Baki Hits 35 Years with Massive Champion Special
Baki's 35th anniversary gets a massive special issue from Weekly Shonen Champion.
Weekly Shonen Champion is going all-in on Baki's 35th anniversary with a September 17 issue that's essentially a love letter to Keisuke Itagaki's legendary fighting manga.
This isn't just a regular issue. We're talking over 160 pages of Baki content—spin-off works, a special one-shot, and a character popularity poll result that fans have been waiting on. There's also a sit-down between Itagaki and Takayuki Yamaguchi that digs into what made the series stick around for three and a half decades.
The physical package sweetens the deal: a limited edition gift and a double-sided poster that's sized to actually display, not get lost in a stack of magazines.
Baki has been a cornerstone of fighting manga since its debut, and this celebration reflects how deeply it's woven into Champion's identity. If you've been following the series through any of its iterations—the original run, New Grappler Baki, Baki-Dou—this issue is the kind of thing that doesn't happen often. A 160-plus page deep-dive with original content and an artist interview is the kind of milestone treatment reserved for series that genuinely shaped the medium.
The September 17 issue drops in Japan through Akita Shoten.
Source: Anime Eiga
