[Story]
The story of Baccano follows three events happening simultaneously occurring in seperate dates and times; the different key dates of the series are supposed to string together a larger narrative that culminates into the final picture by the end of the story putting a nice bowtie on the end of the series. This narrative structure nicely supplements Baccano's larger than life story. Many have noted that Baccano's story gives off a western vibe akin to the likes of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp fiction, the 90's cult classic the usual suspects and other Gangster period pieces such as the Godfather, Goodfellas and Miller's crossing, and less well known the story structure being directly influenced by the 1916 silent film named intolerance. The story itself is very interesting; set in 1920/30's prohibition USA the stories presented in Baccano show three different events, The flying pussyfoot a train holding three seperate factions of people fighting for control aboard the train. Eve Genoard and her search for her brother Dallas Genoard and lastly the Martillo and Gandor families encounter with immortality and the mysterious figure Szilard. The story oozes off a sense of coolness and larger than life personalty which heightens the experience to an epic degree.
[Art]
Studio Brain Base does a great job in presenting a period authentic design to the anime, you can tell that the team working on the series put a lot of effort into making the series an accurate illustration of clothing in the late and early 1920/30's. The actual character designs themselves don't strike me as anything too special but the series doesn't fall into the trap of "Same Face Syndrome" like many of its contemporaries in the early too late 2000's. Where this anime really shines is in the intense and well drawn action sequences the action flows seamlessly and the camera work is fluid and dynamic. It creates some great high moments that elevate an already fantastic series.
[Sound]
Baccano is one of the most exciting, intense and grandiose stories told. And fittingly it has one of the best Anime soundtracks out there. The OST is Jazzy, explosive and full of life which represents the larger than life cast of characters to a tee. The aptly titled OST Spiral Melodies has some of the best tracks in the anime industry to date. Specifically the Fun and exuberant Main theme, the calm and peaceful melodies of "In the speak easy" and the mysterious vibes from track 06 "Kioku no Tegami". The opening theme song Gun's n Roses is a fun upbeat jazz song cut to Snatch esque visuals. The series iconic soundtrack and opening nicely compliments the style and characters of the story.
[Character]
The characters of Baccano have already been well documented as larger than life, fun characters. The characters in the story are the life blood that fuels the narrative. The cast of Baccano has some of the most energy since the likes of One piece, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Hunter x. Hunter. The series sports a large main cast of 18 protagonists each filling an essential slot in there own narrative; however it struck me that these characters are not particularly deep nor are they very well developed over the course of the anime, in many cases this may be to the detriment of the series, however the reason we all love the cast of Baccano is because of the larger than life energy and pizzazz of the cast. The characters are insane yes, stereotypical yes, but they are most definitely fun as fuck to watch, there is not a single character I dislike, characters you may not like to begin with you will learn to love by the end for sure, characters like Firo Prochainezo and Isaac and Miria don't receive much if any character development yet remain fun and likeable characters despite this. Baccano! taught me that in Storytelling you don't need deep characters to have a good time. That's why I believe that the cast is great, while some dislike the lack of development and deep character arcs I embrace it. In a world so obsessed with having characters be deep and relatable; Baccano shows us that you really don't need that to have a kick ass time.
[Enjoyment and Overall]
This series is Amazing, its been hard to put my feelings for this series into words, I love everything about this anime, to the aesthetics to the characters and the soundtrack, I love every single bit about it, Baccano is not a perfect series but what matters is that it's perfect to me and I love it with every single bone in my body.
