| Atsushi Suedou | |
 | |
| Name | |
|---|---|
| Kanji Name | 末堂 厚 |
| Kana Name | すえどう あつし |
| First Appearance | |
| Anime | OVA |
| Manga | His Name is Baki!! |
| Information | |
| Origin | Japan |
| Age | 25 |
| Hair Color | Brown/Black |
| Height | 205 cm (6'9") |
| Weight | 130 kg (286 lbs) |
| Fighting Style | Shinshinkai Karate |
| Original Dub | Yoshikazu Nagano (2001) Kouji Totani (OVA) Kenji Nomura (2018) |
| English Dub | Vance Acres (OVA) Liam O'Brien (2018) |
| Relations | Doppo Orochi (Master) |
| “ | Shed sweat and blood? You never even fought anyone outside of your own group! | ” |
– Suedou to Shigeru Akatsuka. | ||
Atsushi Suedou (末堂 厚, Suedō Atsushi) is a karate fighter and a minor character in the Baki the Grappler anime and manga series. He is a 3rd dan Shinshinkai Karate student. In the manga, he was the first opponent Baki Hanma faced and chronologically, his first opponent in the Underground Arena Saga.
Personality[]
At the beginning, Suedou is an arrogant and very confident Shinshinkai karate student. After losing the fight against Baki Hanma, he became his friend and even started to cheer him during his fights, even though he had a very hostile attitude towards him before. Also, Suedou gained a lot of humility for his karate school and other people. Before he treated Doppo Orochi very ridiculously and disrespectfully, but then started to respect him really strongly. His devotion to the Shinshinkai grandmaster, for example, is shown in the scene where Suedou descends from the audience to the arena during the great battle between Doppo and Yuujirou Hanma, wanting to defend his master and at the same time prove that Shinshinkai Karate is always the strongest. Unfortunately, his reckless behaviour ends very bad for him, because he takes a powerful blow to the face from Yuujirou and loses consciousness. Suedou believes very strongly that the Shinshonkai School is the best fighting way, although he hasn't been so serious about it before.
He is also close friends with Kiyosumi Katou and seems to treat him like his brother. When Katou almost got murdered by Kaiou Dorian, Suedou was willing to fight to the death to avenge his fellow karate fighter and best friend. Sadly it is here where Suedou's arrogance gets the best of him as he underestimates Dorian, which ultimately leads to his defeat and near death.
Suedou is a very nervous person and it's easy for him to gets mad. Before his defeat in the Shinshinkai Tournament, he was very angry with Doppo's ridiculous remarks about him and Baki's disrespectful provocations. He is very irritable to any comments about his strength. Winning with everyone in the Shinshinkai tournaments enlarged his ego to such an extent that he thought he was even better than Doppo and was therefore extremely frustrated and annoyed by the fact that he was unable to inflict any serious injuries to Baki, who came to the tournament as a newcomer with a white belt.
Appearance[]
Suedou is a tall, huge and muscularly well-defined young man with a brown (or dark amber) undercut. In the 1994 OVA, Suedou has black hair. He is one of the tallest Japanese in the series. He has distinctive and masculine facial features. The manga author often emphasises his lips, as in the case of Koushou Shinogi.
Most often he can be seen dressed in traditional karate gi. As the spectator of the Maximum Tournament, he was dressed in an ordinary jacket. During the fight with Kaiou Dorian, he was wearing long green pants and a black sleeveless T-shirt.
History[]
Baki the Grappler[]
Underground Arena Saga[]
Suedou takes part in the 18th Annual Shinshinkai Karate Tournament at the Budoukan Arena. As the best karateka of that school, he easily reaches the finals. Before the fight, he meets one of the Shinshinkai school coaches and other students who were defeated by a mysterious white belt fighter and dropped out in the tournament. Suedou laughs at them that they have never seriously fought any opponent in their life. It turns out that this mysterious fighter is Baki Hanma. Then Suedou talks to Doppo Orochi, the Shinshinkai grandmaster. Doppo provokes Suedou, telling him that Baki is not someone Suedou should disregard. Suedou is extremely confident, however he is worried about Baki's abilities. Due to this fact, Suedou decides to wear a special template (a dental device that joins the resistance power of the head and spine to increase his overall strength by 30%).
Suedou during his match with Baki.
When the match begins, Suedou jumps dynamically into the arena. At the very beginning of their match, Baki dislocates Suedou's shoulder with a precisely placed jump kick. However, Suedou, ignoring the referee and ringside doctors, manages to relocate his shoulder. Even Doppo Orochi admits it was a painful feat. The strong karateka is angry that Baki noticed his template and laughed at him, so he shatters his template and spits it out. Despite the calm attitude, he has no chance against Baki, who plays with his opponent all the time. Suedou bombards him with all his strongest blows, but it doesn't work and eventually Baki starts to provoke him to break the tournament rules, wanting Suedou to hit him in the face. The angry karate fighter finally decides to do it, but Baki once again comes out of it without much damage, and Suedou has an open hand fracture. Later, Baki defeats his opponent with powerful jump kick to the face and Suedou is knocked out. Some time after the fight is over, he wakes up and interrupts the conversation between Doppo Orochi and Baki, saying he still wants to fight. Then Doppo smiles to him and hugs his pupil with such strength that Suedou faints again. Doppo takes the unconscious karateka from the arena.
In the anime series, there is a scene where Kiyosumi Katou unexpectedly comes to the Shinshinkai Dojo and attacks various students, and Suedou gets angry at him for his aggressive behaviour. To stop Katou, Suedou attacks him and tries to bring him down to the ground, but the fight ends extremely quickly when Katou counterattacks with a strong kick in the face and knocks Suedou out.
Atsushi Suedou appears as a spectator in the Underground Arena during the legendary battle between Doppo Orochi and Yuujirou Hanma. Most of the time he simply comments on the match with other characters, sitting in the audience. At some point, however, he gets angry when Doppo starts losing the fight and Suedou decides to enters the arena, shouting that Shinshinkai School must be the strongest and cannot be defeated in a fight. He tries to attack Yuujirou, but almost immediately Suedou takes a powerful blow to the face and flies out towards the audience, losing consciousness. This scene does not appear in the anime.
Maximum Tournament Saga[]
He appears at the beginning of the saga in the Shinshinkai Dojo and helps together with Katou with performing Doppo Orochi's demonstration training. Suedou and Katou are very impressed that the grandmaster recovered so quickly after the tragic battle with Yuujirou Hanma. Doppo begins to tell them that he intends to bring Katsumi Orochi, his adopted son, to the Underground Arena, saying that the Shinshinkai school needs his best representative to be considered the strongest. Suedou is confused and says that Doppo is already considered the strongest. The Shinshinkai grandmaster ridicules him and says that true strength does not comes from winning several karate championships, referring to the fact that Suedou previously used to win regularly all the Shinshinkai competitions.
Suedou and Kiyosumi Katou.
Suedou's role in this saga is mainly to comment the fights of the Maximum Tournament in the audience. He's always around Doppo or Katou. When Katsumi Orochi is almost defeated in the fight against Kaoru Hanayama and starts to losing the fighting spirit, Suedou and Katou suddenly appear beside the arena fence. They start to perform the seiken strikes as if they were at a karate training session, wanting to give some motivation to Katsumi.
Before the final match between Baki and Jack Hammer, the young champion prepares for the fight by eating plenty of food and drinking a flat coke and Suedou together with Kozue and Katou watch the situation. In the anime, Suedou says that Baki did the same before the match with him at the Shinshinkai Tournament (what Baki does is a kind of trick that adds a lot of energy). When Baki wins the fight, it is shown in the anime that moved Suedou and Katou are applauding the Underground Arena champion.
Baki[]
Most Evil Death Row Convicts Saga[]
Suedou appears in this saga for the first time when Katsumi Orochi read aloud to Shinshinkai's students a list of injuries Katou suffered in the fight against Dorian, the American convict who came to Tokyo in search of "defeat". Katsumi announces that the Shinshinkai school must take revenge for the fact that Katou was so brutally beaten and almost murdered, and Suedou is one of the students who is screaming "osu!" as a sign of support for their master.
Suedou fighting Dorian.
When the Shinshinkai students lead Dorian to a mysterious amusement park, Suedou suddenly appears and furiously attacks the American convict. The karateka introduces himself to Dorian, who states that he is the first Japanese to have the similar height as the American prisoner. After a short fight, it turns out that Dorian's strikes don't seem to get much effect against Suedou (but it is possible that Dorian didn't fight seriously). The karateka attacks the convict and gives him some damage. After a while, however, Dorian quickly shifts the battlefield to a nearby roller coaster. Suedou runs after him and they both get in the coaster that starts to move up after a while. Dorian starts to question Suedou's resolve by asking him if he is surely able to sacrifice his life in an act of revenge for his friend. When the roller coaster goes up to the top, it suddenly starts going downhill and Suedou has some trouble adjusting to the speed and shifting ground of the coaster, but gives his best to keep it up. He is reminded of the lesson during which Doppo Orochi taught him about the technique called Sanchin. It's a special karate stance that increases the user's footing. Suedou uses Sanchin and attacks Dorian with a strong punch. However, after a while, the convict rushes and grabs the karateka intensively, so that he cannot keep a stable position, and then they both fly out of the roller coaster eventually resulting in both hitting the hard floor below. It turns out that Dorian reduced the impact force by using his special wire, which he tied to one of the nearby lamps before they fell. Unfortunately, Suedou is left unconscious and almost dead on the ground.
Hanma Baki[]
Wildman War - Pickle Wars Saga[]
Suedou reappears, alive and well, training students at Shinshinkai. He later appears during Katsumi Orochi's realization of his ultimate technique, the Mach Punch, although he does not speak, and later again, in the audience of the Underground Arena, to lead the Shinshinkai students in a mass demonstration of karate techniques in support of Katsumi during his fight with Pickle, occasionally commenting on the fight as it plays out. When Katsumi loses to the caveman, Suedou leads the Shinshinkai students as well as the rest of the audience in a mass kneel of respect to the fallen and disarmed karateka.
Baki-Dou[]
Suedou reappears briefly in Baki-Dou, sitting next to Katou, to observe Pickle's fight with Musashi Miyamoto in stands of the Underground Arena, and afterword, the samurai's fight with Izou Motobe.
Abilities[]
Suedou is a very tall man with an incredible strength, speed, and striking power. He is capable of bench-press 270 kg and run 100 meters in 11 seconds. Suedou can effortlessly slice a plastic water bottle with one of his feet, and send away a spinning Teacup-based vehicle from a Amusement Park several feet away with a single kick. He could even fight Kaiou Dorian for a short time.
While typically an aggressive fighter, Suedou is at his best when calm. When he regains his composure, his fighting style becomes excellent. His speed, range, timing and tactics all become almost flawless. Suedou was also capable of relocating his shoulder into the place, as seen in his fight against Baki. Suedou has a high durability. He could withstand Baki's attacks, recovered quickly from a devastating blows of Dorian, and he even survived after falling from a rollercoaster.
Techniques[]
- Seiken – one of his basic moves; used against Baki Hanma, for example.
- Submission – used against Kiyosumi Katou; anime only.
- Chop-Blow – used against Kaiou Dorian.
- Sanchin – used during his fight with Dorian.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The character was based on the real-life karate master, Kenji Yamaki.