Baccano Vol. 3 - DVD Review

"Baccano" is a vision of bad ass anime but without the supernatural or mythological elements usually needed to maintain. This is balls out noir style blood letting 30s gangster with no qualms except the vision of immortals draining life from dead life eyes. While it might jump around in earnest in a generally scitzophrenic way and revel in its ultraviolence, it is nonetheless compelling in its effect as evidenced in Volume 3. The first inkling episode on this volume involves a girl recovering from a monster attack on a train. She is incorrigable as the people she interacts with seem to be devoured by a man-like demon who sucks their aura in a visually arresting way like something out of “Lord Of The Rings”. In essence what really singes the eyes is the blood resurrection experienced in Episode 2. On a secondary progression in Episode 2, two thieves, idiotic in their simplicity, try to take down two immortal thugs who, in response triggered by reaction, kill their boss. Jumping back to the train, the inherent monster who more likely a Ripper integration takes a young immortal and makes the pain felt ramming his head into the moving railroad tracks. There is the aspect of the devilish but something also very mythic and dark about the story since these creatures cannot die despite the pain inflicted. The boy had asked a white suited gangster bent on death and destruction to take out everyone on the train. The gangster instead kills the boy who ends up being an immortal. This all leads into a face-off fight on top of the moving train between the white knight gangster and the monster which is extremely fluid and watchable in its intensity.The subsequent two episodes integrate the intention of the old man immortal to take down his former protege. What we didn't expect is the girl he created from his own cells (Ellis) to keep things from him. The Rail Tracer (aka The Monster) ultimately plays a game with our white suited friend and sends him careening off the train by threatening the very girl he came to kill. In the meantime, two thieves, a male and female team, oblivious in their stupidity, end up entering into a mafia stronghold as a priest and a nun. After almost getting killd with a bullet, they hijack an old jalopy and try to take down some goons. They however run into the old man who sends them careening towards their death from the exact same train. The connection in terms of story is very loose. The Tracer however saves them while the girl who wanted the kill the white suit man disappears with her knives into the train.In the English version, the white suit killer is much more bombastic and taunting while in the Japanese subtitled version he is more more sedate and obviously surprised by his female attacker. This is the main difference in the versions. The commentary on Episode 2 of the volume keys into the fact that the white suit is the most fun to play with one standard actors playing many of the roles. The textless songs simply gives you the visuals without the American credit titles. The opening is a bit fun because you see how many characters floating through this anime there truly is. The ending song is a bit sappy as is the norm within the pop structure of the marketing in the Asian marketplace. The trailers run the gammut but is "The Last Exile” that stands out in terms of its tone and stunning visuals. There is also the trailer for “Baccano” which is explained translates to “Racket” and actually is quite tongue-in-cheek about its story jumping ways. Out of 5, I give Baccano Vol. 3 a 3.