(L) Baccano！

[Sheba]

I loled when I realized that Sugita voiced the new guy. And it looks like he was having fun voicing him. As much fun as Fujiwara has while voicing Ladd.

[qtipbrit]

Originally Posted by Albin

I second that! First part of the OVA is out and it is truly amazing!

mmm... even though it was an OVA, I found that the production quality wasn't great. It was still fine, but the animation seemed a bit less detailed, and the music wasn't quite as fitting.

Originally Posted by Sheba

I loled when I realized that Sugita voiced the new guy. And it looks like he was having fun voicing him. As much fun as Fujiwara has while voicing Ladd.

Yeah, I had no idea it was Sugita (since all of his other characters sound exactly the same. ), but he was such a fun character. Hopefully, we'll get some Graham - Miria/Isaac interaction for ultimate lulz.

And the Ladd - Graham fight was intense, even more GAR points for Ladd.

[Soshen]

Are u sure that the tl of the oav of baccano are good? O.o
There are a lot of non sense

[SuperKnuckles]

Originally Posted by qtipbrit92

mmm... even though it was an OVA, I found that the production quality wasn't great. It was still fine, but the animation seemed a bit less detailed, and the music wasn't quite as fitting.

Yeah, I had no idea it was Sugita (since all of his other characters sound exactly the same. ), but he was such a fun character. Hopefully, we'll get some Graham - Miria/Isaac interaction for ultimate lulz.

And the Ladd - Graham fight was intense, even more GAR points for Ladd.

I thought the animation was just fine. For once, it was BRIGHT even in dark-scenes and you could actually see something. I thought it was a step above the TV animation ones, though the art looked a bit different because of it. Also, it was one of those DVD-only episodes, so I wouldn't exactly call it an OVA technically.

As for the Graham fight, though Ladd did 'win' it, massive points to Graham for out-crazying Ladd by a mile.

Originally Posted by Soshen

Are u sure that the tl of the oav of baccano are good? O.o
There are a lot of non sense

Some of the words did seem to get a bit jumbled but you won't find much better versions even if they tried.

[Mirrinus]

Graham scores major points for matching (and occassionally surpassing) Ladd in sheer fun.

Once again, it feels like we're getting a lot of different storylines started (or continued) at once, almost as if they're just trying to cram as many characters in as possible. Seriously, though, Firo, Maiza, and the thieves didn't really have much other than a cameo in the intro. Looks like this will focus mostly on Jacuzzi's gang, Graham Spector, and Chane.

I'm interested in what the new immortal guy is planning to do, too. Will he make Chane smile?

And Huey's a total manipulative jerk. Didn't realize that in the first 13 episodes, but man...

[SeijiSensei]

Unlike some others here, I found Graham rather tedious after a while. I kept waiting for the story to move along while he had that long monologue in front of his gang. I thought the more interesting subplot concerned Chez and Rachel. His openness about his immortality was rather surprising even though he knew Rachel, as a mortal, presented no real threat to him. Now they would make an interesting couple despite the age difference.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Watched episode 14 and must say Graham is awesome, he is fun to watch and crazy as Ladd. Though like SeijiSensei said it the scene with Graham was little tedious but still very fun to watch. Baccano! is truly amazing and each episodes deliver what I expected. Though what Huey asked Elmer was bit weird, he want Elmer to make Chane smile?

[SeijiSensei]

Spoiler for Ep 15; no real spoilers but just in case...:

Episode 15 was quite a bit more interesting to me than 14 because we get to see some of our old familiar characters back in action. We learn a little of the Nice/Jacuzzi back story (an osananajimi pairing it turns out), get to see the luscious Chane in a lovely new outfit, and hear perhaps her longest stretch of dialogue (internal, of course) that I can remember from any episode. Since we learned in the last episode that she's essentially chosen to remain mute at her father's request, I wonder if she'll actually speak at the end of this story arc. Her reaction to Rail Tracer's confession suggest she might start rethinking her relationship with Huey.

The bit where Ches remarks that he's older than Rachel made me laugh, especially because he encourages her to continue to think of himself as a child. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the whole "he's 200, but he's still just a kid (perhaps)" business offers a lot of possibilities for plot development.

[Kanon]

Episode 15 was great !

Spoiler for Ep 15:

Nice to see more of Chane, and learn more about her and what she thinks. She's quite similar to Ennis. Having some more backstory on Nice and Jacuzzi was nice too. And Claire walking out of Firo's and talking to Czes and Rachel as if they were friends and nothing else ever happened made me laugh hard

Can't wait for the next episode and the Graham vs Claire fight !

[daeyeth]

Just watched Baccano and I freakin LOVED it! I recommend it to everyone who's not light of heart. Gonna post my review below.

Baccano starts up with an upbeat, jazzy tune and an introduction naming the cast in quick, ten second spots. It’s an enjoyable opening sequence and is symbolic of the colorful (to put it lightly) sorts of characters that fill the world Baccano. I don’t usually enjoy, or even watch, the openings for anime for a couple reasons. 1) Whether I like the opening or not is entirely dependent on the song choice. After all, openings are little more than short music videos. And 2) quite often openings are jam packed with inherent spoilers about the relationships of the characters. You know how annoying it is to figure out who the love interest, best friend, bad guy, and even what the basic premise is a minute and thirty seconds into the very first episode? I don’t want to learn all that from a music video. It’s a good thing that Baccano’s story isn’t so cookie-cutter to be laid out so easily like that as would be typical for a generic anime. No, far from it.

I’d best get this out of the way because the comparisons are unavoidable and if anyone’s ever told you about Baccano, it’s likely this came up. Baccano is not an anime version of Pulp Fiction. In terms of actual story content, Baccano is very different than Pulp Fiction. However, the influences are undeniable and I won’t be able to avoid talking about the similarities between the two. Both are infused with organized crime, though neither use that element to drive plot. Rather, it’s used to flavor the environment/characters and becomes little more than a statement of the natures of people the characters are. In the beginning of Baccano I spent much time trying to memorize the names of each mafia family and their relations to one another all for naught. I discovered that none of that really mattered in the big picture and that the crime syndicates were only acting as a vehicle for the characters. This is as opposed to a film like “The Godfather”, the mother of all mafia movies, where the roles are reversed: the characters are a vehicle for the story of the crime syndicates and their relationships with one another.

The narration is told through a series of non-linear, random but interconnected coincidences in the vein of Pulp Fiction. As the plot progresses, it becomes something of a “seperation of six degrees” type of thing. Though the stories of the characters are told separately at first, they’re all connected to one another through something of a “he’s the friend of a friend of a friend”; or rather, in this case, more like “he’s the friend of the guy who was killed by the hitman who works for”….you get the idea. Baccano rarely focuses on a single character for too long, which put me off at first. I had a few concerns with that, the first being that I might not get to know the characters as well as I would like. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case. Even though each episode covers a different set of protagonists, all of them are constantly popping in and out of each other’s stories. There’s a steady flow of character development continues for the entire cast and you’ll continue to learn about them regardless who the focus is of the episode.

For instance, the first set of protagonists we learn about are Isaac and Miria, a quirky comedic duo. While there is no traditional central character for Baccano, I would consider them the heart of the anime. I had immediately grown attached them and feared something would be missing in the next episode as the focus shifted but I was pleasantly surprised to see them make their reappearance as cameos. Although this shift in focus transitions smoothly and everything starts coming together nicely, as a result of these switches come atmospheric changes that make the mood of Baccano inconsistent and differ greatly from one episode to the next. Some episodes are filled with light-hearted banter while others are very dark and purposefully resemble a horror movie. This could be jarring for some people as it messes with the pacing.

My other worry with these shifts in character focus was that I might not like a protagonist of a particular episode. After all, for many anime only a few characters are given a decent amount of depth that warrant their own episodes and the others are left as typical archetypes. For an anime filled with this many people, I wondered how much depth could they spread around. Apparently plenty. I realize now that those are the anime that are truly good; anime where you not only care about the main characters but everybody around them as well. It also helps that they have great character designs and are pleasing to the eye. The art style is very crisp, clean, and modern, I really enjoyed it. Admittedly, though most of the designs are distinct, you might still have trouble differing each of the characters from one another in the beginning because of the huge cast. Had another, more mundane style been used, this could of easily been more of a problem. In addition, the excellent choice in the Japanese voice actors help in distinguishing all of them. The casting was absolutely spot on in this series and the actors really bring the vibrant individuals to life. The culmination of all these ingredients create one of the best aspects of Baccano and is one of the selling points of this series.

And I’m including Baccano’s psychopathic, bloodthirsty killers in that statement. Who would of thought? Certainly not I because I’m usually find those types of characters irritating, unrelatable, and are usually there simply to be “the bad guy”, the guy you’re supposed to hate. To me, that’s the sign of a failed character, one that comes off as flat and two-dimensional. Their only purpose is to drive plot points and to fill time by blabbering on about ridiculous philosophies for 10+ minutes, as these archetypes often do. This could of been a big issue for me because several of the main characters in Baccano are the types of crazies who love to babble on about life philosophy.

Yet Baccano managed to pull it off, brilliantly so. Never before have I been so thoroughly entertained watching some psycho hop up and down in a pool of blood spouting off nonsensical things. Each of these killer-types have a very real vibrance to them, adding a depth you wouldn’t usually see in such characters. To be fair, none of them are truly in the vein of the aforementioned bad guy archetype, they only appear to be at first glance. They’re all given sympathetic or admirable traits as you learn more about them. That’s not to say that Baccano is without it’s central “I hate that guy”, and I suppose every story needs one of those.

Overall, Baccano has high production values and the animation is great. Ranging from the way the characters move (you haven’t seen nothing until you’ve seen a grown man happily skip down a hall covered in blood) to the action sequences. Baccano has a lot less action than you might expect however the few fights there are come across as superbly choreographed. The battles can be very fantastical with iconic “damn that was cool” kind of moments that you only get from anime. Or the Matrix. Baccano is also surprisingly gory, the type of gore you’d expect from a vampire anime or the sort. Take the level of violence in Pulp Fiction and magnify by ten that for an accurate picture of what you can expect. Granted, the truly gruesome stuff is implied and happens off-screen…for the most part. The world is exaggerated with enough hyperbole that it won’t disturb you on the level one of those old school, Ninja Scroll-type anime might but you will definitely be doing some cringing.

At it’s base, Baccano is a terrific character driven drama with supernatural and mafia elements as a backdrop, although the former becomes more important than the latter and a key part of the motivations for many of the characters. Describing Baccano so clear cut like that, you might think, “Oh okay, I get it”. But it’s no where near as simple as that description with numerous aspects of Baccano being a unique rarity amongst its peers. While the actual story itself isn’t amazing in and of itself, the excellent execution of how it’s told is one never before seen in an anime.

Rating: A

Anime Analytical

[Guardian Enzo]

Loved 15, but I do have a question - what was with those two kids and the "Yah hah!" thing? Was that something from deep within the mythology that never made it to the anime before, or just a somewhat hilarious random gag?

[sapphire-pyro]

Fantastic review on the series, daeyeth!

Episode 14 and 15 were made of pure awesomeness. Episode 16's released. Very excited to see it *_*

[Guardian Enzo]

But who are those kids????

[mpt37]

Wow!

Just finished watching the series in one go and I loved it. I found the first episode really confusing, but as you all know, it all starts coming together as series goes on. The characters were all really interesting and even though I wasn't expecting it, there was a bit of romance too! My favorite characters and couple were Claire and Chane.

One of my favorite scenes was the beginning of episode 13 with Claire's "proposal" to Chane. I loved how he ended it by saying "If you want, you can throw your knife at me. I'll dodge it anyway".

Now I've gotta go watch episode 14/15, hopefully 16 will be subbed soon.

[Moonbase]

Originally Posted by mpt37

Wow!

Just finished watching the series in one go and I loved it. I found the first episode really confusing, but as you all know, it all starts coming together as series goes on. The characters were all really interesting and even though I wasn't expecting it, there was a bit of romance too! My favorite characters and couple were Claire and Chane.

One of my favorite scenes was the beginning of episode 13 with Claire's "proposal" to Chane. I loved how he ended it by saying "If you want, you can throw your knife at me. I'll dodge it anyway".

Now I've gotta go watch episode 14/15, hopefully 16 will be subbed soon.

16 is out and subbed.

[kira-sama]

same with you mpt37
i also like ChaneXClaire
they are sweet couple

[Jazzrat]

Please if there's a god/Claire Stanfield, make em animate more of the series.

But unfortunately, the story is pretty wrapped much up for now with most loose end tied up.
The last 3 special episodes continue to throw some unexpected scenes at us and also some hints of a 2nd season (Alcatraz arc most probably).

Graham's speech was rather exhausting but well, i guess he makes up for being an even crazier unpredictable psycho than Ladd.

As for my favourite romantic couples? Jacuzzi and Nice. Those 2 are just so cute.

Spoiler for the last 3 ep:

Only mystery i have in mind is who exactly is the Director of the Daily Days?
It does seem like Czes knew he won't be able to lie to Rachel when she told him the Director directed her to him.
I think it's likely that the Director is one of the immortals as well or atleast knew a great deal about the original immortals.

[fict_ticious]

Wrapped up 16, and three words have etched themselves in my mind:
"Because it's fun."
So simple yet I find it to be very satisfying.

Altogether, Baccano! seemed to be a good balance between style and content. Some might find the "good things happen to good people" angle (arguably, a majority of them were criminals/in cahoots with organized crime - in line with the context of the times, I suppose) to be shallow, but it was far better than a failed attempt trying to be deep (more like DERP, amirite?).

Ahhhh, I was hoping to see some of The Slash in animated form. Near the end of 16 kinda starts it off.

[Guardian Enzo]

A genius finale to a consistently inventive and unpredictable series. Fitting.

Ya-ha.

[Kanon]

Episode 16 ended the series nicely, with the return of the vice-director and KYAAAAROOOOOLUU. I still want to see more of Baccno ! animated though, and the conversation at the end make it seem like a possibility.