Baccano: The Complete Series (Review)
Sunday, 24th January 2010, 16:00

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Extras

One Amaray sized card slipcase, two thinpack cases, one holding discs 1 and 2, the other holding disc 3, and both thinpack cases boasting reversible sleeves, comprises the packaging for Baccano! All discs have static menus with music from the show, and jacket pictures for when the disc are at rest in your player.

Note that Baccano! was originally released in 4 single volumes, and to annoy early adopters further, this three disc boxset release has additional extras that the single volumes missed out on.

Disc 1 autoplays with the trailer for Soul Eater, but the sole extra to speak of is the Commentary on episode 4. ADR director Tyler Walker joins Caitlin Glass (Miria), J. Michael Tatum (Isaac) and Brian Massey (Ladd). It’s one of those free-for-all, talk over each other, commentary tracks that Funimation are known for, but it is interesting to hear the actor’s takes on their characters.

Disc 2 autoplays with the trailer for Blassreiter Part 2, and this disc boasts two commentaries for you to appreciate. Episode 7 sees Chuck Huber (writer and Devil), and R Bruce Elliott (Szilard) join Tyler Walker to comment on this atypical (for Baccano!) episode. It’s a tad more mature than the previous track, but still light in tone. Episode 9 also gets a commentary, and this time the ADR director accompanies Ian Sinclair (Dallas), and Jerry Jewell (Clare Stanfield). This is a more sedate, relaxed chat, but it’s still heavy on the trivialities and nonsense.

Disc 3 autoplays with the trailer for Linebarrels of Iron. Here you will find the Textless Credits and a commentary for episode 15, much like the other three. This time Joel McDonald (Jacuzzi) and Chris Patton (Graham Specter) join Tyler Walker. New to this boxset release are the Baccano! Propaganda Program and the Promotional Video. The promo is just an extended trailer at 3 minutes in length, while the Propaganda Program is 10 minutes long, and sneaks a peak behind the scenes of the show, with some interviews with the cast and crew. You’ll also find trailers here for Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne, Guyver, Dragonaut, Black Blood Brothers, Daytime Drinking, and the Blu-ray releases of Samurai Champloo, Trinity Blood and Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino.

Conclusion
For my money, Baccano! has to be one of the best anime series to come from Japan in recent years, and given the enthusiastic raving I have applied to recent shows like Welcome to the N.H.K. and Darker Than Black, it’s really saying something. And like many of the most outstanding anime, Baccano! is surprisingly short, with a television run of just thirteen episodes, and this DVD collection running to sixteen. It barely scratches the surface of the Ryohgo Narita novels from which it is adapted. As usual this gives me a dilemma, as I am a firm believer in the keep it short and sweet principle, yet would love to see more of this story in anime form.

Baccano! is also a strikingly brutal and gory anime, it’s certainly comparable with some old school titles in the level of violence and gushers of blood. When the first episode has a ten-year-old boy have his head blown off, you know that you’re in for a rough ride. Unlike those exploitative pieces of yesteryear though, Baccano! has the story and the characters to back it all up. It’s a show that doesn’t let go once it has you ensnared, and the difficulty becomes tearing yourself away. The tone of this show is such that it has Manga Entertainment written all over it, and they must surely have missed a trick by not licensing this show before Funimation came out with the cheap boxset collection in the States, and British anime fans in the know hit the import button en masse.

Baccano! tempers that violence however with an interesting story and a fair amount of comedy as well. Although some might say that it makes the violence stand out to a starker degree. At the heart of it though, Baccano! is a character piece, which is why I concentrated on the characters in my introduction, rather than try to grapple with the narrative. Again, they are a fascinating bunch, with even the most reprehensible of psychopaths compelling and bizarrely attractive. Ladd Russo is a case in point, an elegant thug of a man who revels in killing, and is verbose about his predilections. This is a man who skips like a schoolgirl down a train corridor on his way to a slaughter, a man who dances in blood. It’s an over the top, freakish characterisation that really shouldn’t work, but fits right in the menagerie of freaks that is Baccano! The same sort of rationale applies to the Rail Tracer, the reaping force of nature that haunts the Flying Pussyfoot.

At the same time, we have the pure comedy and light-heartedness of Miria and Isaac, the good-natured thieves that are as dense as lead when it comes to intelligence, but with hearts of gold and a flamboyance that somehow endear all to them. They have their own little world they inhabit, and somehow this odd view of life seems to warp all that they interact with. They are very much a Laurel and Hardy pair, and as such provide the light touch that is needed to contrast Baccano’s darker moments. Then there are characters like Ennis and Czeslaw Meyer, who are much more understated and realistic in tone. Their emotional arcs stand out more than their narrative arcs, and it’s characters like these that make the show so compelling. While the psychopaths will thrill you with their extreme violence, while the comic relief will ensure that you have a smile on your face, it’s these understated characters that will put a tear in your eye.

As for the narrative structure… It’s complicated enough to tell three story arcs at once, but time is fluid here, and we jump forward and backwards within those arcs, as well as jumping from arc to arc, seemingly at random. Baccano! isn’t restrained from going further afield as well, hopping forward a few decades, and spending an entire episode back in the 18th Century as well. That single episode is no simple narrative either, as that story starts in the middle, goes back to the beginning and back and forth several times in it own twenty-minute runtime. It’s a whirlwind of information and events that you have to put together for yourself, but it is a remarkably rewarding experience, and the replay value of this set is infinite. There’s something new to appreciate every time you watch it. It’s so easy to get this sort of approach wrong, but Baccano! gets it absolutely flawless.

I just saw the television run of Baccano! originally, and this set has the three bonus episodes that were released straight to DVD in Japan. It was the first time for me to see them, and I was curious to see where the story would go after being wrapped up in the first thirteen. It turns out that it wasn’t as wrapped up as I thought, as there were still plenty of loose ends to tie up. The back and forth of their earlier episodes is gone now, or rather much reduced, although there are still twists and turns and surprises. A little disappointing was the introduction of a new character, Graham Specter, who appears to be Ladd Russo redux, similarly verbose and psychopathic, and prone to swinging a skull-crushing wrench around with abandon. But it was worth it to see Chane and Rail Tracer’s story arcs resolved, to see more of Jacuzzi Splot and his gang, and of course more Isaac and Miria. Best of all is the ending, an ending that while not as punchy and memorable as the end of the television run, instead had me laughing out loudly and heartily at the appropriateness of it all.

There’s something about the Prohibition era of the US that is eternally appealing. It’s an era of the plucky urban hero against the monolithic government, the dubious romance of organised crime, and the fashion and style of the period. Apparently The Untouchables inspired Baccano’s creator, and it’s an example of cross-cultural fertilisation in that now Japan gives its own take on that era back to the US. The level of detail and authenticity makes this a rich and lush experience, although ‘Grando Central Terminal’ will haunt me for years. Baccano is one of those rare anime series that stand out from the crowd to a stunning degree. This isn’t just great anime, it’s great television as well. Regardless of what you think about the medium, and even if you never watch any other anime show, you really ought to take a chance on this one and import. You won’t be disappointed.

If you’re interested in more from the creators of Baccano!, their next series, Durarara is airing in Japan now, and pre-empting that illicit scramble for Baccano, it’s also airing on Crunchyroll, so you can watch it on your computers, all free and legal, just they way it ought to be.

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