Alright, I will summarize it
@Antvasima
Yeah I can buy that Tokigawa's sister has legitimate soul manipulation, but these are just showings of a person losing consciousness after being hit really hard. None of the scans you've posted even allude to soul manipulation because they're all done with physical contact.
At the very best, this is just hitting so hard their soul exits their body, which would still only be physical AP.
If you hit someone hard enough that they bleed, you still won't get blood manipulation.
So hitting someone so hard that their soul emerges probably shouldn't get soul manipulation either.
Yes I've read Baki Dou and Dou II. I know the context. I still disagree because if Baki characters had legitimate soul manipulation, don't you think they would make it more prominent? Baki wrestled a giant imaginary mantis and not once have they ever brought up the fact that Baki can physically interact with souls.
I'm willing to concede to like, enhanced senses since Baki can see Yuichiro's ghost, but the one and only time souls have been mentioned in the entire series is when Musashi needed his to become animate.
Also the soul leaving the body
is a trope. I don't think it's meant to be literal here.
My points were that the displayed scans of souls leaving the body were simply part of a trope. Said trope being the soul leaving the body after being hit really hard on the head. It is in no way meant to be taken literally and is just a gag at best.
In the case of Yujiro, he literally just killed a man. In what context would the soul leaving the body be interpreted as Yujiro having soul manipulation? The man died. What else was his soul supposed to do?
And like, to reaffirm my points above, the medium being able to channel Musashi's soul into his body was laughed at by the scientists that reconstructed said body. The narrative has not once, never, shown any Baki character to have any outwardly supernatural power that was not vaguely rooted in science. Not before the medium. If you want to argue that Nomu can purify the land, sure, I'll give you that. But even that was never expanded upon or detailed enough to prove that Nomu has actual supernatural ability within the context of Baki. Given all that I have said above, how believable is it that Baki would have legitimate soul manipulation over the scan being just a visual metaphor?
I can see the depiction of the soul leaving body as signifying the loss of consciousness or death even in relatively serious scenes and the soul would technically leave the body in any case where someone died if its nature in the series doesn't drastically differ from my general understanding of it, so this isn't enough for me.
That sounds closer to me but I think I need some more details for this. The scene seems to also involve a physical impact with the body if I'm not misinterpreting the visuals, so I'm not sure if this is really Soul Manipulation. Is there more context here and other instances of something like this happening?
Hopes I did not forget any relevant staff comments. In addition, I will add an explanation of what we agreed:
Yujiro Scan - As shown within this scan Yujiro shakes the head of this random dude, with said head shaking causes his soul to leave his body, this a blatant example of Astral Projection because he's just actively separating the soul from his body, he isn't in any way "manipulating" it someone with bog standard Soul Manipulation can, he can't interact with this soul nor can he damage it, which would be needed to have Soul Manipulation, this is just Astral Projection, point, end, period.
Katsumi Scan - As shown within this scan Katsumi (or who I believe is Katsumi Idk personally because I haven't read Baki before) kicks this fighter in the face which causes his soul to fly out of his body, this again is a forceful form of Astral Projection as explained more thoroughly above.
Doppo Scan - As shown within this scan Doppo drops an ax kick onto the top of this fighter's head, causing his soul to fly out of his body, this, just like the previous examples is just a form of Astral Projection and not a form of Soul Manipulation that'll grant you the Soul Manipulation ability on this wiki, Doppo isn't interacting with, damaging or even manipulating this soul, he's just extracting it from this fighters body, which falls directly under the Astral Projection requirements.
Baki Scan - As shown within this scan Baki kicks the dude in the face, causing his soul to be removed from his body, this, just like all the other examples above is just a form of Astral Projection and not a form of Soul Manipulation.
Tokigawa Sister Scan - Soul manipulation, She ripped Musashi soul from his body
(A clear soul manipulation)
The difference between Soul Manipulation and Astral Projection is the mechanics of both abilities, not the functionality, just because Soul Manipulation allows you to remove the souls out of others doesn't mean Baki's instance is Soul Manipulation, I've in-depth explained to you why it isn't Soul Manipulation but rather Astral Projection but you are either not paying attention or just being ratty.
Soul Manipulation inherently denotes that the character can "interact with" and somewhat touch or manipulate someone's soul while Astral Projection denotes someone can "remove" the souls from others or themselves, this action doesn't inherently require someone to actually interact with said soul to remove it from the opponents or their own body.
What most Baki characters are doing is hitting someone hard enough that it causes their soul to leave their physical body, this is Astral Projection over just Soul Manipulation because these characters aren't actively interacting with nor manipulating these souls, they're just removing them from the bodies of their opponents, which falls under the direct definition of Astral Projection.
