Black Lagoon – Mercenaries or Pirates

So … what is Black Lagoon all about? In the following article from Nihon Review, we are to introduced to the characters and their flawed backgrounds that brought them together as a group. Are they mercenaries and bounty hunters or … are they really pirates? Also, be ready for the introduction of some psychotic side characters that are introduced as the series progresses … like Roberta and the twins.

Life as a salaryman in Tokyo was anything but amazing, as how Okajima Rokuro thinks; day after day, he had to put up with his dead-end job and bow to his superiors in the office. But all of that seem faraway as he is now stuck on the tropical seas of Eastern China when his delivery shipment is overtaken by the Lagoon company, a group of mercenaries made up of ex-Marine team leader Dutch, technical expert Benny and the foul-mouthed gun-toter Revy. As Rokuro, or “Rock” as how his captors has dubbed him, gets to know them and discovers the lawless underbelly of the world, things take a turn for the worse when his company’s management board has decided to prevent a major scandal from surfacing by hiring a dangerous assassin to kill the mercenaries and him as well. The Highlights Background: Gritty, bleak and raw. Action Sequences: Riveting and deliciously vicious; violence comes with purpose. Pirates: Unoriginal but rarely tackled theme; establishes its own identity in the seinen genre. Characters: Memorable and well-explored; Roberta is T-1000 in a maid suit. Summing it up in one word: Ballsy. Anime about pirates do not come by so often other than the never ending One Piece, and one that puts the cutthroat and ruthless life of a pirate under the magnifying glass is even rarer, if not, nonexistent. Black Lagoon is an exception that vividly exemplifies this perspective and it presents in raw fashion a lawless world full of people in their most depraved state. Violence and bloodshed mostly in the form of gunfights are plentiful in this show, and they are executed with style that is reminiscent to action films of the 90′s. At the same time, the show adeptly juxtaposes sleek action sequences with moments of deliberate character development, an aspect commonly neglected in most action shows. The balance of action and drama makes itself one of Madhouse‘s modern classics and perhaps a common reference of its respective genre. It would be fair enough to say that Black Lagoon‘s most conspicuous trait is its action sequences. The show is heavily featured with scenes of flying bullets, blood splatting and stuff being blown up, all of which are fast and furious. They may be gratuitous occasionally, but for most of the times, these scenes serve an important purpose: apart from them being riveting and exhilarating to watch, they also illustrate how brutal the world is and explicitly show how the corruption of the human psyche drives people towards resorting to morally questionable actions. For one, Revy’s penchant for killing people coldbloodedly and out of delight is the outcome of her tragic childhood, and the same goes for the rest of the cast, their actions being the consequence of their motivations and not-so-pleasant personal stories. While many of the audience would remember this show for the action, what’s more fundamental is the core, which is the motley cast … read the full article at Nihon Review

Article Source: Nihon Review

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