Watching Baccano! is like getting doled out handfuls of puzzle pieces with no box to use for reference. It's frustrating at first, but fitting them together is fun, it's satisfying to see the finished picture come together, and it turns out the picture is outstanding. Unlike most shows this good, the first episode is the weakest by far. Not because of the overdramatic narrator explaining to his young pupil, and indirectly the audience, that there is no single main character or hero in the story. (It is, incidentally, the only episode with any exposition–they're about the only characters who aren't in almost every episode.) No, it's because you won't have the foggiest idea what's going on. Nor will you until about halfway through the series (when it finally offers a single episode of background).
The reason being that Baccano! consists entirely of a dense knot of interrelated plot threads scattered across several years of time, and it constantly cuts--without segue--from one person, place, and time to another. You will, in fact, have seen about half of the epilogue by the end of the first episode, though you will have no idea that's what it was, who any of the characters are, what's going on, or what events lead up to that point until nearly the end. That's the only problem with the series--it starts out in such narrative chaos that you just have to trust that it's going to come together eventually, and won't betray you by falling apart at the end. Believe me, it doesn't--not only does it all fit meticulously, the end is flat-out spectacular on multiple levels. Exciting, hilarious, twistedly romantic, you name it.
As if keeping track of when and where the scene is weren't enough, the number of characters is staggering. You'll see no less than seventeen named people in the intro, and a montage of twenty three during the end credits, and that still doesn't include everyone. Those aren't just single-episode faces, either--most of them appear in every episode at least briefly. Not even mentioning the three crime families, two cults, and several other shady groups with their hands in things.
None of them, as the series states in no uncertain terms, is the main character, or the hero. Several could be, but Baccano! staunchly refuses to give anyone enough focus or screen time to rise too far above the rest. Somewhat surprisingly--again, as the series says explicitly--the main-est of them are probably the comic relief duo Issac and Miria, who through chance and luck just happen to be around during almost every major event. They're also even more clueless than the poor viewer as to what's happening (to hilarious effect).
The lack of focus doesn't make the huge cast any less intriguing. On the contrary, there are a half-dozen different people who you're likely to get attached to, and the majority of the remainder are interesting in one way or another.
When I say none are the hero, I mean it; the cast inhabits the morally-ambiguous underbelly of Chicago and New York in the Prohibition era, and nearly all of them are attached to organized crime in one way or another. It does, however, have definite villains, including one of the more flamboyant ones in memory: Ladd, a gleefully psychotic killer who literally jumps up and down with excitement at the opportunity to commit mayhem. In any other series he'd have stolen the show, but here he's just another colorful, blood-soaked player. Elsewhere we have everything from cheerful young crime initiates, to brooding alchemists, to a professional killer as chilling as he is appealing.
Indeed, I can't think of another series willing to overlap flat-out comedy and entirely serious situations so heavily, much less one that succeeds so completely with the technique. It's not a parody, either--the drama is real and the comedy comes from context, not exaggeration. Baccano! just has an incredible confidence in its ability to juxtapose serious characters and situations with silly ones without ruining either. Confidence that is entirely warranted, I might add.
