This was a recommendation in a feature for a club where the theme is Historical.
It wasn’t long until I realized this show had no historical value to it at all and could be consider more of a train horror than anything.
So I had to refocus what I wanted from this show very quickly.
It also enlightened me on the plight of actual historical shows in anime. It is quite depressing how the genre is portrayed.
There is also a mystery tag provided for the show. Quite frankly I wasn’t very fond of the story style.
This Puzzle story style will essentially be the determining factor if you going to like Baccano.
That reason being because after the flashback episode is when the pieces of the puzzle started to come together.
They could of told this story in a chronological order and still produce the same results with the flashback episode shown in episode 7.
I continue to brood over if this story style could of helped in any way but I just come up with a blank.
I’m not really fond of when these writers or directors want to get too artsy instead of highlighting proper development.
The show comes off being all over the place for the first half and it leaves bad taste in your mouth for the much better second half.
This story style also had an adverse affect on me where I never got around to caring about these characters.
The most predominant characters of the show were Issac and Miria. They were basically there for Deredere comedy.
We finally get a true villain in Szilard Quates with the theme of human greed after the flashback episode
But even his death was just filling puzzle pieces. We clearly know some of the people he killed didn’t die because we were shown them alive in 1932.
Thus there aren’t any surprises with this show. It is just filled with “okay that is why that happened moments”.
I’m left in state where I don’t really have any bad feelings about any of the character nor do I have any good feelings either.
We are left to just wait for the puzzle pieces to fall into place.
I never found a moment where I was building the puzzle myself like a true mystery show would do.
Then another reason why this really shouldn’t be considered a historical show is that is barely about the mafia itself.
I also tend to really like faction warfare and that is something mafia shows are able to do.
Sadly we never are presented with a clear picture of the mafia world with the families like in 91 Days.
They were just there for action fixes and not much development at least on the train.
The main concept regardless is the Cure All Elixir.
This is what gives the show it’s Supernatural element where a bunch of alchemists got together to find eternal life.
That is until they eat you with their hands. I thought that was creative.
I do also like the presentation of the opening and ending video. I thought that was at least above average.
But without anything personal or anything I’m specialist in. There really isn’t much else I can talk about in this review.
I believe the story is a solid 8 if it wasn’t for the puzzle story. I would knock that down to a 7 because of that.
Without anyone I truly cared about at the end I’d have to give characters a 5
Then as for enjoyment. Even though it feels like I’d be giving this a 3 with how this review has come together.
If you single out certain segments of the show they were interesting.
The exchange between Vino and Russo’s principles was a nice clash but it didn’t help me get attached to any of them still.
They protected the characters credibility. I’d say my enjoyment was a 6.
In conclusion that is where I’m going to settle with my final score as well at a 6 out of 10.
Being that I liked the flashback episode the most; I wish there was more focus on the first generation immortals.
Instead of explaining an environment on why all these people are on the same train at once or why we should care about this guy Dallas that all these different families have beef with.
