Baccano! – The Complete Collection

Label:

Manga Entertainment

Certificate:

18

Format:

DVD

Discs:

4. (16 episodes)

Running time:

406 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 anamorphic

Sound:

English 5.1, Japanese 2.0

Release date:

10th October 2010

RRP:

£39.99 - Amazon - Play - Manga UK

Brief synopsis:

America, New York City, Early 1930’s. Rival mafia families wage hard fought gang warfare on the city streets. But this is a turf war with a difference as a worrying number of these Mafioso are shrugging off the effects of explosives, firearms and blades as if they’d been attacked with nothing more than peashooters and water balloons. An ancient alchemist has finally perfected an elixir – recreated from a recipes thought lost ages before – that will grant the imbiber with eternal life. But the gift of immortally is a prize that many desiring it will kill for and those that get in their way will end up dying for.

Meanwhile, the transcontinental express train, The Flying Pussyfoot, speeds towards New York City, the majority of it’s passengers blissfully unaware that not one, but two heavily armed gangs, both intent on hijacking the train to further their own goals, are about to transform their pleasant journey into a blood bath of epic proportions. Unfortunately for all aboard, the rival gangs find they‘ve chosen the wrong train to hijack as this one’s carrying a murderous and deranged psychopath known as The Rail Tracer, a monster of a man so feared so feared that the public speak of him in hushed tones lest the mere act of speaking his name put you within his sights.

Interwoven between all this death and destruction, the lives of a large number of complete strangers are about to become permanently entangled as when criminal gangs, Mafia families and inept thieves collide with ancient alchemists and the secret of immortality, it would seem that crime really can pay… forever.

Comments:

How to describe Baccano? Hmmm, how’s about this – “A beautifully crafted bloody, no-holds-barred crime caper packed with gangsters, gunfire and gore… and killer immortals”.

Boasting a large cast of often quirky, certainly eccentric but always entertaining characters, Baccano’s many plot threads follow these characters as their lives intertwine over the course of years, and in the cases of many of the immortals, over several centuries. Touted as the show that will “change the way we see anime”, it might not quite manage to live up to this claim, it certainly has a damn good go at it, what with it’s memory busting cast size and non linear plot it forces the audience to indulge in some mental limbo as you try to remember who’s who, who’s killed who and who’s trying to kill who…well, you get the general gist of how most of the interpersonal encounters go here.

The non linear thing does take a little bit of getting used to, and the character designers insistence of staying away from the general anime convention of unrealistic hair/eye colour combinations and flashy but easily recognisable signature outfits makes for a more challenging, but much more fun, game of “who the hell’s that again?” While this method of story telling in anime is nothing new, the likes of Boogiepop Phantom tread this path many many moons ago, Baccano does it with a certain style and urgency that makes this one of those shows that sucks you in and keeps you entertained whilst giving the old grey cells a good ol’ work out along the way.

The animation quality is impressively high all the way though and the depiction of New York City is well crafted and as faithfully reproduced as could be hoped for. Also, the animators didn’t pull any punches here with the old gore factor. For example, when they wanted to show a young boy taking a shotgun blast point blank to the face that’s exactly what the audience got. No sudden cut away, no funky camera angles, no stylised representations implying an unseen travesty happening off screen. Nope, it’s boy + shotgun = squick, and if that’s the kind of thing you’re not comfortable with then man is this the wrong anime for you.

This one of those sadly few and far between shows where the English language version is as much fun to listen to, maybe even more so, than the original Japanese. The dub actors comprise heavily of newcomers and relative unknowns mixed in with a number of US distributor FUNimation’s more familiar vocal talents. The accents employed are varied and really help to reinforce the prohibition era US setting and although Americans generally can’t do a convincing European accent if their life depended on it, most of those attempted are fairly decent. The English version script is to be commended as they’ve tried to capture the sound and feel of the era as well as the accents of the time and while some of the slang and turns of phrase may be a little too idealised to ring true, it still makes for an impressive offering. Plus, this series passes the Carrie Savage test - that is, can you get a decent performance out of Carrie Savage? And it seems that in this case yes, you can

One thing Baccano isn’t big on though is beginnings, middles and endings. In fact, two of the characters have a discussion in the last episode about how the end of the story isn’t really the end and as these 16 episodes only cover a portion of the original novels then there’s always hope of another series to pick up where this one left off… or started from… or maybe it’s somewhere in the middle, it all gets a bit confusing after a while.

Extras:

A single audio commentary on each of the 4 discs, Textless opening and closing animations… and that’s it. If I were going to make a negative comment about this release, it’d be that for the price point, and the rather low episode count, there are nowhere near enough extras.

Baccano! – The Complete Collection is available now from most high streets and online retailers.

 

Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings

Label:

Manga Entertainment

Certificate:

15

Format:

DVD / Blu-ray

Discs:

2. (13 episodes)

Running time:

308 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

Widescreen 16:9 Anamorphic

Sound:

English 5.1, Japanese 2.0

Release date:

15th November 2010

DVD RRP:

£24.99 - Amazon - Play

Blu-ray RRP:

£29.99 - Amazon - Play

Brief synopsis:

Welcome to the burning battlefields of feudal Japan, where rival warlords hack and slash their way to total domination. Each conqueror commands a horde of relentless warriors and wields a special attack weapon that boosts his powers of devastation as the endless struggle for power continues. But when a supreme evil in the form of the Demon Lord Oda Nobunaga threatens the land, the warring generals agree to unite to launch a combined campaign of annihilation against him by building an ‘army of armies’ to fight against their common enemy.

Among those who form an unlikely alliance are Sanada Yukimura and Date Masamune, two young warriors and bitter rivals from opposing regions who eventually put their differences aside in order to take on the deadliest of foes. As the battle rages, gun-toting, mechanized samurai and mystical ninja go head-to-head in a devastating series of conflicts that brings the horrors of hell to earth.

Comments:

A review in 10 words “If you liked the Samurai Kings games, you’ll love this!”.

So what’ve we got? Plenty of frantic sword fighting action set in a land very similar to, but not *exactly* like, feudal Japan. Check

Overpowered warriors backed up with massive armies colour coded for your convenience. Check.

Brazenly dangerous - and dangerously brazen - female fighters (one of whom manages to pull an entire Vulcan Cannon from only god knows where) with plenty of jiggle and oodles of exposed skin. Check and check.

And to top it all off it’s animated by Production IG – so we know quality’s not going to be an issue. Check.

While ostensibly based (kinda) in Japan’s mid 15th century Sengoku period, and populated with a whole host of characters based upon historical figures from that era, any anime that has within it’s first few minutes a samurai army on horse back more akin a late 20th century biker gang - one of whom even has exhaust pipes fitted to his horse – and you know that “historical” and “accuracy” aren’t going to be the watchwords of the day. But right from the get-go the pedal’s right down to the metal with fun, fast paced frenetic action and it doesn’t stop long enough to give the audience time to think until proceedings are well under way, which is a good thing really as the script’s so packed with gung-ho machismo that if it tried to take itself – or anything else for that matter – too seriously for too long, it’d probably keel over dead trying. But then, what else can you really expect (or want) from any anime based on a Capcom “hack’n’slash” fighting game?

Extras:

The ever-present Textless Opening and Closing animation, a game trailer and a trio of comedic shorts.

Comprising all 13 episodes of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings first season, this release will be available from most high streets and online retailers from 15th November 2010. A trailer can be found at Manga Uk’s official website here.