The 2021 released anime titled Baki Hanma is available on Netflix, and it has been inspired by the Japanese manga, which was illustrated by Keisuke Itagaki. With many fans deep in both the show and the manga, let us tell you more about Baki and Kozue and whether the two broke up in the show or not.
The manga came out first in 1991 in the Weekly Shonen Champion magazine and follows the story of Baki Hanma, our main lead, a teenager who rigorously trains himself to be the best fighter, even testing himself by going against many different opponents in dangerous, no rules, hand to hand fights.
The original manga series was released from 1991 to 1999 and became so popular that four more sequels to it were released over the years, with the last one titled ‘Bakidou,’ which ran from 2018 to 2023. It even got its own video animation in 1994 and a twenty-four episodes series in 2001.
The Baki series manga is said to be one of the most successful and high-selling mangas of all time, managing to sell more than eighty-five million copies over the years. While such an anime is usually made and targeted at teen boys who definitely loved it thoroughly, the critics who read it were a bit difficult to impress.
The Netflix series is easily one of the best shonen series right now, with Baki’s character being both fascinating and cocky. In the series, we see Baki Hanma training his life away in an attempt to finally defeat his father, Yujiro Hanma, and his ridiculous strength.
While Baki and his will to defeat his father is the main plot of the story, there are other aspects to it, too. The show is hyper-masculine and borders on the sexualization of the teen boy. The lack of female characters is shocking, and the ones that do exist are shown as the root cause of all of the evil in Baki’s life.
Did Baki And Kozue Break Up?
A simple answer to this question is, No, they did not outright break up with each other. The series has no such scene where the two are shown breaking up with each other. But there is something else that happened that may have confused the fans, making them question if the duo was even together anymore.
At the start of the series, Baki and Kozue are shown as a hands-on couple, very much in love with each other, to the point that Kozue’s love for Baki is a source of immense strength for him during his fights.
The producers of the show and even the illustrator, Keisuke Itagaki, have never openly addressed the utter dismissal of Kozue’s character, but we do have some fan theories to explain it.
Throughout season one, Kozue and Baki were together, and their relationship continued even in the second season, though it became the downhill of their love. The creators added a love triangle between Baki, Kozue, and Mohammad Alai Jr., and it was after this that Kozue’s character started fading away, eventually disappearing completely from the show.
Many fans believe that since Kozue’s love was a great source of strength for Baki so it is possible that the two must have been physically intimate, meaning that Kozue managed to make him stronger permanently. This meant that Kozue was no longer required to be around by the story and our lead, Baki.
This could be one possible reason behind the creators writing off her character. Another thing that comes to mind is that Keisuke Itagaki has had a history of casually forgetting his female characters, as they are not all that important in his stories.
The same can be said for this series as well; considering it is a perfect example of hypermasculinity for young boys, there is obviously zero space for women there.
Despite Baki’s tough appearance, part of the audience was really into how he acted with Kozue and how he was so loving and gentle with her. This side of the story was appreciated by many of the viewers, believing it to be one of the few plotlines in the show that were not all about action and fighting.
Even so, their love story received little attention from most of the fans, who were more excited about the action in the series, which could be another reason why Kozue got removed from the show slowly.
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