Black Lagoon

Review date: 04/17/2008
Reviewed by: Ray, aka imnotchinese

Forget the cutlasses, eyepatches, peg legs, and rum. Well, keep the rum. The anime series Black Lagoon is definitely not your younger brother’s One Piece.

Focusing on a band of modern-day pirates known as the Lagoon Company, Black Lagoon is a wild rollercoaster of a story and a visual treat.

As the series opens, Japanese salaryman Rokuro (later known as Rock) Okajima is traveling in the South China Sea, transporting a data disc for his company. Suddenly, his ship is raided by the Lagoon Company for the disc and he is forcibly taken hostage in exchange for company money.

Rock is then taken aboard a small torpedo boat, the Black Lagoon, and meets her crew. Dutch is the cool and composed driver of the boat, Benny is the quirky techno-geek, and Revy is the unpredictable and exceedingly deadly field operative. Dutch and Benny may be more forgiving but Revy already has her custom .92 Berettas begging for a piece of Rock. He can only hope his company pays the ransom but it has already decided his life is far less important than their extensive and surreptitious smuggling operation. Luckily for Rock, he manages to convince the Lagoon Company members that what he lacks in killer instinct, he makes up for with useful logic and intelligence. Soon enough they hire Rock full time and the adventure begins.

As the series progresses, the Lagoon Company takes on jobs for pay transporting goods for hire. Transport however is never easy for them. And that’s where the entertainment of Black Lagoon begins.

Although Black Lagoon is primarily episodic aside from a few mini-arcs, the other elements of it make up for any need of a linear story. The action sometimes borders on the ridiculous (look for the helicopter scene), but it is loaded with gleeful violence. The dialogue is another strong point. Unless you have virgin ears, there isn’t a point where a cuss word is used in the wrong place or in the wrong context. Revy in particularly is fluent in profanity with her zero to crazy demeanor which also leads to another theme in Black Lagoon: dark comedy. Despite all the bullets, sharp objects, and explosive ordinance, characters always manage to crank out the funniest lines.

Humor and action aside, Black Lagoon also has themes that are deeper than they appear. The dynamic struggle between different crime syndicates, the means by which one finds meaning in life, the blurry line between just and unjust, ghosts of one’s past, and several other elements.

Themes aside, if you’re to lazy to take note of them, you’ll appreciate the sadistic fun of Black Lagoon.