Baccano! - The Complete Collection (Review)
Monday, 11th October 2010, 10:47

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The Disc

Extra Features
Across the four discs, there are four audio commentaries all involving the ADR director, Tyler Walker, who is joined by various members of the English cast on episodes four (with Caitlin Glass (who plays Miria) J Michael Tatum (Isaac) and Brian Massey (Ladd), seven with Chuck Huber (writer and Devil) and R Bruce Elliott (Szilard), nine with Ian Sinclair (Dallas) and Jerry Jewell (Clare Stanfield) and fifteen with Joel McDonald (Jacuzzi) and Chris Patton (Graham Specter). These are of varying quality and tend to be the ones in which the participants have a better time providing the commentary than you have listening to the thing as there is a great deal more trivia and laughter than hard information about how was made which isn't surprising as I imagine most of that information would only be known by the Japanese members of the cast and crew.

You also have a selection of textless opening and closing credits, a brief look behind the scenes and extended trailers.

The Picture
Baccano! is an extremely handsomely designed show with great attention to detail and scenes that vary between being bright and colourful and fog shrouded and quite gloomy depending on where you are, what the mood is like and what is about to take place. Going purely by the running time for each episode, I would guess that this is an NTSC-PAL transfer but it really doesn't have the traditional artefacts to give such a thing away as it is a sharp as you would want with excellent colours and contrast levels and no hints of smearing or aliasing in the quick moving action sequences.

When there is a fight scene, it is extremely well choreographed and animated and carries a real visceral sense of people being injured or killed -- this isn't a show in which people get punched and are back up on their feet the next moment as if nothing has happened -- with the exception of the Immortals, or someone as dead, they stay dead.

The Sound
You have the choice of Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo or English DD 5.1 and, much as I liked the native language track, I just felt that the English worked better considering this show is set in America and all of the signs and newspaper headlines are written in English. The actors have the accent is pretty much spot on, with Brooklyn twangs mixing with the Chicago accent so you get a sense of place for each character. This track also has the benefit of the surround speakers and LFEs when it comes to the action sequences.

If you do select the Japanese track, the subtitles are excellent and free from any annoying spelling or grammatical errors that would spoil your enjoyment.

The music is absolutely brilliant with the kind of piano and jazz music that is now in just about synonymous with the Prohibition era and speakeasies and you have this music from the menu to the end of the episode. It's not there too much to annoy you as it drifts in and out at the perfect times and I must admit to quite liking the opening and closing songs -- the former is quite oddly called 'Guns & Roses'!

Final Thoughts
Baccano! is one of the finest anime shows I've ever seen and, although I freely admit that that list is pretty short, it is up at the top by quite some distance. It really has a sense of the epic and is more like a feature film in scope with some elements reminding me of Sergio Leone's sublime gangster film Once upon a Time in America although with a supernatural element. If you haven't yet bought the American release, then this is really the one to add to your collection as it is the sort of show that you will watch until the end and then decide to start all over again, knowing little bit more about each character and how they all interact and fit together over the three-year timescale.

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