Baccano!

Baccano! is a 2007 Japanese television anime adaptation of Ryohgo Narita’s light-novel series, illustrated in print by Katsumi Enami. Produced by Brain’s Base and directed by Takahiro Omori, it aired in Japan from July to November 2007. Its thirteen television episodes adapt material from several early Baccano! novels rather than presenting one straight storyline. The result is a deliberately scrambled narrative that returns to the same events from different characters’ perspectives.

The anime’s principal threads span three years during the early 1930s. In 1930, alchemists and immortals connected to the ship Advena Avis pursue a missing elixir in Manhattan. In 1931, the transcontinental train Flying Pussyfoot becomes the setting for overlapping conflicts involving gangsters, thieves, conductors, and violent hijackers. A 1932 storyline follows mafia disputes in New York, including the Gandor and Martillo families. The show gradually reveals how these apparently separate incidents and people intersect.

Among its recurring figures are Isaac Dian and Miria Harvent, exuberant thieves whose crimes include robbing locations they mistakenly believe belong to the mafia. Firo Prochainezo is a young Camorrista associated with the Martillo Family; Maiza Avaro is an immortal alchemist; and Czeslaw Meyer is a childlike immortal shaped by betrayal. On the Flying Pussyfoot, Jacuzzi Splot leads a small gang, while Ladd Russo is a sadistic gangster and Claire Stanfield works as a railway employee known as the Rail Tracer. Chane Laforet, daughter of the terrorist Huey Laforet, is also aboard the train.

Baccano! uses a large ensemble and does not initially identify every connection among its characters. Scenes are rearranged across years and locations, while details withheld early in the series acquire new meaning later. Two 1930s figures, the vice president and the president of the Daily Days newspaper, frame parts of the story by discussing which characters should be included in an account of these extraordinary events.

The Japanese broadcast run was followed by three additional episodes released on DVD, bringing the animated story to sixteen episodes in total. The series was licensed in North America by Funimation, which issued an English-language version featuring a substantial dub cast. Its opening sequence, “Guns & Roses,” is performed by Paradise Lunch and is noted for introducing many members of the ensemble before the plot has explained them.

Rather than centering a single protagonist, Baccano! builds its momentum from collisions between immortals, organized-crime groups, and passengers on the Flying Pussyfoot. Its title means commotion.