History Characters / BakiTheGrappler

* OhCrap: When Jack comes back for another round, Pickle thought he was a ghost for a moment since as far as he is concerned, Jack is dead the moment he knocks him out.

* PrimalStance: Pickle is so ancient he only became a biped later in his life. This means his neck and upper back is built to withstand a far higher weight than a biped and makes him [[MadeOfIron virtually impossible to concuss]].

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Unlike the other fighters in the series, Pickle is a predator from ancient times and therefore will just give up and run away in self-preservation whenever a particular prey is too much for him to handle or is too dangerous to eat, such as Jack or Musashi.
* SmarterThanYouLook: He has a constant, vacant look in his eyes that makes him look like he's literally thinking about nothing at all as well as usually having either a dumbfounded expression or a goofy smile that makes him look even dumber, but he's a lot smarter than he looks, as he's able to use complex fighting techniques such as choke-holds and grappling.
* SuperPrototype: He's an ancestor of humanity and is very much physically superior to the average human, and even then, he can give the many freakishly strong fighters in the series a very difficult time.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Due to him coming from a society based around cooperative hunting and grouping together in tribes to survive, giving him no incentive to fight his fellow man except for entertainment, to play with others from his tribe and mark territory, or to even conceive of martial arts, he'll become overwhelmed with fear and flee for his life if his opponent proves to be a genuine threat to his life, due to being a hunter and a survivor first and foremost, as shown with Jack and Musashi.

!!!Voiced by: Creator/SoraAmamiya (JP, Netflix ONA), Creator/CheramiLeigh (EN, Netflix ONA), Karla Falcón ([=LatAm=], Netflix ONA)

--> ''"The depth of the metal's color... It's glinting lustre... Yes, this is indeed the work of the swordsmiths of Seki. I should not be able to entirely bicurfate it in one strike. Yet, I would have no difficulty in making a life-ending bifurcation."''

* KickTheSonOfABitch: PlayedForLaughs. His response to Yuujiro invoking Kanji Igari and laying on his back, getting ready to kick him in the legs is to humiliate him by saying if that he's lying down then all he needs to do is just leave the room since the Ogre essentially admitted defeat because of that. It's notable that he genuinely manages to get away with this and leaves the building unscathed while Yuujiro throws a tantrum.

* KickTheSonOfABitch:
** He killed Jeff Markson after the psycho killed 35 people just to get his attention.
** After cornering Sikorsky, he punches him through a wall and hands him over to the police.
** A more comedic example is that he has a giant mural of him and the security guards pointing and laughing in the prison he's based in, clearly for making fun of the prisoners there.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: A frequent target of this, viscously beaten by Baki, knocked out of a building by Oliva before being taken back to custody, then he gets beaten again by Baki when trying to team up with Yanagi, manhandled by Jack, last but not least he gets brutally pelted with sand laced with finger nails and broken teeth before being beaten into submission by Gaia, but whose gonna feel sorry for an [[SmugSnake egoistical]], ruthless convicted murderer who really [[SmallNameBigEgo should've known his own place in the bottom of a food chain]].

* WeakButSkilled: The only person among the main cast not rippling with muscle or destroying concrete like cardboard. Gouki uses [[AttackReflector Aiki/jujutsu]], and a [[ThrowingTheDistraction more]] [[HeyCatch pragmatic]] [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown approach]] than most, to take down more physically imposing foes. He started out as a Judo ChildProdiy, only to turn to Aikido when he called bullshit on a WeakButSkilled old man being able to throw a career grappler at an Aikido demonstration. The Aikido master proceeded to throw Gouki on his head so hard he pissed himself, and he never looked back to Judo after that (besides teaching the police in his free time).

* WeakButSkilled: The only person among the main cast not rippling with muscle or destroying concrete like cardboard. Gouki uses [[AttackReflector Aiki/jujutsu]], and a [[ThrowingTheDistraction more]] [[HeyCatch pragmatic]] [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown approach]] than most, to take down more physically imposing foes. He started out in Judo only to turn to Aikido when he called bullshit on a WeakButSkilled old man being able to throw a career grappler at an Aikido demonstration, only for the Aikido master to throw Gouki on his head so hard he pissed himself.

* WeakButSkilled: The only person among the main cast not rippling with muscle or destroying concrete like cardboard. Gouki uses [[AttackReflector Aiki/jujutsu]], and a [[ThrowingTheDistraction more]] [[HeyCatch pragmatic]] [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown approach]] than most, to take down more physically imposing foes. He started out in Judo only to turn to Aikido when he called bullshit on WeakButSkilled old man being able to throw a career grappler, only for the Aikido master to throw Gouki on his head so hard he pissed himself.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: {{Subverted|Trope}}.[[spoiler: He does actually get to know defeat but almost immediately shrivels into an old man and passes away having fulfilled this wish. This is compared to a similar case involving an (fictional this time, for once this isn't ''Baki'' using [[TruthInTelevision documented miracle cases]]) 82-year old treasure hunter passing away mere weeks after success from old age, as [[GracefulLoser whatever held his body together for that long gave out when his wish came true]]. Overall, he seems to be the ''only'' one of the convicts who truly wanted to be beaten, as his defeat at Hanayama's hands is the "success" he needed to pass on]].

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Due to him coming from a society based around cooperative hunting and grouping together in tribes to survive, giving him no incentive to fight his fellow man except to entertainment and mark territory, or to even conceive of martial arts, he'll become overwhelmed with fear and flee for his life if his opponent proves to be a genuine threat to his life, due to being a hunter and a survivor first and foremost, as shown with Jack and Musashi.

* RunningGag: Him getting hit in the groin by most of the characters who fight him during his arc. He gets hit down there by Baki, Retsu, and Katsumi, which is mostly a product of him towering over all of them.

* NighInvulnerability: Pickle is, to put it quite simply and accurately, built different. He's so ungodly tough that his only reaction to getting ran over by a cold-storage truck is to immediately get back up and ram the truck with a tackle for so rudely getting in his way, before [[BigEater going through the truck's entire contents in a matter of minutes]] before wandering off, completely unharmed. Retsu's barrages of incredibly powerful Kung Fu blows are barely even a nuisance to him, and Musashi taking his katana to him and cutting at his joints only inconveniences him enough to run off, [[AcquiredPoisonImmunity seemingly immune to infection as well as he proceeds to hide in the sewers afterwards]].
* NoSocialSkills: He has an absurd lack of social awareness, as he thought a frightened scientist pulling a gun on him and shooting him in self-defense wanted to play and rough-house with him, causing him to respond in what he thinks is kind by shaking him back and forth and leaving him (relatively) unharmed by throwing his bullets back at him like it was a friendly game of catch (hard enough for the bullet to leave what looks like a gun wound) and slapping him in the face hard enough to send him rolling and badly concuss him, though still conscious. To be fair, social skills for him back in prehistoric ages were likely killing, eating, sleeping, and sex.

* OhCrap: When Jack comes back for another round, Pickle thought he was a ghost for a moment as he was dead as far as he knew.

* PrimalStance: Pickle is so ancient he only became a biped later in his life. This means his neck and upper back is built to withstand a far higher weight than a biped and makes him [[MadeOfIron nearly impossible to concuss]].
* ReligiousBruiser: It's not really in question ''whether'' Pickle is capable of the concept of a "higher purpose", merely whether his idea of {{God}} resembles ours in any way; His way of giving thanks to Katsumi for offering his shredded arm, after fighting for his own higher purpose of taking Karate to the next level, is identical to the way humans have recorded themselves doing since before antiquity; [[https://i.imgur.com/71AWQ47.png Going on his knees, bowing his head, and folding his hands.]]

* RunningGag: Him getting hit in the groin by most of the characters who fight him during his arc. He gets hit down there by Baki, Retsu, and Katsumi.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: He'll give up and run away whenever he decides an opponent is too much for him to handle, such as Jack or Musashi.
* SmarterThanYouLook: He has a constant, vacant look in his eyes that makes him look like he's literally thinking about nothing at all as well as usually having an blank, dumbfounded expression that makes him look even dumber, but he's a lot smarter than he looks, as he's able to use complex fighting techniques such as choke-holds and grappling.

* SuperStrength: Actually rivaled Yujiro in a test of strength, forcing him to use a technique to get him off. It's so extreme that Pickle snaps the spine of an oversized Siberian Tiger with little more than a tight hug, and in one panel detailing his exploits, he's shown '''shoulder-throwing a triceratops''' Judo-style by grappling two of it's horns and throwing it over himself mid-charge.
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Due to him coming from a society based around cooperative hunting and grouping together in tribes to survive, giving him no incentive to fight his fellow man except to play and mark territory, or to even conceive of martial arts, he'll become overwhelmed with fear and flee for his life if his opponent proves to be a genuine threat to his life, due to being a hunter and a survivor before he's a martial artist or even a fighter, as shown with Jack and Musashi.
* UnbreakableBones: More or less. While his bones probably aren't unbreakable, they are still several times stronger than most humans and no one has managed to break more than a canine tooth on him. Even Musashi's sword swings can't cut through them, not even his joints.
* UnskilledButStrong: Being a prehistoric humanoid, he fights very much like a beast. He is one of the strongest characters of the series so he doesn't need much else unless faced with someone of absolutely prodigious skill like Baki. That said, it seems more a case of him having skills that are more applicable to hunting dinosaurs than fighting smaller opponents like other humans. Pickle has a basic understanding of things like CounterAttack, the principle behind Aiki, and wrestling, since the latter is something he did often when hunting back in his time. While hunting in the sewers, he puts a massive overgrown crocodile into a perfect rear-naked choke before forcefully pulling the beast through a sewage pipe too small for it to fit, ''skinning and delimbing it in the process''.

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: He isn't afraid of any beast, [[WickedWasp except for wasps]]. His survival instincts cause him to see any other creature that could genuinely threaten him as a wasp, as is the case in his fights against Jack and Miyamoto Musashi. This fear began when he killed a primitive wasp and ate it, but the venom in it caused him excruciating pain. He views Jack as something similar, a being who is dead yet still has the capacity to hurt Pickle greatly.

** He ends up getting whipped by Musashi to showcase how deadly he is, leaving him to run away for Motobe for comfort and wordlessly begging for him to help.

** Given how they're currently the '''Only''' two people who have ever made him run, he more than sees Jack and Musashi as this.

* ChefOfIron: A master of Chinese Boxing ''and'' Chinese Cuisine, [[spoiler:He feeds Doyle as he's in recovery from the blood loss after standing guard over Retsu's unconscious body, and his medicical full course meal and a whole bucket of sugar water is what restores Baki from his emaciated state.]]

* WorthyOpponent: Oliva decides he's this after seeing his sheer determination to win and marvels about the extremely long and strenuous training he must have undergone to polish his skills and his Spear Hand, before knocking him out with a series of headbutts.

* TheUnfought: Despite the buildup he received, Retsu’s match with him is never depicted in the manga, and it’s left unclear whether or not they fought at all.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: {{Subverted|Trope}}.[[spoiler: He does actually get to know defeat but almost immediately shrivels into an old man and passes away having fulfilled this wish. This is compared to a similar case involving an (fictional this time, for once this isn't ''Baki'' using [[TruthInTelevision documented miracle cases]]) 82-year old treasure hunter passing away mere weeks after success from old age, as [[GracefulLoser whatever held his body together for that long gave out when his wish came true. Overall, he seems to be the ''only'' one of the convicts who truly wanted to be beaten, as his defeat at Hanayama's hands is the "success" he needed to pass on]].

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: {{Subverted|Trope}}.[[spoiler: He does actually get to know defeat but almost immediately shrivels into an old man and passes away having fulfilled this wish. This is compared to a similar case involving a treasure hunter passing away mere weeks after success. Overall, he seems to be the ''only'' one of the convicts who truly wanted to be beaten, as his defeat at Hanayama's hands is the "success" he needed to pass on]].

* CripplingOverspecialization: Thinks Doppo and the other karateka are this as they mastered only karate while he mastered kenpo and many other tricks. This ends up inverted as Dorian's refusal to specialize himself made him too good to enjoy a genuine victory and too weak to fight someone with as much experience as him but as dedicated their life to one discipline. [[spoiler:It's the reason Retsu's master doesn't give Retsu his Kaioh title too early, like Dorian his potential made him worthy of it earlier but he hasn't honed his skills yet.]]

* LetsFightLikeGentlemen: A variation of this trope and interestingly only on Hanayama's side. He's the strongest Yakuza in Japan and therefore a criminal gang leader that's immersed in a dirty world even if yakuza tend to follow a code. Yet, Though he's prepared for his opponents to use every dirty trick in the book and while he won't show mercy and has no issues brutalizing or maiming people to a ridiculous degree, he will always relent when his opponent is seriously giving up (just don't pull a ISurrenderSuckers on him or he'll beat you even harder), will always keep it a man to man affair, will not attack until his opponent is up and ready to either defend or attack themselves, and is very straightforward in his approach while never using dirty tricks. He sees himself as just too strong to fight in any other way and the most preparation you'll see from him is remove his suit.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Due to him coming from a society based around cooperative hunting and grouping together in tribes to survive, giving him no incentive to fight his fellow man except to play, or to even conceive of martial arts, he'll become overwhelmed with fear and flee for his life if his opponent proves to be a genuine threat to his life, due to being a hunter and a survivor before he's a martial artist or even a fighter, as shown with Jack and Musashi.

* PoisonousPerson: Downplayed, but he does a painful procedure of dipping his right hand into a mixture of sand and extremely lethal toxins from various animals like centipedes and starfish among others, infusing it into his hand to make it capable of poisoning his opponents lethally in a single strike.

* KnockoutGas: Yanagi does this to his opponent with oxygen, or rather lack thereof. His palm allows him to vacuum out oxygen from the air that his opponent breathes by smacking it onto their face.

* PoisonousPerson: Downplayed, but he does a painful procedure of dipping his right hand into a mixture of extremely lethal poisons, infusing it with his hand to make it capable of transmitting the lethal poisons on his opponents when he strikes them with it in battle.

* WeakButSkilled: Among the convicts, he is the least imposing. But he masters a martial art style that allows him to snuff the appropriate amount of oxygen that his opponent breathes with his palm and also a [[MasterPoisoner Master Poisoner]]. By human standards, however, he is StrongAndSkilled as a dentist points out in an interview that his weight lifting training is so extreme it completely wore down his molars.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After Yujiro launches him through Tokugawa's ceiling with a spinning back kick, Kehaya decides he doesn't want to catch any more smoke from the Ogre and just ''dips out'', telling Tokugawa's butler to give the two of them his regards. He even says this is the ''point'' of Sumo's [[https://jlearn.net/dictionary/%E4%BB%95%E5%88%87%E3%82%8A%E7%9B%B4%E3%81%97 Shikirinaoshi]], even if he's applying said logic to ''all'' forms of fighting; If you are unfit to perform at your best against a mighty opponent, you should either [[GracefulLoser cut your losses and try again later]] or [[CombatPragmatist try to catch them lacking]].

--> ''"Then one day, I met [[WeakButSkilled the real deal]]. An old withered man in his sixties. His power could hardly even be called "power", but I was beaten, kicked, bloodied and beaten."''

--> ''"Then one day, I met [[WeakButSkilled the real deal]]."''

* ADayInTheLimelight: He gets a spinoff that focuses on his daily life, [[spoiler:after Sikorsky moves him.]]

--> '''Alai Sr:''' ''"Soon you will be enveloped by the smoke... And then without fail he will consume you. It'll be of a class that can challenge the world. The left hook of a champion!!"''

** He was able to effortlessly keep track of [[StealthExpert Gaia's]] attempt to track him and treated his {{Hidden Weapon}}s like a ballistic knife [[DissonantSerenity more like a learning experience and a funny toy than an attempt on his life]].