Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Baccano! - Completed Review


What is it?

A hodgepodge of inter-connecting events and characters weave a tale that mostly spans the years 1930 to 1932 in depression era Chicago. The story mixes fantastic elements like immortality and folk legends with the historical setting of mafia families during the prohibition.

What's good about it?

Baccano! gets an "A" for effort. The first episode delivers some of the ending elements from the start and the story begins to be told mostly in order from there. Still, during the whole series the story shift between events spanning the three years during which the story takes place. I love this kind of creative mapping. The ensemble cast of characters is quite diverse and interesting. The story and setting are great. Great soundtrack.

What's bad about it?

Short at thirteen episodes, a lot of the characters are vastly underdevelopped. The story begins without much explanation which leads to confusion at the start.

Final Verdict

During the opening credits we are reminded of the names of the cast which goes a decent way towards adjusting to the starting pace. After the first few episodes, the pace does slow down to a more conventional pace though this isn't as obvious due to the continuous event shifting. All that being said, Baccano! still gets high marks for creativity and entertainment value. I'm certainly glad I ended up seeing this because there was so little buzz about this series which is quite odd for such a unique product.

9.1/10

FYI- Expect the June anime ranking in the coming week. I've picked up a couple of more shows so look forward to my first impressions on those. They are:

-Macross Frontier

-Golgo 13


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