Snapshots: Baccano!
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The final summer season show has begun, bearing the name Baccano! (バッカーノ！) and airing on WOWOW, Thursdays at 24:30 JST, apparently comprising 13 episodes.
Just like Mushi-Uta, another WOWOW Thursday series, this anime is based on a set of novels, this time written by Narita Ryougo and currently up to 11 volumes that have sold in excess of 500,000 copies. The director is Oomori Takahiro, whose somewhat infamous work Koi Kaze may ring a bell. If not, at least you should be familiar with Jigoku Shoujo. Still, most of the Koi Kaze staff is back, including script writer Takagi Noboru, composer Yoshimori Makoto, and character designer Kishida Takahiro. Not that there’s necessarily any incest in Baccano!
After seeing the first episode, the plot is a big, complicated mess. We’re introduced to about 20 characters, all with crazy Engrish names, and their stories are spread out across a number of years, reaching as far back as the 1700′s. However, it seems most of it takes place in America during the Prohibition, around 1931. And what happens? Lots of violence and blood, pretty much, only not with very much consequence, because two hundred years earlier some alchemists came upon “the Booze of Immortality”, and it’s a fairly popular drink. The person seemingly chosen to be main character is a young man called Firo Prochainezo, who’s on the verge of being promoted to the very top of the Martillo family, a Mafia group allied with the Gandor family, who themselves are at war with the Lunulata family. This has quite a negative effect on Firo’s personal safety, and one of the enemy raids gets him shot in a bookstore, which more or less begins this adventure. In addition, there’s also a thieving couple, a newspaper duo, and a terrorist girl with a spear.
It’s useless to think about production values, because everything WOWOW broadcasts looks like garbage (unless it’s HD), but the poor studio animating it is Brain’s Base, and their earlier work Kamichu! was quite stunning. Music’s jazzy and seems a good fit for the show. The anime really shines when we get to the voice acting, and the cast is so long it’d take half a day to type up the “big names” involved, so let’s just say everyone you can think of has some part in Baccano!, and they’re a delight to hear.
I know the plot summary sounds weird, but the show still caught my interest. There’s obviously a wealth of character interaction to bring out, and I’m curious to see what comes of it all. The problem is if they really manage to tie all these people together into something coherent, and in only 13 episodes. Keeping track of everybody is just too much at the moment, but it should clear up once they get going. In any case, they’ve gone all out with the violence, so even if the plot seems tricky, you can always enjoy flying fingers and teeth.
Reminds me of: Full Metal Alchemist
July 26, 2007 at 9:06 pmKyonne
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I didn’t expected a gore one in the Summer Season
July 26, 2007 at 9:17 pmSniper
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Oh shit looks really interesting.lol
July 26, 2007 at 9:18 pmAloneintheVoid
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Heheheheh XD
It seems that i will be able to watch something else apart Claymore, Gurren Lagann, Mononoke And Shigurui XDDDD
Seems pretty cool. First episode was kind of awesome. I will not nitpick on animation,a s i didn’t except it to be great even before i watched the episode. Music really fits the moood…. all is cool for now :D
July 26, 2007 at 9:36 pmXerox
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Looking forward to this all summer long. Can’t wait for the sub to come out. =D!!
July 26, 2007 at 10:48 pmmewmew
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another series to watch… and d/l the raw… x.x
wowow is such a weird channel…lol…i remember my family having it for a few months and getting irritated with the monthly payments…
July 26, 2007 at 11:10 pmCryštaliqùe Fáïry
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This looks rather interesting. I’ll be sure to watch it once it’s subbed ~
July 26, 2007 at 11:39 pmtamahome
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I want to see this!
It should be… interesting. Heh.
When I saw that picture of the guy’s fingers getting cut off the first thing that entered my mind was “oops!” Haha.
July 26, 2007 at 11:46 pmjaima
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here’s the OP: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F1NUOSVS
my encoder randomly decided to fail and i wasn’t able to save the ED but its nothing dramatically exciting anyway.
July 27, 2007 at 12:46 amTimoshi Huang
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gah that’s not funny!
July 27, 2007 at 1:11 amap
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beautiful – can’t wait
July 27, 2007 at 2:44 amDelirious Dragonfly
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those fingers are scary..
July 27, 2007 at 3:34 amTyper
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Lets hope they are leet enough to handle big casts :P
July 27, 2007 at 7:07 amlegno
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yes, finally. The one I was loooking the most forward to
July 27, 2007 at 8:21 amBrian
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at the beginning, i was anticipating for this anime to arrive but now, i’m having doubts about its potential. anyway, it won’t hurt to preview it first.
July 27, 2007 at 8:37 amFuugetsu
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I watched it raw and have absolutely no idea what’s going on. The opening was pretty cool (the jazzy music fits rather well), but there are like 2304723409132 characters @.@ So lost.
July 27, 2007 at 12:28 pmSir Lachdanan
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Baccano is Italian for noise, a lot of it, a mess of noises…
“After seeing the first episode, the plot is a big, complicated mess”, you gotcha ^^
July 27, 2007 at 12:41 pmBROOKLYN otaku
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SHEESH! talk about your face’s of death snapshots, only one missing is the pic with the baby decapitation…looks good
July 27, 2007 at 4:46 pmmango
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ow lol
July 27, 2007 at 4:48 pmyour mom
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FINALLY!! a real anime!
July 27, 2007 at 7:44 pmasdas 2.0
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woah
i thought it said bacon for a few seconds
July 28, 2007 at 3:13 amSpike
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I saw the raw and the OP reminds me of the opening sequence in Guy Ritchie’s movie Snatch. Where the load of characters are presented in a sequence. And the movie plot is also a big fuss but instead it is over a big diamond. If Baccano follows the same suit, a lot of the characters will either get killed off or jailed.
I found it a bit funny that all the names are engrish but I also noticed there are some anachronisms with the props rendered in the anime. The props are way too modern to be set during the Prohibition, e.g. some of chocolate bar wrappers in the OP and a newspaper shown later on that has a modern typeface.
This anime is very stylish and I’ll be watching it.