This is the anime equivalent of a dealer handing you a free sample. One episode, bundled with the limited edition of Baki-Dou volume 14, and its entire job is to make you buy the book. It works. The linework has that thick, ink-heavy weight people kept comparing to Drifters, and the fight animation hits hard enough that you forget you're watching what is functionally an extended trailer. There is no arc here, no payoff, no standalone story, just muscle and impact frames edited to leave you hungry. Fans of Itagaki's grappling nonsense know exactly what this is and watch it anyway, then go order the manga volume like the marketing department planned all along.

Five of the world's most dangerous convicts break out of their separate prisons and all arrive at Mitsunari Tokugawa's coliseum, each wanting only to finally experience losing. Mitsunari offers them 17-year-old Baki Hanma, champion of a legendary tournament, along with four other chosen fighters. A five-on-five clash is set on the spot, with no rules and no limits on when or where a fight can happen, so the battles spill out of the arena and into the heart of Tokyo. The 15-minute OVA came packaged with the limited edition of the 14th Baki-Dou manga volume, and it adapts part of the Most Evil Death Row Convicts arc from New Grappler Baki, an action and sports story of underground fighters facing no-rules combat.