When outsiders to the Anime world finally decide to take the plunge inside, they either fall in love with Anime immediately or find any number of reasons to bad mouth the genre. The reason being is that Anime in Japan is as prolific as a regular TV show in America. So inevitably there will always be a few shows that just aren’t that good or fall in the category of “not for everybody.” I’ve often heard people chastise Anime for having long scenes where characters stare at each other and nothing happens. They consider the story arcs shallow and the dialogue rudimentary. Yes, there are some Anime that do lack depth of character and dialogue, but there are countless others whose depth will defy anything you could find on North American TV. Baccano! is one of those titles whose plot and artistic direction tops anything you’ve seen before in Anime. If you miss a minute of Baccano! the well architected web of character development will quickly elude you and leave you in a state of utter confusion.
Baccano! has an ensemble cast of characters where no one character is more important than the other. Instead of a linear story arc, Baccano! jumps backwards and forwards through the Prohibition Era to cleverly weave a story of different people whose lives overlap, somewhat like Lost. The story revolves around two bottles of Immortality elixir, that somehow make it into the hands of street urchins, mafia men and various other thugs and alchemists. Each group’s individual story has its own weight so to sum up any character arc would do the story a great disservice. However, there are some characters whose involvement in the story leave a stronger impression than others. For example, there is a character in the story named Claire who eventually assumes the identity of the Rail Tracer. As the Rail Tracer, Claire has become a murderous legend on the transcontinental train system. Another memorable character is Jacuzzi Splot, a young urchin with a scar on his face. Jacuzzi has garnered the love and respect of several thugs to form his own personal gang. However, he is anything but a thug. He simply is a guy with a giant heart who wants the best for the people around him. Whenever Jacuzzi begins to cry someone dies, usually because one of the people Jacuzzi has affected comes to rescue him.
The story ‘s backdrop in the 1930’s Prohibition Era has been brought to life thanks to the original art director, Ito Satoshi. He traveled with his staff to New York to get a feel for the city by scouting Hell’s Kitchen, Chinatown, Grand Central and several other slums made famous during the Prohibition period. This level of detail is immediately noticeable as you watch the gritty settings and drab colors shown throughout Baccano!
Baccano! serves as one overarching allegory on story design. The 16-episode series begins and ends with a young girl named Carroll and the Vice President in the present time. In the end, the Vice President realizes explaining why the concept of a story never beginning or ending may be too difficult to grasp for a child. So Carroll is left believing that the reason why stories never begin or end is because “it’s a lot more fun to imagine the rest.”
Baccano! is one Anime series whose complexity demands that you only watch it from beginning to end. If you miss an episode or even a minute you will have missed out on one of the best-architected Anime stories around. The special features includes an in depth behind-the-scenes look at the making of Baccano! that was unavailable on the individual releases. I was also thrilled to see that the Tyler Walker, the ADR director of the English dub series, didn’t resort to using the same cache of character voice actors. Too often in Anime, the overlapping English voices hurt the quality of the piece. There are enough new (or less known) voice actors in Baccano! to help viewers focus on the story and not be fixated on where they heard that voice before.
Special Feature:
- Episode 15 Commentary
- Promotional Video
- Baccano! Propaganda Program
- Textless Songs
- Trailers
