Customer Reviews

Baccano! The Complete Series Box Set

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sometimes the best anime comes from really demented ideas, buckets of blood and sassy Italian mob violence. "Baccano!" is this type of series.

This anime about mobsters mashes together alchemy, gang wars and gunfights in a dark, action-packed series that will satisfy anyone thirsty for incomprehensibly blood-drenched fights.

In fact, the narrators in episode one puzzle themselves over which character takes the leading role. The truth is that all the characters stand on their own, since all of them suffer from the same curse of immortality. Nearly 300 years ago, a group of people aboard the Advenna Avis ship attained these powers from a priest.

Centuries later, in New York in the 1930s, these immortal people are still alive, with dreams of living and dying, killing before they get killed. Each group is defined by their unique charm and brutal fighting style. However, they each have different desires for love, marriage and sadism.

All the stories culminate in an outstanding mish mash of cast members who stand out for their courage and their sense of humor. The two comedians, Isaac and Milly, humor their friends with their jokes and eccentricities. The crybaby Jacuzzi Splot gains self-confidence by defending his girlfriend against a monster on a train. Firo Prochainezo risks his life to protect a young woman subjected as the slave of someone else.

Conflicts of pain litter the series as well. A boy named Czeslaw Meyer wishes to defend himself by killing everyone who tries to torture him. The girl Eva Geonard wishes to find her lost big brother, who is presumably dead. A mute woman named Chane Laforet wants to escape from her father's plot to hold all the people in a train hostage.

The anime is filled with countless numbers of uplifting stories, despite the brutal, shocking violence. "Baccano!" holds a special place in fans' hearts as one of the most revelatory displays of courage, romance and unity. This show is one of the pinnacles of Japanese animation for the 2000s.

Baccano! isn't your run of mill anime series. From its setting to its style of story telling this show does things its own way and I damn well love it for that reason. With its huge cast of wonderfully crafted characters and its multiple overlapping story lines this show is a viewing experience unlike anything I have ever seen. By revealing latter parts of the story early on this show grabs the viewers attention and holds onto it firmly as the mysteries are slowly revealed over the course of 13 episodes plus 3 OVAs. The majority of the show takes place in the Prohibition years or more specifically in the early 1930s. Throughout Baccano! we run into everything from demons and immortals to sadistic murderers and comical thieves. The current price for the entire show is terrific and you would be doing yourself a favor to pick it up right now. If your still not convinced that the show is worth your money then by all means head over the Funimations website ([...]) and from there you can view a lot of the episodes for free to see how you like it. I leave this show with my highest recommendation. Oh, one more thing, I highly suggest that you watch the dubbed episodes over the subbed ones. This is probably one of the best dubs I have heard in a very long time.

(1931) Some bad things are going down aboard the Flying Pussyfoot-Rail Tracer, black suits, white suits.

(1932) A young girl searches for her brother, but she's not the only one.

(1930) One of the original immortals takes the lives of many as he seeks to create the elixir he drank long ago.

Jumping from character to character, event to event to create one big picture in 16 episodes? Pure genius. (+) Awesome story. Great characters. English dub is insane! (-) The story is not told chronologically. But that is not necessarily a bad point...

Why did they have to come out the complete collection after I made the big decision to buy the individual dvds back when they were $14 each?!?!?! Well, wether I lost money or not, I own it, I love it, you gotta see it!

There's no avoiding or denying it: "Bacanno!" is at times a complete bloodbath. Characters literally drenched in blood, bursting heads, and fingers being chopped off are common fare. You would think this would create a sense of...foreboding, disgust maybe? Nope! "Baccano!" is above all a love letter written to life itself. Every character has something or someone they love despite having massive psychological issues. You have the (suprisingly touching) wedding plans between two murderous assassins, a sadistic beau who one day hopes to kill his lady love, and the amazing comic duo of Isaac and Myria who serve as the beating heart of this masterpiece.

After the joyous and mood-setting opening title, the style of storytelling that awaits you can be confusing upon initial viewing. Most viewers will get the hang of the changing time periods and settle into the show, but those who never quite get it will completely understand on their second viewing. Think of the plot presented here as three chapters of an enormous, endless story. It's not "incomplete" in any sense. In fact, the style of the story only adds to the feeling that "Baccano!" is a story about the joys of life, both endless and finite.

I know I promised you'd feel good, and you will. "Bacanno!" is filled with a wild energy. At it's most absurd moments (like when you get to follow Isaac and Myria on their ridiculous capers) it's refreshing and almost innocent in its presentation. Obviously real-life mobsters were never this good-natured and warm, but even when these fictional gangsters take to gunning down their foes, the mood stays pretty light. The main villian, unsurprisingly, is truly despicable (he has to be to make the mobsters look like good guys) and is the show's sole source of unease.

I could go on about this excellent series forever, but the more I say, the less you will get to experience first-hand. Go ahead and pick up "Baccano!" right away. It will not disappoint.

As a side note: Baccano! is blessed with two excellent audio tracks. The English voice work is quite spectacular. Even if you're a subs fan make sure you watch with both audio tracks. (you'll love it even more the second time anyway)

Baccano is amazing. It's one of the few animes that can take advantage of dubbing. Because the setting is in America, it is plausible to have Italian, French and Russian accents without it sounding out of place. No voice actor is reused twice and the actors match their characters for the most part.

Dubbing aside, the action is fast paced and straight to the point. There are no filler episodes until the series ends then there are 3 OVA episodes to follow. There is no main character as the story follows all the characters to get the whole story. The whole series is out of chronological order and you must pay attention to get everything. The plot skips from 1712 to 1930-1932. It keeps the watcher interested in a mystery adventure leaving the watcher wanting more.

This series is not for young audiences. There is an excessive amount of blood, missing limbs, peoples heads being shot off with a shotgun, and people being shot up with tommy guns, and more. It is detailed. Parents I have warned you.

I do reccomend for any anime fans. I love this series so much I have rewatched it over and over and still haven't had enough. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have.

Very few anime shows rank up with other 5 star masterpieces such as Cowboy Bebop and Akira. Baccano! is one of the few. The story alone is so well done and intriguing that anyone should enjoy the events that unfold. At first the time-line may confuse you, but it all unfolds so perfectly that you are left wanting more exciting story-lines and characters to entertain you. The animation is crisp and well designed and the english voice dub is outstanding, one of the few anime where I prefer the english dub to the japanese. Baccano! is a relatively unknown gem that people are now starting to find, a pinnacle of story telling and the medium of animation in general. Anyone craving for new and original anime, or any anime fan for that matter, owes them self to watch, buy, and force this masterpiece onto their friends. You won't be disappointed. 5 stars.

this is one of the best Anime's i've seen in years. it's funny and the story keeps twisting. you see the story at lest parts from everyones perspective. so something that looked one way to one person was completely to another. great characters, plot and over all idea. this goes in my top ten Anime's. you should watch it for your self and see what your missing!

I have watched my fair share of anime and seen a few horrible dubs. This is not one of them. Baccano! is one of the three series (Hell Girl and Nerima Daikon Brothers are the others) that I will willingly watch in English. The story takes place in 1930s United States between New York, Chicago, and aboard an transcontinental train, The Flying Pussyfoot. The English dub make the setting much more realistic since the voice actors have the right accents for the characters and the roles they play. I watched a clip in Japanese and it just was not the same.

The plot itself is a confusing mess of chaos and mystery. To be honest, you don't really know everything that is going on until the very last episode, and even the three OVAs help clear up some confusion and unanswered questions in the main series. The entire series skips from 1930 to 1932 back to 1931 and so forth, but you aren't lost. People are introduced fairly quickly and you learn all the names and their relationships to each other. It also helps that the opening credits list the names as they show you their pictures.

The show starts off in the office of the Vice President of The Daily Days' (a newspaper that plays a part in the show) office. The two characters discuss who the main character is. It could be the pair of bumbling thieves, the small child getting his head blown off in the first five minutes, or the smooth-talking gangster who has the strange ability to not stay hurt, but whoever it is, it is up for the watcher to decide whose story to look forward to hearing about the most.

I would recommend this anime to ANYONE. It has a complex plot filled with mystery and suspense, with a dash of humor mixed in. Gangsters, prohibition, speakeasies, immortality, alchemy (no, not Fullmetal Alchemist alchemy), bombs, thieves, crazy costumes, guns, death, madness, and a tad bit of love, what more can one ask for in an anime?

If the title above gets you interested then stop reading and watch the series. But if you are someone that needs more explanation, then this will be a basic premise of what the series is about. First off I will not discuss the characters for two reasons: 1st:I couldn't explain their motivations better than the show did so. 2nd: Like the 1st episode states. There are no main characters, anyone can be the main character.

So with that the show has 3 stories going on at the same time, they are occurring in 1930, 1931, 1932, also they are told non-linear style so at one point you will be in 1932 and then jump back to 1930 then to 1931 and so forth. If the non-linear style worries you the series "confusing" points wear off and the story comes together very easily. Also this style makes it worth watching multiple times. The series takes place in US going from Chicago to New York

This English dub is probably in the top 5 of dubs for animes in on my list. It works because this anime takes place in the US. Also important to note that the Japanese audio works great and if I have one complaint about the English dub is that 2 of the characters where funnier in Japanese than in English. But that doesn't mean the English dub was bad for them. This is just my personal opinion.

If you love mafia gangsters, immortals, romance, humor, action, or supernatural then this series has something for you.

This series is a lesson in storytelling and character development which hasn't been done so well in a long time let alone a 16 episode series. A must buy for any fan of gangsters or anime.

Baccano is originally a series of light-novels, whose title means "stupid commotion" and that's exactly what it offers; a succession of characters, stories and adventures that seem so strange and unrelated but will all come together in the end. I recommend it for adventure, thriller and comedy lovers. As for the artwork, it's done very nicely and colours are vibrant. The box set is presented nicely too.