Ah, like expected, things make a lot more sense now that the introduction-episode is over. This really was a Chane-episode; as she really gets a lot of development that built further on her encounter with Vino on top of the flying pussyfoot. Om top of that, Jacuzzi and Nice also get some really appreciated background. Now all that’s left to wonder is what the purpose was between Rachel and Czeslaw’s encounter…

Jacuzzi this time really shows that in Baccano! characters go much further than in regular anime, and it’s not just limited to Ladd Russo and Graham Spector. What other character would scar his face, just because a friend of his got scarred for life due to an accident? What other person would just turn himself in to collect money from a bounty to release another person from a ransom? I think that in his case, he’s able to do these extremely nice things because of his friends, who somehow manage to pull him out of any screwed-up situation he got himself involved in.

Chane is after Czeslaw the second person to undergo a drastic change, when both Jacuzzi and Rail Tracer treat her nicely, something that she only knew from Huey.

I think we’ve also got a first for a Baccano! episode: there was no Isaac nor Miria. They’ve been surprisingly distant from the DVD-only episodes so far, especially considering how they’re the two most central characters in this series. I do hope to see a bit more of their antics in the final DVD-only episode. It should be released on the 28th of May, and according to the title, we should see Carol again. Fair enough, that should provide a nice closure: to end where everything began.

I must say that Maki has a great personality as a leader. He’s scary, but not in the way that he loses his entire personality. This series has done really well to show that the guy’s got experience. I’m really glad that this season came with so many series with adult-characters. I mean, teenagers are nice and all, but seeing teenagers in every single series does go too far. The picture that these offer is just too one-sided.

In any case, this series really knows how to deliver its mystery well. The picture that the president shredded turned out to be the one of his daughter’s fiancée: Ross Macaulay, who turned out to be a terrorist. The president didn’t know any of this, until the guy delivered a note to the president, telling him to meet at the lighthouse. When the president got stabbed, he realized that his daughter was dating a wrong guy, and yet he tried to protect both her and her fiancée by shredding the picture of him that he carried right before he died, in order to lay as little connection as possible between him and Ross Macaulay.

Aoki realizes this, because he’s in the same situation with his sister. She too is dating the wrong guy, and yet he can’t get himself to separate the two, and he’s always watching from a distance. The great thing about this episode is how everything comes together, and yet it does force you to think about the case. And that’s EXACTLY why I like mystery so much.

I’m still surprised at how solid this series has turned out. It keeps interesting things on the table, while not forgetting to provide background on its different characters. No character feels useless. This episode continues to create a good base for the second half of this series to work with. It’s the least eventful episode so far, but instead the characters get some extra attention. Even the bad guys get a surprisingly large amount of screen time. They’re still flat at this point, but there’s good potential for them to actually develop at the end.

My favourite character of this series so far surprisingly turned out to be Shu. He’s a strong character, he’s no idiot, and yet he doesn’t feel like an overpowered all-knowing action-hero. All the things he’s done up till now make sense. In this episode, he realizes he’s being observed by high-tech cameras at the scene where everything began. Due to the transvestite, he’s used to being observed, which sortof explains why he was able to notice them. Afterwards, he ends up being followed, and instead of going home and leading the enemy to Sara, he just fools around with as many women as possible.

Meanwhile, Manami and Ayaka are looking for an old classmate of Manami who now has turned into some kind of idol who happens to visit the town. They go past one of her other friends who became a guitarist who just made his debut. In the end, they find nothing about her. In the end, Akira finds her address because of how Ayaka wanted Manami to find her classmate. However, Manami refused the help of others earlier, saying how she wanted to find Yuuko (the classmate) on her own. She then gets angry at Ayaka, and then it turns out that Ayaka is indeed a person who gets hurt quite easily. Shu also rescued her from a bunch of punks once, which is probably why he took her in.

The doctor meanwhile gives Sara a strange potion that causes her arm to turn into glass at the end of the episode. Shows a lot of promise for the next episode! I’m also glad to see that Manami’s voice-actress is getting less and less annoying. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s something different and it does fit her naive and ambitious character quite well. She’s especially good in her quiet moments, when she isn’t screaming.