Ladd Russo

Ladd Russo is one of the main characters from the Baccano! anime and light novels.

Ladd is a violent hitman formerly affiliated with the Russo Family. He is known for his bloodlust and obsession with killing anyone who believes themselves to be invincible or otherwise safe from death.

Over the course of December 30-31, 1931, Ladd hijacks the Flying Pussyfoot with his followers with the intention of securing a ransom from the railroad company. He loses his left hand and the flesh off his forearm to the Rail Tracer during the journey, and is subsequently arrested by the police.

Once recovered, Ladd physically assaults another inmate while in prison in order to have himself condemned to Alcatraz, where he hopes to meet Huey Laforet. After three years of incarceration, he meets and befriends new Alcatraz inmates Isaac Dian and Firo Prochainezo and finally comes face to face with Huey by December 1934.

Two months later, Ladd is released from prison in February 1935 and is subsequently hired by Luck Gandor as extra muscle for an upcoming casino party at Ra's Lance. He remains unabashedly eager to kill his top three murder targets.

Appearance
Ladd has silver-blond hair (darker blond in the anime) and blue eyes. He is usually associated with the white formal attire he wears for the Flying Pussyfoot hijacking, which he chose since bloodstains are striking against white cloth.

The actions of the Rail Tracer during the journey cause him to lose his left hand and the flesh of his left forearm all the way up to his elbow. He ends up having a metal prosthetic bolted to his arm bones; while it is as strong as his other arm, it breaks fairly easily.

The 2006 manga's design for Ladd does not resemble Enami Katsumi's design, as he looks far younger than his twenty-five years of age.

Personality
Ladd is a chatterbox sadist who finds genuine entertainment in killing others, acting on his bloodlust often whenever he pleases and living life however he pleases. He is always honest about who he is as a person, openly and intentionally reveling in his violent tendencies and forever content to wear his emotions on his sleeve in over-the-top animated fashion. Whether he is dancing in the blood of his murdered friend, hugging his opponents as thanks for the entertainment, or melodramatically complaining about how he lost fair and square while standing on his head, his constant need to burn off his endless excess energy ensures that he does not justwear his emotions on his sleeve, he broadcasts them for all the world to hear.

Though some may dismiss him as 'crazed' or a 'brawn-over-brains' brutish thug, he is more intelligent than others give him credit for. He is a killer, but he is not a mindless killer; it is not that he cannot plan, he simply does not. In 1931, it is Ladd who bothers to gather information on the consequences his uncle’s bad decisions will have for the Family and concludes that it will be untenable for him to remain, his grasp on the situation proving more thorough than Placido's own. As Placido concludes, Ladd "[is] the type of man who always [comes] to action from nothing more than rough ideas, then [forces] those actions to succeed through on-the-spot calculations made in response to each individual moment."

Above all else, Ladd takes the greatest pleasure in killing those who arrogantly believe themselves invincible or otherwise 'safe', not even considering the possibility that they might die until he reminds them of their mortality. Meanwhile, he is most likely to befriend those who are constantly cognizant of their own mortality (e.g. Firo and Nader Schasschule), as fear towards death is perfectly natural and deserving of respect. Others whom he either respects or appreciates are those who fight fearlessly (like Chané Laforet), or enthusiastically subscribe to his personal philosophy (e.g. Graham Specter). While Isaac is none of these things, Ladd recognizes that his lack of fear toward death stems from sheer obliviousness rather than arrogance and treats him amiably as a result.

Most troublesome of all for Ladd are people with lifeless eyes, those who are resigned to or actively seeking death. While he has no idea how to handle men with lifeless eyes, such as Fred, women who possess them are exactly his type. His fiancée Lua Klein is one such woman, and his genuine love for her manifests a softer, warmer side of him than one is used to. They both find the idea of her dying by his own hands honestly romantic, though his caveat that he will only kill her after he has killed 'everyone else in the world' suggests that he does not intend to kill her for a long while yet.

Ladd has mellowed considerably in the years following his defeat at the hands of the Rail Tracer, and he is a tad more humble and less hate-driven than he once was. Some of his hardline worldviews have softened, including his his opinion of giving mercy to strangers; he views the concept with far less disgust in 1934 than he does in 1931.

While it is clear that he possesses a friendly side in 1931 and does care for his friends' well-being (as seen when he seeks revenge for Dune), his capacity for affableness and loyalty towards those he calls 'friend' is especially prominent in 1934 and 1935. Once Ladd views someone as his friend, they are his friend whether they like it or not and he will respect their wishes and defend them accordingly. No matter how much Ladd despises Raz Smith, he has and continues to refrain from killing him because he is one of Graham's idols; when Nader - who never wanted to be Ladd's friend in the first place - points out that he could simply take the money Ladd gave him and run, Ladd immediately acknowledges that the fault would be his own for making a wrong call, and assures Nader that he would not give chase.

Though Ladd has mellowed to a degree, he is still a violent man at his core and will become restless if he goes too long without a good fight. His antipathy toward arrogant, self-perceived 'invincible' people remains as strong as ever, and Sham, Victor Talbot, and Salomé Carpenter's personalities antagonize him just as they would have done back in 1931. However, there are only a few people in 1935 who instantly send his bloodlust levels skyrocketing and leave him consumed with hatred. The three who top his 'kill list' are: Felix Walken; Huey Laforet; and Melvi Dormentaire.

Abilities
Ladd is a trained hitman and formidable fighter. While on the Flying Pussyfoot, Ladd was one of the most effective fighters against the Lemures, second only to the Rail Tracer in terms of brutality.

He prefers to kill using his gun, a Lupara (nicknamed Blasty), using bullets in an orthodox but deadly and effective manner. When shooting he shows remarkable marksmanship.

He is equally dangerous unarmed; as a boxing fan, he seems to have worked on his punches (though he ruefully admits he needs to work on his right hook). It appears that he has improved by 1934, since he is able to take down Gustavo with one sharp hit - and snap a table like a pencil using only his real hand.

After losing his left hand and the flesh off his forearm to Claire Stanfield, Ladd has a metal prosthetic bolted to his bones. It is as strong as his other arm, but it can break easily if too much force is used.

Ladd can be manipulative and disarming when he needs to be, and can lull opponents into underestimating him before he makes his move. That being said, he can be emotionally provoked into rashness - when confronted by people like Czes or Claire, his 'bloodlust levels' spike and he wants nothing more than to kill them. He is also a quick judge of character - with one glance at Mark Wilmans in 1935, he can tell that Mark is no ordinary child, with 'death in his eyes.'

Trivia

 * The name Ladd means "servant" or "man of humble birth".
 * The modern meaning of Ladd means "young man" or "boy" being a later shift.
 * Ladd's surname Russo means "red" in Italian.
 * Ladd tells Czeslaw Meyer on the Flying Pussyfoot that he is about to turn twenty-five, suggesting that he was either born at the tail end of December 1906 or sometime in early 1907.
 * Ladd's prisoner ID in the prison he was incarcerated in before Alcatraz was 302010.
 * Ladd is Ryohgo Narita's favorite character.
 * The Russo Family is actually an Italian Family that migrated to North America in the late 1800s. However, they were not associated with underground mafias.
 * Ladd has claimed that he is weaker than Jack Dempsey, a famous boxer. Ryohgo Narita, the series' creator, has confirmed this to be true.