Gun's & Roses is the instrumental opening theme for the 2007 anime adaptation Baccano!, and the first track in the single of the same name by the all-female Japanese band Paradise Lunch. The single was released on August 22, 2007 in conjunction with the ending theme.
Two television versions of the opening theme are used for the anime. The first version has a 1:32 runtime and is used for the first, second, seventh, and fourteenth episodes; it is included as the penultimate track in the 2007 anime's official soundtrack. The second, used for the other twelve episodes, has an approximate 1:53 runtime.
The second version's extra twenty seconds of music make space for a recap section, where scenes and dialogue from previous episodes are seamlessly integrated into the opening.
Tracklist and Performers[]
- Vocals: Natsuki Akiko
- Trumpets: Anna Kagami; Hiroko Furuya
- Alto Saxophone: Tomoko Yokoyama
- Tenor Saxophone: Tomoko Mashio
- Guitar: Chie Horiguchi
- Bass: Arisa Sakakibara
- Keyboard: Yuu Nagasawa
- Drums: Makiko Kakoi
| No. | Title | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Gun's & Roses (TVアニメ「BACCANO!」オープニングテーマ曲) | 4:16 |
| 02 | Never Mind (ft. vocals from Akiyo Hoshino) | 5:36 |
| 03 | Promised Land (ft. vocals from Akiyo Hoshino) | 4:26 |
| 04 | Gun's & Roses Vocal Version | 4:19 |
| 05 | Gun's & Roses Karaoke | 4:16 |
| 06 | Never Mind Karaoke | 5:35 |
| 07 | Promised Land Karaoke | 4:25 |
Opening Animation[]
In an urban alleyway, a man in a tuxedo tosses a Standing Liberty quarter into the air. He catches it on his hand, and waits for a woman to join him so they can check the results together. Her face brightens, his eyes widen, and the next cut finds the woman openly jubilant while the man, crestfallen, slumps next to a large white sack with red fabric and a broomstick sticking out of its opening.
A quick sequence of stills depicts the man and woman changing out of their 1930 formalwear into a Halloween costume and Santa Claus costume respectively, and the scene timeskips to the man entering a goods store. The camera zoom to the pumpkin atop his head reveals that he is smiling, and the frame freezes on his smile as the name ISAAC DIAN flashes on the screen. Isaac is followed inside by the woman, and the name MIRIA HARVENT briefly appears next to her bearded grin before she gestures for an off-screen shopkeeper to fill the now-empty sack with sweets.
The shopkeeper hoists onto the counter a cardboard box full of candy and chocolate bars, one of which the camera zooms in on until its BACCANO! label becomes the opening's Title Card.
Isaac's hand snatches up the BACCANO! chocolate bar and flings it behind him. The screen fades to black and then to green: the green fabric of a fedora, which a baby-faced young man in a pearl green suit takes from the camera's shelf so that he may try it on. When the youth admires himself in the mirror-turned-camera, he is introduced as FIRO PROCHAINEZO; his companion, a mild-mannered man called MAIZA AVARO, hands the off-screen haberdashery owner several ten-dollar bills which are tossed onto a poker table already cluttered with cards and chips.
Around this poker table sit three men, one of whom has amassed a mountain of chips, the second of whom has folded, and the last of whom, a bulky man in the foreground, has made the monetary bet—bold enough, it seems, to bluff despite holding weak cards. The first man reveals his hand—a high-ranking four-of-a-kind comprised of four Kings and one Ace—and a nameplate reveals his name as KEITH GANDOR. He lights a new cigar as if to honor his victory, but his expression remains severe. The bulky man, however, clutches his head in disbelief; his thrown cards flutter before the camera, confirming that his overall hand was worthless. A freeze frame hastily interrupts him mid-shout so that he can be introduced as BERGA GANDOR before he loses his temper altogether. LUCK GANDOR reacts to his brother's eruption with the smile of one used to such behavior, then reaches for a bottle of Coraggioso-branded distilled London dry gin (94.4% proof) to pour himself a drink...
...while an old man in old-fashioned clothes empties an unlabeled bottle of liquid into or onto an out-of-frame object. This is SZILARD QUATES, who repeats the process with an identical bottle, but this time a woman in a business suit is framed within the bottle's contents. ENNIS is only on screen for as long as Szilard sees fit; he tilts the bottle at a steeper angle to increase the rate of flow, and her visage distorts in tandem with the swishing liquid. The bottle is not yet empty when he drops it to the side–
–And a falling Briou Rosso champagne bottle is caught neatly in the white-gloved hand of the Young Conductor, who returns it to the ice bucket on Jon Panel's tray before heading down a corridor of the Flying Pussyfoot. Jon balances his tray on one hand and uses his other to knock on a cabin door, which an elegant, reserved woman by the name of LUA KLEIN opens. She accepts the tray and closes the door as the camera switches to the perspective of her cabinmate, who has sent a dart soaring mere inches past Lua's arm. It finds purchase in a dartboard that the becomes the next camera perspective, allowing one to see the cabin's pleasant furnishings and the cabinmate: a grinning young man whose formal white attire complements the woman's own, but whose posture by comparison is altogether casual.
With another dart already primed, LADD RUSSO considers his aim before letting the wickedly sharp dart fly; the camera ducks out of the way, but turns as the projectile morphs into a wickedly sharp knife that buries itself in a paneled wall. A black-haired, black-clad woman named CHANE LAFORET retrieves the knife and steps backward, providing a glimpse of her cabin's opulent furnishings, before impassively slashing black color across the screen.
[RECAP SCENES]
An explosion from the left side of the frame sends rubble, two types of smoke, and heat blasting past a brick facade. As the smoke clears, two young men and one woman flee from the heart of it: the first man is a giant who swiftly disappears beyond the right frame to safety; the second man sheds nonstop tears as he tugs at the hand of the woman behind him. She is the only one to look back at the explosion, and her carefree laughter stands in stark contrast to her companion and the burn scars littering her arms and face. The camera zooms in to introduce her as NICE HOLYSTONE seconds before she joyfully tosses several cherry bombs back into the smoke.
The camera shifts to the young man and the intimidating sword tattoo that monopolizes his face, which flinches in terror once the bombs begin exploding. This frantic, tearful youth is JACUZZI SPLOT. His and Nice's clasped hands are swiftly enveloped by the the limelight flash of a camera shutter held aloft by a man photographing an upper-class girl and boy. The color fades from their faces as they smile out of a black-and-white photograph, which the camera pulls back from before a teenage girl closes the book in which the photograph is kept. She resembles the girl in the photograph, as does her rich house the photograph's backdrop, but the EVE GENOARD who sits before the camera now is otherwise contrasted by her moroseness.
Eve's nameplate wipes to a nameplate for one DALLAS GENOARD, whose own expression reeks of smug defiance—though all of Dallas' bravado and breath leaves Dallas as he and various playing cards are submerged in water. Someone playing a card game rescues the drifting King of Diamonds and adds it to her hand, only for an opposing player to choose it for himself. Upon adopting the opposing player's perspective, the camera discovers that he, the young girl he plays with, and the girl's mother are playing in the dining car of Flying Pussyfoot; upon swapping to the girl, the camera watches the opposing player—a boy who is shortly introduced as CZESLAW MEYER—slip the King of Diamonds into his hand.
The girl chooses a card from Czeslaw's hand and shows it to the camera: a Joker card featuring an arm-in-arm Isaac and Miria in jester outfits. They wink at the camera as the screen cuts to black.
Foreshadowing[]
- Hidden Nameplate: To preserve one of the anime's main plot twists, Claire Stanfield appears in the opening only as the Young Conductor and is not given an official nameplate. Rachel, who serves as a red herring for Claire, is missing from the opening entirely. However, the champagne bottle can be taken as an unofficial nameplate for Vino, Claire's name as an assassin.
- Ennis' Nature: By framing Ennis both in the palm of Szilard's hand and in the bottle (i.e. a 'flask') it holds, the opening alludes to her true origins as a homunculus.
- Dallas' Fate: Although Dallas' whereabouts is one of the main mysteries of the anime, his fate is 'spoiled' in the opening itself: Dallas is shown drowning in water, which is precisely what the Gandor Family condemn him to do for eternity in November 1930.
- Dallas' Fate: A much more subtle hint at Dallas' fate can be found in Eve's book, which is open to this page from Edgar Allan Poe's short story A Descent Into The Maelstrom. Eve has reached the point where a man and his elder brother are at the mercy of a storm at sea; with such lines as "For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, and all this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt," and, "It was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard," this page's inclusion is an unmistakable reference to what eventually befalls Dallas.
Recap Sequences[]
Gun's & Roses is used as the opening for all sixteen episodes of Baccano! and features recap sequences three-fourths of the time. Each recap sequence is tailored specifically to each episode, presenting relevant scenes and dialogue snippets from previous episodes without any overt voiceover exposition.
The numbers in each recap sequence listed correspond to episode numbers, representing each distinct recap scene in order of presentation. Please consult the individual episode articles for specific details on the scenes included in their respective recap sequences.
- Episode 03: 01-02-02-02
- Episode 04: 03-03-03
- Episode 05: 04-04-04-02-01
- Episode 06: 03-05-05-03-05-05
- Episode 08: 02-05-06-06-02
- Episode 09: 04-06-06-04-03
- Episode 10: 07-02-09-08-09
- Episode 11: 10-10-10
- Episode 12: 11-11-11-11-11-11
- Episode 13: 12-12-12-12-12
- Episode 15: 10-11-14-14-01
- Episode 16: 13-11-08-14-15-03
Lyrics (Vocal Version)[]
コトバはbad tunin' 流しっばなしの ありふれたメロディー
パワ一をoffると 街のノイズが やけに響くよ
it's gonna rain tonight
時代は odd feelin' 無数の罠が ささ やく 甘いフレーズ
今この世界で朧かなものは僕と君だけ
希望はいつも あざ笑うように
気配だけを残して この手をすり抜けてくけど
ココロの銃を磨いて
濁った夜を切り裂け
暗闇に光るbloody rose
きっと掴み取る明日を
流れるhead light ふたりの影が もつれて踊るステージ
coolなstepで バカ騒ぎする 夜を駆け抜ける
they're gonna cry for love
街中がshout ギリギリのair 胸に吸い込んで
夜空を仰げば ビルのスキマで 嘲笑う三日月
輝く夜も 陽気な歌も
いつか消えてゆくって 僕らは気付いているから
*明日咲き誇る薔薇を
ココロの銃で撃ち落せ
どこにもいけないcrazy place
君と奪い取る未来を
葡萄酒のボトル飲み干し
しずんだ夢を掘り起こせ
絶望がヨドむ街から
きっと救い出す君を
*Repeat
Kotoba wa bad tunin' ryū shibba nashi no arifureta merodī
Pawaa wo off ru to machi no noizu ga yake ni hibikuyo
it's gonna rain tonight
Jidai wa odd feelin' musū no wana ga sa sa yaku amai furēzu
Ima kono sekai de oboro kana mono wa boku to kimi dake
Kibō wa itsumo azawarau yō ni
Kehai dake o nokoshite kono te o surinuketekukedo
Kokoro no jū o migaite
Nigotta yoru o kirisake
Kurayami ni hikaru bloody rose
Kitto tsukami toru ashita o
Nagareru head light futari no kage ga motsurete odoru sutēji
cool na step de baka sawagi suru yoru o kakenukeru
they're gonna cry for love
Machi chū ga shōt girigiri no air mune ni suikonde
Yozora o aogeba biru no sukima de warau mikazuki
Kagayaku yoru mo yōkina uta mo
Itsuka kieteyuku tte bokura wa kizuiteirukara
*Ashita sakihokoru bara o
Kokoro no jū de uchi otose
Doko ni moikenai crazy place
Kun to ubaitoru mirai o
Wain no botoru nomihoshi
Shizunda yume o horiokose
Zetsubō ga yodomu machi kara
Kitto sukuidasu kimi o
*Repeat
To be added.
Trivia[]
- The opening visuals are strongly reminiscent of the opening to Snatch, a 2000 British crime comedy film.