Retsu Kaioh's Head Lying in a Hospital Bed

About

Retsu Kaioh's Head Lying in a Hospital Bed is a photoshopped frame from the manga series Baki the Grappler (specifically Part 3 of Baki called Hanma Baki or Son of Ogre) showing the character Retsu Kaioh's limbless head lying down in a hospital bed. A varying amount of arms and legs are added to him in the photoshops, but the bandaged head iteration is the most prevalent in memes. The original panel shows Kaioh's full body, shown after a zoom-in of just his sleeping face. Photoshops were first shared on the anime and manga forum website Vippers in 2014 but became a more prominent meme in the early 2020s on websites like Twitter and Reddit, predominantly manifesting in early 2023. Most memes played with the absurdity of the imagined battle that claimed the character's entire body, made dramatic by the two-panel reveal.

Origin

In early 2008, Volume 13 of Hanma Baki: Son of Ogre was released in Japan. ^[1] Within the volume was Chapter 101^[2] titled, "The Meaning of Battle," in which a page featured the character Retsu Kaioh lying down in a hospital bed, wrapped in bandages. The two-panel page started with a zoom-in of Kaioh's sleeping head and progressed to a full-body shot. The Japanese text was translated into English, reading, "FOR HIM TO LIVE AMONG US…" (shown below).

On March 29th, 2014, a photoshopped version of the frame was posted in a forum to the anime and manga site Vippers.^[3] The photoshop switched Kaioh's arms and legs (shown below, left). Another photoshop shared by the same user showed just Kaioh's head with no arms or legs lying in the bed (shown below, right).

About a year later, on June 25th, 2015, a user on the anime and manga site Chomanga^[4] shared a higher-quality version of just Kaioh's head with no limbs in the hospital bed, including the primary frame of Kaioh's face zoomed in (shown below).

Spread

Soon after in 2015, the photoshops were shared on other anime and manga forums like Livedoor.^[5] Years later, in August 2020, the photoshops then spread to 4chan's /a/^[6] board. Other photoshops emerged in the same August 2020 thread on /a/,^[7] like one showing a different Baki character lying in the bed with multiple limbs replaced (shown below).

Going into the early 2020s, the photoshops became more prevalent in memes, spreading to other social media sites like Reddit and Twitter. For instance, on December 14th, 2021, Redditor babyfacelocsta posted an iteration to /r/Grapplerbaki^[8] depicting Nomi no Sukune the 2nd with the caption, "Sukune after fighting Jack." The post earned roughly 1,000 upvotes in two years (shown below, left). On February 10th, 2023, Twitter^[9] user @feydemon tweeted the limbless head iteration, captioning it, "this might be the funniest manga panel of all time," and earning roughly 119,500 likes in one month (shown below, right).

The meme spread elsewhere to sites like iFunny ^[10] in March 2023, additionally snowballing virality on Twitter.^[11]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References