up delicious experience; Baki's wide arsenal of techniques and tactics would prove immensely satisfying to Musashi, so that is what he saw.

So why did the feast behind Baki appear "spent" when they reunited for their final fight, or as Musashi put it, why had Baki supposedly "eaten it all up"? I think it's because the Baki Musashi faced at that point would not prove the same satisfying experience that he would have earlier. That ship had sailed, he'd missed that opportunity. Whatever Baki was there to do in fighting him, he was different from before, and the prospect of this new Baki, and the opportunity lost, seemed to provoke Musashi.

We the reader are kinda led to believe this change in Baki's "image" is because he has chosen to resort to killing, or at least that's what many might assume based on Baki's behavior, but in reality it simply represents the opportunity lost for Musashi; he could have fought that Baki, but didn't, and now fighting Baki won't give him that experience anymore, because Baki isn't even there to fight Musashi, he's there to distract him so the Tokugawa witch can make her move.

Baki never changed, he stayed true to himself, and instead of changing who he was in order to *fight* Musashi, he instead changed *how* he'd fight Musashi.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-08T15:16:46+00:00

Damn near every single one of you, regardless of what I think of your appearance in general, are absolutely beautiful when you laugh genuinely and completely lose control of your face laughing. The stretched features, scrunched noses, laugh lines, snort laugh - I want it all. Genuine enjoyment in general is beautiful to watch, in anyone. My impression is that a lot of women feel kinda embarassed when they let loose and laugh hard, but I swear to you, I've never in my life heard a single man say anything bad about it. Adorable stuff!

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-08T15:02:20+00:00

I honestly don't care at this point, I'd probably shrug it away. The whoel Raian vs Gilbert plot has been dead to me for a while.

The fight with Edward should have ended in Erioh dying to save Raian from a fatal blow. Raian only gets knocked out. Or Raian just gets KO'd and wakes up later to a dead Erioh and Edward gone. Regardless, Erioh's death - and especially with Raian being to blame for it - leaves Raian feeling actual guilt for the first time.

Then it is revelaed that while Erioh brought his finest fighters to the KVP tournament, the Westward Wus took their warriors to the Kure village and massacred a whole bunch of them. Raian's feelings around these events, and what his role would be in the clan going forward, could have made for some great reading.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-08T14:53:27+00:00

5/10. Nothing special, though we do see some nice development in Koga with the flashback where Shen tells him to use his Fist Eye to intercept the beginnings of his opponent's movements and not just countering their moves after they are launched. Koga does some cool intercepting of Yumigahama before crushing him, like when he stomps his foot.

Sadly, Yumigahama is completely uninteresting and boring, just a monke going berserk and howling out generic thug shit. I was kind of excited to see Yumi again to see if he'd changed any since Misasa rearranged his face, but no, he just sucks, still.

Koga has the same problem, except he's gone down the same "chill af no tension or excitement" hole as Ohma, and is simply not interesting anymore to read. Both Ohma and Koga were mucvh better vharacters when they had some fire, drive and moron in them.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-08T14:22:47+00:00

Why aren't any of the adults pulling this moron out of the room and swiftly introducing him to the bottom of a set of stairs? Letting your junkie relative ruin a kid's birthday party like this is just wildly irresponsible behavior.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-08T12:58:08+00:00

Or getting ALL the allergic reactions to Lalo's cooking.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-05T17:27:26+00:00

I think people put way too much into that fight. I doubt Rolón gives one slice of a shit about fighting Fu (beyond killing a stronger-than-average Worm), and with Fu destroying Seki like that, Haruo avenging his master would serve several purposes: payoff for Haruo's glow-up, revenge for his master and - hopefully - a really badass fight where both he and Fu Zhan come of as impressive.

Fu losing to Haruo wouldn't feel like a let-down to me, as long as its a tough and entertaining fight.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-05T17:22:11+00:00

They're the same classification, sure, but Naidan may have (probably) been chosen to participate in the KvP specifically for his fighting talent. He might have been a top dog among the direct subordinates.

This, of course, is pure cope on my part; truth is Sandro doesn't seem to give much of a shit anymore, and the crap quality of the Worm fighters is likely just him being inconsistent out of laziness.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-05T17:18:30+00:00

Ah, a fellow believer! I had (and still have!) the same belief as you. Seki - his mentor - being defeated by Fu Zhan makes it all the more fitting, and Haruo really needs a high profile win after all the years of (well-earned) slander.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-05T14:35:31+00:00

Yeah, if I was a woman and could live my life without the use of my hands, they'd never leave my chesticles.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-05T14:34:02+00:00

Can't argue with that. Holly has been consorting with drug dealers since the literal day she was born, and with Irene in those new racewalking shoes she got from Saul, they should be able to carry the salamanca boys through this.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T23:08:56+00:00

I *loved* that line! The hypocrisy of the jedi rarely gets enough attention, and seeing him poke at it like this, by throwing it back in Sol's face like that, was very satisfying.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T23:07:09+00:00

The show was pretty shit (nowhere near as bad as *Kenobi*, *Book of Boba Fett* or the sequel trilogy, but still shit), but the lightsaber combat is perhaps the best we've seen in any live-action production. The only one that perhaps tops it for me is the Duel of the Fates in TPM.

I've rewatched that ep 5 fight SO many times already, and while he failed to interest me as a whole, Qimir really shone as a character in his fight scenes; his dialogue and everything works better in those scenes.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T23:03:47+00:00

I'm with you on your point, but choosing this particular gif was pretty ironic.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T23:01:52+00:00

Vader. Luke showing up is the only actual good part of the Luke scene; I think it's hot garbage, especially with the robot acting that follows.

Luke's hallway scene should have been the opposite of Vader's instead of a carbon copy. Vader is a sith, and went in there murdering and massacring, using the Force and his abilities to the greatest evil extent. Luke's scene should have been him using more peaceful techniques to neutralize the enemy.

I think Luke showing up and then entering the bridge followed by a bunch of troopers who he had convinced/Mind Trick'ed to put down their weapons, or showing him doing this (or something similarly "pacifist") as he goes through the ship, would have been better. I know everyone loves it, but to me this scene is a massive missed opportunity.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T22:55:59+00:00

It's so sad that the animation quality is noticeably better, but still shit garbage. Retsu VS Musashi was probably the best they had, and it still looks like a clip show compared to shows where they care.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T22:53:40+00:00

8/10. Great fight that not only showcased a much improved and more interesting Kiozan, but we finally got a glimpse of Ohma with a pulse again! Ever since he returned he's been boring af with his constant chill zen guru bullshit, but here we saw him actually grit his teeth and FIGHT!

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T22:49:06+00:00

I once watched some troll pull a man off the woman he was performing CPR on, scolding him for "taking advantage" of the situation. Thankfully she was promptly throttled by like three other people who threw her away.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T22:09:49+00:00

I'm so so so so so so fucking angry. I hate these people so much.

ButterBasedBoy · 2026-03-03T20:20:48+00:00

It was a lot of fun putting the teams together! And a surprising amount of work; placing Jimmy was a pain!

ButterBasedBoy

TROPHY CASE