Baccano! Episode 3 Discussion

Kayrhandros said:
THIS IS AN ANIME ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS THE MANGA BEYOND THIS EPISODE.
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Lesson number one - don't go asking for trouble in an information shop.


Lesson number two - don't underestimate "kids" with hats.


Lesson number three - try not to hijack a railway car if it's already being hijacked, specially if you only have a knife :P


Anyway, nice ep. Yet another very interesting character - Ladd Russo. Can't wait to see more of him in the next ep. We get to see the scientist who developed the "elixir of immortality". If he only saved 2 bottles I wonder why are there so many immortal people, and what event made them be so.

ZanathKariashi said:
It gets better. episode 7 is one huge info dump, and 9 starts pulling all the scattered scenes together.


It's easier to understand the show to understand that the scenes aren't technically being jumbled, they're just moving from character perspective to character perspective, neatly averting that part about people remembering things they weren't around for common in other shows.

On the other hand, the books generally only focus on 1 main plotline, seen from the perspective of nearly all named characters involved, while the anime is mixing 3 main plotlines and only having enough time to get a handful of character perspectives.

Some of which are actually very important for character development but were left out (but were still assumed to have happened leading to a few awkward scenes that seem contrived but if all the information had been made available would've made perfect, realistic sense).

It's still a decent show, but only 2 characters REALLY get fleshed out for development by the end, and most of the fan favorites get glossed over and come off as one dimensional.

Baccano really needs 26-35 episodes to even begin to do justice to all the plot-lines involved (and IMO just needs to be rebooted and take each book in release order and move forward from there, similar to how the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure's reboot has been handled).

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If the anime bothers you, I'd instead recommend the books. They're still told anachronistically due the way each account is based on someone's perception of the event, but they take their time and are MUCH better done overall.

ZanathKariashi said:
IMO Jacuzzi gets the most of any character, with Ennis being a close 2nd, as they fully best their demons by the end (Ennis is a little behind Jacuzzi due to leaving out a few small but crucial character aspects). Czes and Chane are a close 3rd, but they've only begun their road, instead of resolving it outright (I lump them together since they both have essentially the same issue). Rachel also gets some development, but it's glossed over via exposition.

And that's about it....

Everyone else is just kind of..there...since their various perspectives are left out or happen at times where nothing major to character development happened.

(and Eve's character development is removed entirely due to a retcon of a few of the scenes that happen SIGNIFICANTLY differently then in the novels. Then again that whole plotline was basically filler, based on mixing elements of two unrelated plotlines together into something completely different then what happened in either)

This unfortunately causes a lot of characters to come off as 1-dimensional, when they are anything but.

There are really two schools of thought and both have their merits.

1. After you finish the anime, go read the books to get the full story if a character you liked didn't seem to get much spot-light or development.

2. Read the novels FIRST, so you can just sit back and enjoy the anime without having to worry about following the plot.

The disadvantage with option 1 is that the novels will lose a little bit of impact since you'll already know the key points of certain perspectives, or major spoilers (though that said, the Grand Punk Railroad is handled so well, it's actually easy to forget you already know the answer to the mystery).

The disadvantage of option 2, is that you'll notice the little changes they made or find the lack of certain events extremely annoying because they were pure awesome and had no identifiable reason to be cut out.