Baccano! Final Episode (13) + timeline
nekosasu | November 25, 2007 | 7:57 am
I’m a poor lonesome cowboy…
Episode 13, the final episode. Damn, there is always such a solemn feeling that comes along with it… Well, it’s done!
Sigh. My predictions were partly right, and partly wrong. All in all, it was a bit less unspectacular as I had expected it to be.
One example, Chane did not get involved into the fight between Jacuzzi and Goose. Instead, Vino just told her nice words and proposed to her. Well… he sure has taste, but I am missing the action a bit. At least he managed to dodge a few bullets, which somehow confirms his invulnerability. Oh well, we’ll just let him be.
You don’t even know her for 10 minutes and you already want to marry her???
Hmm, anyway. We have three stories, and we need to solve each of them. I’ll start with the least interesting part, 1932.
Dallas Genoard and his men, shortly after the incident in 1930, get placed by the Gandors in barrels, which are then filled with concrete and thrown in the Hudson River for half a century, since they are immortal. The Runoratas want to excavate them to do some laboratory research on them, and they receive the authorization from Eve Genoard. …that’s all folks ^^
Well, I did not expect any more of this part though. Considering the fact that Luck Gandor was the last person they could have referred to find out Dallas’ location, I almost had expected that he had eaten Dallas. But that’s okay as well, I mean, we are still in the 30s, so things should be solved mafia-style!
Next stop, 1931. We know that Ladd is off the train. What else, Jacuzzi beats Goose. Yep, that’s basically all there is. Wait… well, the rest is quite self-explanatory. The goal of Jacuzzi and his friends was never to kill anyone nor to blow anything up (well, except for Nice), but simply to steal some kind of treasure, that was in the luggage room. What it is, no one knows, but at least they bravely defended their (good?) cause.
Czeslaw and Maiza, a hidden love story.
Isaac, Miria and Czeslaw are safe, but Czeslaw still believed that Isaac wanted to eat him. Yareyare, you really think Isaac is as smart as that? He never knew how to eat anyone, so how and why could he? Also, when he arrived at New York, he wanted to eat Maiza because he thought he himself would be eaten. Czeslaw’s fears were unfounded though, out of all the Immortals, only Quates kept eating the others because he was an utter dumbass (despite all of his knowledge). But perhaps Fermet had scared him too much in the past, and now he thought that others would want to experiment on him as well.
And else, well, Chane jumped off the train and confirmed in gravure that she wanted to marry him and that she went to Manhattan. They only needed to find each other there… And the episode ended here BUT that’s obviously not the end of my entry!
And now, the most important story, the source of all questions: the year 1930.
For once in my life, I was right about Ennis – she did not kill Isaac and Miria! Yay XD However the other part was wrong though: she did not eat Quates. Well, perhaps she didn’t have the ability to either, she was only a homunculus he created so I bet he made sure she could never eat him in any way. But she still managed to distract Quates, who was about to eat Maiza. Maiza disappointed me there big time, I thought he would at least have eaten Quates himself, or so. Well, Isaac and Miria throw powder bombs at Quates… AND THEN! SUDDENLY! Cones, thousands— oops, wrong meme. I mean, SUDDENLY! The people who were shot down ARE STILL ALIVE! Yatta, another point for me!
M-my right hand? But it’s dirty… I always fap with it…
To be honest, it was a bit expected, because as I said in the last episode, it would explain why the Gandors and Isaac were immortal. However, I also said it would be unlikely, and the way I thought the elixir would be passed on was indeed. But hey… I did not think of the most likely possibility… Yes, Isaac and Miria gave the elixir to everyone at the ceremony! Out of all the people! And I thought they knew it wasn’t alcohol! Ha, I facepalm’d!
Without knowing it (like so many times), they induced the turn of events in this episode. Firo and the others stand up, the two guys who set Barnes’ house on fire now also put fire on Quates, and who gets the first prize? Firo! Heh, that young boy can now enjoy eternal life and a metric fuckton of knowledge! Applause~
(And he made Ennis blush! Damn you bastard!)
And that explains everything. I would like to talk a lot more about it, but… almost everything has been said now.
What stunned me was that Luck Gandor, aka the demon that Maiza summoned in 1711, kept playing his role until the end. Except for the “Maa ii” (“Oh well”) he uttered twice (once at the end of ep 7, and once now), there are no hints whatsoever about him being the demon or not. Good job Luck!
EDIT: Well, I think I am now mistaken with my theory that Luck is the demon – make sure to read mr. Aleph’s comments!
Also… Isaac and Miria receive the “Facepalm of the Year” Award! They seriously still did not get the clue that they are immortal, not even in 2001!
What else… oh yeah, there is still one huge discrepancy that I would like to point out and which I find quite important though. Take a close look at the following picture:
From left to right, Chane, ?, ?, Nice, Jacuzzi, Donny, ?, Czeslaw?, Ennis, ?, ?, ?, ?. And the guy lying on the ground there also is ?.
The people who are not on the image are Isaac who has gotten his ear cut by this spear, and Miria, who notices that the wound is disappearing.
As far as I have watched all of Baccano’s episodes (and I have watched them SEVERAL times already for each entry), this scene was only shown in the first episode. The setting and it’s context is totally unrelated to anything else in the series.
I really want to know: 1. who the other people are, 2. why Chane, Jacuzzi et al, Ennis, Isaac and Miria are present, and 3. when it actually takes place!! Well for 3, we can safely assume that it happened after the Flying Pussyfoot event, but… there have been no hints whatsoever on where, when and what has brought all of those people together!
It just cannot be a random scene that shows that Isaac is regenerating himself, because there is a guy lying there, and two women carrying two swords respectively a spear. Something must have happened in that specific scene, no?
Now, if I think of episode 2. Isaac and Miria are in California digging for gold, when Ennis sends them a letter that she was unable to meet her real brothers. Who knows, perhaps with the knowledge of Firo, she might have found out the whereabouts of her remaining siblings if there were any. Or even better, Firo might have created those two girls himself to make her happy to have sisters!?! Oh gawsh, this might be easy prey for fanfic writers XD
But once again, it seems unlikely, since that still does not explain the whereabouts of the other people I marked as “?” above. I wonder, maybe the Immortals that survived at the Advenna Avis in 1711? And then, that STILL would not explain why Jacuzzi, Nice and Donny are there!!!
Either way, I really wonder about that. Perhaps we will get an unofficial 14th episode? Or an OVA, or something that might explain this scene. It really would be annoying to find out that the producers were not able to squeeze that scene (and its development) in because of time constraints.
These guys are always in for a surprise, aren’t they!
Now comes the final question, that has been asked in the first episode. Who is the main character in Baccano? Unlike in many many other anime, where there is clearly one lead character or a couple, we have Isaac, Miria, Jacuzzi, Nice, Firo, Maiza, Ennis, Ladd, Lua, Szilard, Czeslaw, Chane, Luck, Berga, Keith, Eve, Dallas… Only to mention those people who are shown in the Opening (yay I remembered them all without looking! XD). Obviously, there were more people involved in this story which had much more of a role than Keith or Berga Gandor, but that’s my opinion.
Like Carol in the first episode, we could arbitrarily choose someone because we have a certain preference or liking for that character. I could for example say, Ennis is the main character. Why? Because she’s fucking cute. Same applies to Miria, Chane and Rachel though. So we have four lead chars, hahaha, I’m joking.
Or, we could set a criterion defining the person(s) that have had the most influence in the story. Sure, Isaac and Miria distributed the elixir to the whole community, and thus saved Maiza, Firo and Ennis. But how did it all come to this? Quates started the random eatings, but the demon created the elixir, BUT Maiza summoned it… is it Maiza then? Who knows.
It all depends on the point of view and the criteria we put upon our choice. Once again quoting the Vice-director of the Daily Days newspaper, “Depending on who you place in the center of the same accident, the characteristics of said accident change kaleidoscopically” and thus our own perception of the different events. It is impossible to define a main character like this, because almost every single character from the opening as well as the unmentioned people played a substantial role in this story, and the following quote underlines their importance. “There are as many stories explaining it, as many as there are people involved in it.” And no matter how small their appearance, their influence could very well change the course of the story, and there are plentiful of examples in Baccano that might prove this statement.
If you ever see these guys, you’re damn lucky.
So in the end, there is no set main character – unless everyone is. Once again, you can decide, but it’s only your choice.
Not even the Vice-director is, although he’d like to be the one. But hey, at least he has one thing right: he and his assistant are very well the beginning of the story. They appeared in the first episode, and the whole story happened after their appearance. That’s so smart, heh.
Here is your timeline, for the very last time. full (3.49 MB .jpg) or split (Part 1 (up to 1930, 1.12 MB .jpg), part 2 (Year 1931, 1.95 MB .jpg) and part 3 (Year 1932, 576 KB .jpg). Perhaps I might revamp its looks, and/or create a page with collapsed entries to make it easier to read, but I am too lazy/busy to do so. Once again, if anyone wants to do it, don’t hesitate to drop me a message.
It hurts me to say it, but that’s the end of Baccano! Yes it was an awesome series, although very confusing at times, but once you get past the half of the series, it suddenly starts making sense, and with the completion of the puzzle, you attain some sort of satisfaction, at least I did. Granted, it might not be the best anime of the year, but it definitely is original, interesting and beautiful. And I know I appreciated every bit of it, or else I wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble to write so much about it, nor to create those timelines that I invested a lot of time into (and not even one thanks for that). I feel sad that it has ended, but also content, because it has in some sort a finished ending. However, I would have appreciated to have an insight about what the Immortals have become in 2007… Oh well, that’s too much to ask I guess.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did, and I thank you for having read my blog all along (I really loved everyone’s support… ah the irony!).
Every day is a birthday! But… today, IT’S OVER! T___T
Perhaps, in a few years, we might encounter Isaac or Miria somewhere on the planet. They have been seen in New York in 2001, so why not in 2007? After all, they are immortal!
I loved that ingenious old fart Szilard. He must have been really smart and skillful to create complete elixir owning incomplete knowledge. Why have not he killed Ennis fast? What a common mistake of evil ones. Kill first — then speak.
What a waste of knowledge… I am pretty sure that Firo neither posseses abilities nor desire to continue Szilard’s research.
Apparently there will be DVD only full episodes heh.
http://neko.notcliche.com/wp-content/images/baccano/13/bacca13-04.jpg
I wanna know too. I didn’t remember this until i saw this post.
http://neko.notcliche.com/wp-content/images/baccano/13/bacca13-07.jpg
I love that part. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Miria and Isaac are so cool! Causing trouble anywhere they go. Then they think of the weirdest way to help the society.
at the end, i wanted firo and ennis to kiss but it never happen =(
i’m start watching the DVD versions because i can’t stop watching it xD
maybe more will be explain in the DVD??
Wait…Luck Gandor was the demon all along? Really? That’s a most interesting point…
From what I understand, there will be at least one DVD-only episode, which will cover the story that the scene you’re curious about refers to.
What makes you think Luck is the demon? The one your are talking about (the person with blond hair) is one of the alchemists from Advena Avis, I suppose.
Not everything, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
Where are other alchemists?
How much of them survived (was not eaten by Szilard)?
Why Czeslaw was on board of Advena Avis (is he a young prodigy just like Elric Brothers)?
Why he have not matured psychologically and still behaves like a child?
What was the wish granted to person who was sunking in the 7th ep (Elmer?)?
What is the origin of Huey Laforet’s telepathic power.
And a lot of others =)
P.S. Thanks for the timeline.
P.S.2: Timeline does not open… It says `404… Bla-bla` =(
(merged your double post ^^; sorry. I uploaded the files now, the timelines should work ~neko)
WAH!
I thought I uploaded the timeline though… damnit, sorry for that. It should be up now.
mr. Aleph, about Luck Gandor, I explained it in episode 7 entry already, but I think I should have elaborated it in this episode as well.
If you watched ep 7, then you might immediately have noticed it after watching it twice. Has it never occurred to you that the demon keeps saying “Maa ii” which translates to “Oh well” or “But all right” when he points out the mistakes Maiza did during the summoning? I noticed the repetition, because it was always said in a special tone.
As I said, there were very few hints about this, but now it you watch the end of episode 7, Maiza tells Luck Gandor that Gustavo Runorata is no person to be feared and exits the room. What does Luck Gandor say? “Maa ii“! I found this quite obvious.
And at the end of this episode, at the end of the 1931 story where Firo and the others are rejoicing, what does Luck Gandor say? Exactly, “Maa ii“! This episode actually confirmed my theory even further. (I am not sure what Luck Gandor meant with “He noticed it” or whatever he said before the “Maa ii”. Perhaps Maiza noticed during the ceremony that the drink Isaac and Miria gave to everyone was the elixir?)
That’s that. As for the other questions you are asking, well those are quite interesting as well, but I did not want to go too much into detail because I already have written too much for this episode and I can imagine most people grow tired of my long texts… I’m no Impz yet, so I can’t make those interesting yet, sorry.
About Elmer however, I have one small idea, perhaps you can adhere to it: While he was sinking, I was thinking that he might have asked to save him because he was drowning, but Elmer is immortal after all! So… I came to the conclusion that Elmer is unable to swim. Because of that, he would be doomed to remain at the bottom of the sea… FOREVER! So he asked the demon either to rescue him or to grant him the ability to swim, in order to return to the girl…. Sylvie, wasn’t it? (Too bad she rejected him though T_T)
Yes I noticed that demon uses “Maa ii” often. But in fact that person is not Luck Gandor. Please take a look at the picture I’ve made (sorry I am not a master of image manipulation). Luck and “Demon” share some similarities but they have different colors of hair and different haircuts… Still I have no idea who that “Demon” person is… I rewatched the whole 7th ep, but have not found someone like him among passengers aboard Advena Avis… he looks like matured version of Elmer, but Elmer could not mature… Just a crazy guess: maybe Elmer merged himself with the demon?
P.S. Sorry for the double posting… It seems that I managed somehow to write a comment, press Submit, edit my comment and press Submit again ^^’
O_O Now that you mention it…
I really thought it was Luck Gandor exactly because of the similarities (I wonder why I never bothered to compare the both of them though, thank you for the picture by the way!)
After episode 7, I was assuming it was Luck Gandor because he was involved in mafia affairs. Back then I did not know why Maiza was on good terms with them though, but now I know that they are all in the Camorra organization.
Also, I did notice some inconsistency in this last episode, because after Quates got eaten and everyone was celebrating, Luck was with his brothers in the crowd while the ‘demon’ stood in the back hiding behind a corner.
This is highly interesting, this indeed raises the question who the demon actually is. Elmer… hmm, I think you cleared the maturity question yourself. Actually, I do wonder about all the people who were on the Advenna Avis.
In ep 11, Quates corrects Maiza, saying that he ate 18 instead of 13 people, who were they, and who survived then? …and those are exactly the questions you asked yourself in your previous comment ^^;;
Heh, I feel like reading the novel now (but I need to work up my jap reading skills big time…). Also eager to see the DVD-only episodes (OVAs), perhaps they might clear up the confusion.
Anyway thanks for your input!
Demon candidates eh… Yeah we definitely need a list. Elmer would make sense to me since he was on the advena advis, and his wish could have involved some sort of merger of the two, but this is pure speculation, why couldn’t the demon grant a wish without merging himself right? This is obviously something left to future episodes, of a future series, I say this because more light novels are being produced, so the answers remain in them until they are transitioned to a baccano sequel, should we be so lucky.
Really my only interest is whether there were any clues within the 13 episodes we have as to who the demon really was. If there aren’t, then hey, I can wait. If that information is already available and I didn’t notice, then damn, I really wanna know.
Oh, that and Vino is my “main character”.
“Limited to [b]only[/b] the things I [u]believe[/u] I can do. [i]I can do anything.[/i]”
(All this while he was doing a handstand on another human being who wasn’t prepared for it, while on a moving train.)
…and while in the air, drawing a pistol with his other hand and accurately shooting at the same person’s ear… <– you forgot this n_nV
But yeah, I am quite inclined to say that Vino is my main char as well, because of the same philosophy we have (refer to ep 12 entry for moar info), but then again, other characters also played a huge role in this as well, which eventually boils down to electing them all main characters XD I just can’t say Ennis is not a main character, because she’s soooo lovely *blush*
Vino is a wonderful example of solipsist. Though I am a solipsist too as a scientist I prefer Szilard’s quest for ultimate knowledge ^^’
Also he brewed that very portion of elixir which gave immortality to Firo, Gandors, Miria & Isaac. He granted invulnerability to Dallas and his friends. He created Ennis.
So IMHO Szilard Quates is closer to source of all this “stupid commotion” than anyone else (except for the Demon and may be Maiza).
That scene in ep1 happened in 1933.
http://www.baccano.jp/release/book.html
Somehow my long comment got cut.
The two ladies in the screencap above appeared in the covers of the 1933 novels.
From the summary beside the covers the name Maria is seen.
In the japanese wikipedia, it is said that she has 2 japanese swords and she appeared in anime ep1 in the background.
So the lady with the 2 swords is Maria “something” (マリア・バルセリート )
She was an assassin with Runorata but became a bodyguard for the Gandors.
Chane is grouped under Jacuzzi’s gang in the wiki and she is also on the cover, so it kind of explains their appearance in that scene.
Can’t find any leads on the other lady.
The wiki is overwhelming without any hints.
I got a feeling that Huey will somehow be the main antagonist.
Episode 7 made me think the demon is sticking around him.
The wiki says he treats everything as experimental material even his daughter and it also says he wants to know the social limit of the immortals.
He also has organizations like Lemures, Larva, Lamia and Rhythm under him.
The anime got me dizzy, thanks for the timeline, nekosasu!
It somehow seperates the anime events to probably how the books presented them.
Does anyone know if Rachel reappears in the novel? For some reason, even though she didn’t have much screentime, she is my favorite female character.
hey there, i really appreciate you making up the timeline, and i’m pretty sure that you’ve got everything sequentially correct. the one thing i’d like to bring to your attention is that you’ve labeled some of the things that happened in the “Eve looking for Dallas” portion of the story (namely, the events shown in episodes 1-6) as 1932 when the show labeled them as happening in 1931.
in this timeline you seem to have it correct (at least as far as i understand it):
http://neko.notcliche.com/wp-content/images/baccano/07/timeline.jpg
and then after episode 8, you change it to this:
http://neko.notcliche.com/wp-content/images/baccano/08/timeline.jpg
was there a reason for that that i didn’t pick up on? i mean, i don’t think it’s that big of a deal since the dates don’t matter so much as the sequential order of things, but it’s still significant, i think. again, thanks for all your work, and i just thought i might bring this to your attention.
alright, so after re-watching episodes 6 and 8, it appears that the show itself makes a mistake when handling the timeline. in episode 6, “1931″ is flashed on the screen just before showing Eve being kidnapped. in episode 8, “1932″ is shown right before a scene that depicts Eve with the Runoratas immediately after her kidnapping, and the rest of her story plays out during 1932 from there. it looks like a screw up on the part of the show, which is unfortunate.
i suppose it’s best to do what you did and assume that the entirety of Eve’s story occurs in 1932, just for sanity’s sake.
what probably happened here was that the reason Eve’s story was initially said to have begun in 1931 was because it wouldn’t make much sense for her to wait until 1932 to try and find Dallas, but since the train incident lso takes place in 1931, that might’ve been too much to juggle in one year. I dunno.
Either way, your timeline as it is is probably for the best, given how complicated this show is already.
There are also often unannounced period shifts, so perhaps there was only a small scene happening in 1931, then it immediately went over to 1932 with Eve Genoard, etc.
Then again, I don’t remember everything all that clearly, but I think you are right, I have a vague remembrance of a small discrepancy in the anime itself, and as you said, I might have stuck with 1932 for the Eve Genoard’s searching to simplify matters.
Now even vaguer, I think I even put up a small red note to it, but either my Excel omitted it or my own mind made it up XD
But I’m glad my timeline pleases you (even if I know it is very hard to draw any information out of it… so messy)… Thank you ^^
The demon has actually appeared more times than you have think he has… if you read the novel then squint at the animation then you’ll realise that haha :) Anyhow…
Spoiler for the demon, or not really… just pointing out where he’s appeared:
…
He’s the secretary of the Martillo family.
Appearances:
1. He’s standing on the right of the boss of the Martillo family in Firo’s inauguration into the Camorrista (ep 5)
2. He’s the person having a one-on-one conversation with Maiza in an office, where he mentions Szilard after Maiza has left the room (end of ep 7). I think it was supposed to be heavy hinting that he was the demon, but the first time I watched (sans novel) I wondered who on earth that was myself *laugh*
3. Ep 13, where he’s watching the events after Szilard gets eaten.
“He’s the secretary of the Martillo family.”
Interesting information. It actually explains why Maiza has been reporting to him ep 7, and why he is present during the Camorra ceremony, eps 5 and 13.
The only thing I didn’t know was that he appeared in ep 5 though, but perhaps I would have found it out eventually? XD j/k, thank you for your input :D
…which reminds me I have yet to read the novel T_T
@JR: Yes, Rachel does reappear in subsequent novels (and in fact, she is more interesting than the anime portrayed during the train incident)
Regarding the discussion about Eve… events relating to her should only begin in 1932.
The lady with the halberd is Adel, part of the Lamia (Vampire).
Rough translation of Jap wiki is rough and spoilerific:
…
Homunculus made by Huey. Immortal. ‘ Vampire ‘ post. Although she seems weak with her extensive usage of ‘um, um’ (i.e. nervous), she is actually very talkative. Uses a cruciform spear (halberd?). The technique is entirely self-taught, but is strong enough to corner Maria before she was defeated by ??.
Tim describes her as someone who ’seems to the easiest to handle’, but because she is a past ‘experiment’, so she has no personality.
The pichture you found form Episode 1 is a fragment in 1933.
The third guy form the left is the Demon!
The guy liying on the ground is Dallas Genoard!
Most of the other ? are new characters and I am sure that the little boy isn’t Czeslaw.
It is Great if we can watch the new stories SOON!!!(1933 1934 2001 2002 1705 ect…)
lol, the first questions strike me until i realized the OVA’s weren’t out yet. Because it answers the “why was czeh on the trains?” and “who was the demons?” strait out on OVA 3 (aka: ep 16).
thanks for timeline, you’re gonna needa update it now that there’s ova’s adding more info. lol, please put-in all the rediculous robberies isaac and miria did xD they “stole time” and considering that this anime is about immortality … ingenious i tell you
GAH. It’s been almost two years… and I still haven’t watched the OVAs! Well, perhaps I might even take up on this occasion and give the whole series a rewatch. Then watch the OVAs. Then refurbish the timeline. :D