Anime Review: Baccano!
Mar. 25th, 2023 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaDESCENDANTS OF DARKNESS will be coming tomorrow: I discovered that Wife hasn't seen it (!), and also it's been :cough: a while since I saw it myself, so a re-watch is in order before I write about it. Instead, here's something not quite completely different!
BACCANO! - 2007 (Japan)/2008 (US), available streaming nowhere at the moment because Funimation gave up the streaming rights
Amount watched: All (16 episodes)
Official description: A fantasy caper involving alchemists, gangsters and immortality is spread over several decades.
Weeb rating: 2/10 - mostly for use of anime tropes.
Ass rating: 2/10 - I think we get one or two shots of a character in the bath?
Shit rating: 1/10, but I will also admit this is absolutely an individual call. The plotline twines together three different timelines. If you can follow, it's brilliant. If you get lost, it's incredibly frustrating.
Violence rating: 9/10. Look, a couple of the characters literally bathe in the blood of their enemies. Not as violent as ATTACK ON TITAN, but still ridiculously violent. It gets away with it because, uh, remember that immortality mentioned in the series description?
Crack rating: Either 2/10 or 9/10. The base plot isn't all that crack, once you get past the alchemy and immortality part. But beyond that base plot, there's a lot of places where the writers cranked it up to 11.
Actual opinion: This show is a contradiction for me. I'm not usually a fan of Ridiculous Amounts of Violence - which this show has in spades - and yet. I don't trust complicated stories - which, ha ha, let's try bouncing between three timelines! - because they're so often handled badly, and yet. And I've been burned once too often by historical aesthetics like BACCANO!'s 1920s, because they're too often used to paper over things I don't love (either in plot or in character), and yet.
And yet I adore this show. (No seriously, I've gotten two Yuletide gifts for it - spoilers galore at those links.)
It is not for everyone. Wife noped out after the first episode: she couldn't keep track of the braided timelines, and it was too violent for her. For me, though, the series blithely skates through the violence - does it still count when your beloved characters are immortal? - and I didn't have any problems following the plotline. And the characters clicked with me, although I'm not sure what my favorite character in the series says about me. :guiltily eyes the aforementioned Yuletide gifts: I'd suggest giving the opening credits a look, and decide whether it's worth going on the hunt for the series.
(I will say this, because I've seen it come up a few times else-net: both this series and DURARARA!! are based on light novels by the same author. In theory, if you like one you should like the other, right? And yet, in my non-exhaustive experience, fans love whichever one they encounter first, and regard the other as an also-ran. However, DURARARA!! is available streaming on Hulu and Funimation. Do with that information as you will.)
BACCANO! - 2007 (Japan)/2008 (US), available streaming nowhere at the moment because Funimation gave up the streaming rights
Amount watched: All (16 episodes)
Official description: A fantasy caper involving alchemists, gangsters and immortality is spread over several decades.
Weeb rating: 2/10 - mostly for use of anime tropes.
Ass rating: 2/10 - I think we get one or two shots of a character in the bath?
Shit rating: 1/10, but I will also admit this is absolutely an individual call. The plotline twines together three different timelines. If you can follow, it's brilliant. If you get lost, it's incredibly frustrating.
Violence rating: 9/10. Look, a couple of the characters literally bathe in the blood of their enemies. Not as violent as ATTACK ON TITAN, but still ridiculously violent. It gets away with it because, uh, remember that immortality mentioned in the series description?
Crack rating: Either 2/10 or 9/10. The base plot isn't all that crack, once you get past the alchemy and immortality part. But beyond that base plot, there's a lot of places where the writers cranked it up to 11.
Actual opinion: This show is a contradiction for me. I'm not usually a fan of Ridiculous Amounts of Violence - which this show has in spades - and yet. I don't trust complicated stories - which, ha ha, let's try bouncing between three timelines! - because they're so often handled badly, and yet. And I've been burned once too often by historical aesthetics like BACCANO!'s 1920s, because they're too often used to paper over things I don't love (either in plot or in character), and yet.
And yet I adore this show. (No seriously, I've gotten two Yuletide gifts for it - spoilers galore at those links.)
It is not for everyone. Wife noped out after the first episode: she couldn't keep track of the braided timelines, and it was too violent for her. For me, though, the series blithely skates through the violence - does it still count when your beloved characters are immortal? - and I didn't have any problems following the plotline. And the characters clicked with me, although I'm not sure what my favorite character in the series says about me. :guiltily eyes the aforementioned Yuletide gifts: I'd suggest giving the opening credits a look, and decide whether it's worth going on the hunt for the series.
(I will say this, because I've seen it come up a few times else-net: both this series and DURARARA!! are based on light novels by the same author. In theory, if you like one you should like the other, right? And yet, in my non-exhaustive experience, fans love whichever one they encounter first, and regard the other as an also-ran. However, DURARARA!! is available streaming on Hulu and Funimation. Do with that information as you will.)