Baccano!

Okay, so a friend of mine recently recommended a whole bunch of animes for me to watch, which is good cos while I love anime I haven’t really experienced a huge variety of it. I love Naruto and Bleach, but they’re very mainstream and I know they aren’t the best examples of the genre. Anyway, Raine (and a few others actually) recommended around 10 animes that I should watch and enjoy, a couple of which I’d heard of but for the most part I hadn’t. The first of those, and the one that Raine recommended first and most highly, was Baccano!

I haven’t watched all of it yet, I’m only on episode 5 of 16, but so far I’m absolutely loving it! The characters are imaginative and on the most part don’t fit into the stereotypical genres for characters. There isn’t really a define-able good guy or bad guy, there isn’t really even a good vs. evil type struggle going on. It has a huge cast list, and they’re intertwined in the main story and conflict yet each has their own perspective and motives. At first the huge cast made it difficult to know who was who or how people were linked, but I got there in the end, and the opening is very useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msg8ypnLqaw

The music is so catchy I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.

The story also jumps around a lot in different years (but focuses mainly on 1930s New York and gangsters), and while this may be confusing to some, it works really well and Baccano! manages to pull it off without ruining the story. The story itself can be confusing, especially in the early episodes, and if I didn’t know about the magical elixir that grants immortality beforehand then I would be very confused.

The series is excellent and definately one of my favourite animes ever. The characters are magical and the storyline is gripping. It might take an episode or two to get into it, but once you do you're hooked. While I generall prefer the native japanese audio, I think I prefer Baccano! with the english dubbing because of the accents. I know Funimation has all (or most of them at least when I last checked) but you might not be able to watch the episodes in all regions.

If you haven't watched Baccano! yet.... WATCH IT NOW!