Once again, I am breaking down a fight scene from the anime series Baki.
Several of you have asked for this particular encounter, and let me tell you, it’s a banger.
If you’re confident enough to challenge Biscuit Oliva in one-on-one combat with your hands
in your pockets, you better be ready to back it up.
In Baki part 3, episode 5 entitled “Hand Pocket,” Biscuit Oliva faces Shobun Ron
in The Great Raitai Tournament. Biscuit is a downright intimidating opponent. Having packed
330lbs of iron-dense muscle onto his 5’11” frame, he seems practically invulnerable to most attacks.
In the Baki universe, he is known to be the strongest man in the USA, and works as a high-paid
government mercenary specializing in capturing and terminating some of the world’s strongest
criminals. He is also technically a prisoner in the Arizona State prison, but he is completely
free to do as he wishes, a living weapon too powerful to be contained. The baddest of the bad.
His opponent Shobun Ron is an accomplished practitioner of the martial arts style
known as Iai Kenpo and a member of the Taiwanese mafia. Between Raitai Tournaments,
and underground mafia fights, Shobun has been fighting for almost 30 years
and hasn’t lost a single match…
At first glance, these two men appear to be well matched. Shobun stops Oliva’s opening blow without
showing an ounce of emotion. When he retaliates, it is obvious that technique is formidable,
attacking Oliva with lighting speed and precision.
He draws first blood with his spear-hand technique, and follows up with a quick kick
combo combo. Your average fighter might be incapacitated by comminuted, or fragmented,
fractures of the phalanges of the toes, and a comminuted fracture dislocation of the mandible,
or jaw after a blow between the toes, and a rising kick under the chin, but Oliva
is no ordinary fighter. He takes it like a champ.
Shobun attacks again with a swift open hand blow to Oliva’s ear.
This is a surefire way to cause a perforation of the eardrum as a result of the air compressed
into the ear canal by the open hand striking the ear. It is also a possible shortcut to
a concussion as well, but closed head injuries don’t seem to be something that fighters on Baki
are susceptible to. To be honest, it doesn’t seem that Oliva is taking the fight seriously just yet.
Perhaps there is something to this pocket style.
Other than pocket pool. [Eyes looking sideways]
But Shobun is unimpressed, and delivers another spear-hand blow directly to Oliva’s neck,
sending 330lbs of muscle toppling over.
BROLL Neck Strike + Fall
A direct blow to the front of the trachea is a potentially debilitating attack. If delivered
with enough force, the blow could fracture one or more of the cartilage rings that form the skeletal
structure of the trachea. Of course, striking the trachea in this manner with a closed fist,
would also cause damage. However, with the spear hand strike, the force of impact is
concentrated over a much smaller area, leading to a better transmission of force, and with it
more damage, at the point of impact. Watching from the wings, Yujiro explains that Shobun is
able to generate incredible torque while maintaining the appearance of stillness.
But it seems Oliva has finally decided to take the fight seriously, giving Shobun a small taste
of his true power.
Amidst his opponent’s onslaught,
Oliva delivers a closed-fist, overhead strike to both shoulders simultaneously
with enough force to send shockwaves into the concrete floor. A blow powerful enough
to crack concrete could pose a threat to the shoulders and collar bone. Here,
not one, but both clavicles would be at risk of injury from the downwards blows to the shoulder.
If the blows landed medially on the shoulders, near the neck, then we might expect fractures of
the clavicles somewhere along their length. If, on the other hand, the blows landed laterally on
the shoulders, closer to the arms, then we might expect a separation of the acromioclavicular joint
between the clavicle and the acromion, or the shoulder. And with the force of the blows landed,
it is also possible that Shobun would also suffer intra-thoracic injuries to the lungs
and possibly the great vessels that lay in close proximity
to the clavicles. But this is Baki and Shobun won’t be defeated so quickly.
He uses his speed and technical prowess to target the more fragile areas of the head and neck that
are susceptible to blunt force trauma, and for a moment it appears that Oliva has been caught
off guard. Here we have a series of blows in quick succession. Trachea again,
temples bilaterally, the bridge of the nose, base of the nose, temple, and then the neck.
More tracheal ring fractures and potential tracheal occlusion...making
it difficult to breathe, nasal fractures with extensive fragmentation or comminution
and possibly even intrusion of fragments into the nasal or frontal sinuses, more concussions,
with a chaser of neck contusions or a neck sprain. But Oliva is quick to return the favor “in style…”
Shobun’s eyes are watering and his nose has obviously seen better days.
Definitely a nasal fracture here. With the forehead being one of the hardest bones in
the body, and the nose being only thin bone plates and cartilage, the nose does not stand
a chance against this attack. He will definitely need the work of a plastic surgeon if he hopes
not to look like a pug dog for the foreseeable future. [pug dog picture here] He remains calm
and launches a spear-hand attack at Oliva’s mid section, only to be rewarded with another more
savage headbut and fingers that are crumpled like paper mache.
First let’s talk about Shobun’s hand. While the spear-hand allows Shobun to maximize the force at
the point of impact, this technique carries with it the risk of injury to the person delivering the
strike. The hand and wrist contain over 25 joints and 27 bones that must be kept rigid, moving as
a single unit to maximize the effect of this blow. If any of the joints is allowed to bend,
the powerful effect of the spear-hand is reduced and the hand becomes susceptible to damage.
This is especially true if the failure occurs in a direction other than that in which the
joint typically moves. Here, some of Shobun’s fingers are forced into hyperextension, while
others are forced into flexion. The fingers forced into extension would likely become dislocated,
while those forced into flexion would likely suffer mallet finger injuries, where the extensor
tendon at the distal interphalangeal joint would be ruptured. Both would be painful and would
leave Shobun’s hand a rather ineffective weapon for the remainder of the fight.
Next, let’s look at the massive Donkey Kong headbutt that Oliva delivers to Shobun.
Oliva jumps off the ground to lay down a blow that literally caves Shobuns face in like an egg shell.
This would result in a maxillary fracture of variable severity. This just means that
his face would be bruk up to ratted. Judging by the distance that his face is pushed in,
I would venture to guess that Shobun would suffer a Le Fort 2 or Le Fort 3 facial fracture,
where you could pull off the nose, or possibly even the whole face.
Quite devastating, and not the kind of thing that you are looking to continue fighting with.
Oliva follows up with a few more headbuts and Shobuns body goes limp. After this series of
attacks, Shobun is no longer in shape to continue fighting. Which is a good thing, because his
face is an absolute mess that will require the attention of a skilled maxillofacial surgeon,
and possibly even an ophthalmologist. He will also require the work of an oral surgeon,
and the care of a concussion specialist, preferably a rehabilitation physician as
his closed head injury may be quite severe and require specialized care. He will require open
reduction and internal fixation of his face and jaw. This will be completed with contoured
titanium plates and a myriad of screws. His closed head injury will require supportive care.
If a significant intra-cranial bleed is associated with these injuries, he may even
require a burr hole in his skull and insertion of an intra-cranial pressure monitor, to monitor
and relieve swelling-related pressure in his skull. Fracture healing would be expected to occur
over a six to ten week period of time. The closed head injury would be much more unpredictable.
If the concussion were mild, recovery could occur over a period of several weeks. However,
if it were more severe symptoms could persist for an extended period of time, and recovery could
be quite protracted. While symptoms typically resolve within three months, in some patients,
symptoms may persist for a year or more. That’s a really, really long time to recover from a fight.
Some, such as professional boxer Michael Watson, who was injured in a WBO super middleweight title
against Chris Eubank in 1991, never fully recover. On rare occasions, some fighters may even die from
these types of injuries as occured with Mexican boxer, Jeanette Zacarias Zapata, who recently
died after a fight in Montreal. And something tells me that the fighters in Baki do not have
baseline SCAT5 or IMPACT scores upon which to base their recovery after closed head injury.
I’m sure that when Keisuke Itagaki creates these fights,
he doesn’t intend for them to be scrutinized from a medical perspective.
Paradoxically, I feel like breaking down these fantastical fight scenes can teach us a lot about
injuries and the human body under more realistic conditions. I’m itching to get started on my next
anime reaction… What do you guys want to see next? Be sure to let me know in the comments.
As always, that’s been a word from Dr. Chris, not your everyday ortho.