Black Lagoon

Information of Anime

Okajima Rokuro never had an easy life.  Working as a normal businessman in Japan, he worked very hard & gets pushed around by his bosses.  One day, he was sent to the seas of Eastern China to deliver a disc.  But he gets hijacked by a group of mercenaries who were interested in the disc.  Revy, a member of the mercenaries, captures Okajima as hostage for ransom.  However, it seems the company that he worked for wasn't interested in him & the disc contained some dangerous data that wasn't know to him.  Because of this experience, Okajima leaves the company & the company agrees to announce him dead in Japan.  Under a new name "Rock", he decides to stick around with the mercenaries & do some dirty work.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Basically, it's about the Lagoon company doing some mercenary work.  Most of the time, we see Revy & Rock paired up together in their assignments.  Because of Rock's intelligence, they manage to pull through some difficult tasks.  However, Revy isn't too impress with his skills in terms of killing people & using weapons.  Dutch, the leader of the group, always pair the two together in what seems to be the benefit for Rock & Revy.  Over time, the 2 manage to work well together as the show progress.

The ending of the show is open as it leaves it feel incomplete & wanting more.  I think of it as leaving the viewers at the climax without ending the story.

My Personal Review

Black Lagoon is a great action anime show to watch.  However, it's got a lot of blood & disturbing shots of body parts breaking apart or bursting.  This isn't something recommended for a younger audience.  Also, it's got a fair amount of colourful language in it.

Animation

The character designs aren't too bad.  They have that cool & cold composure.  The women here aren't sexy & hot like you would see in today's anime shows.  They are pretty tomboyish & have some manly look in them.  The image of the characters are really good & they really fit my image on how their personality would be like.

The backgrounds are pretty good.  They are pretty dull & creates a good image of the rundown cities & battlefields.  However, there are times where the background is too dark that you can't see it properly at some angles.

The colours are a mixture of bright & dull colours.  However, you see more of the dullness than brightness.  But, the outlines of the characters are pretty thick & heavy.  It's quite noticeable on the faces.

The animation movements are pretty realistic.  However, there are situations are things aren't normal.  The fight scenes with Roberta is a good example.  No matter what type of punishment is she takes, she's still stand.  Plus, her aerial movements are insanely not normal.  Overall, the movements are fluid.

Sound

The sound effect aren't too bad.  For some reason, some of the sounds don't sound good in terms of realism.  The gunshots sound fake as it was a popping sound of something else.

The seiyuus for this show are pretty good.  They portrayed their characters very well & I liked how each & everyone of them sounded.

The music isn't too bad.  It's quiet most of the times as the other sounds like the voices & effects overpowers it a lot.  There are some songs that are a like weird to create those funny situations, but most of the time it's on the heavy metal side.  Since the music is sound, it's hard to get into the mood of the music or remember them in your head.

Story

Basically the Lagoon company doing some mercenary work for a living.  However, we see some character development from Rock & his relationship with Revy.  The pace of the character development is pretty smooth & doesn't create a lot of problems.  It's pretty realistic & believable.  We don't see Rock going from a weak Japanese businessman to a hardcore mercenary in a very short time.  In fact, he's still weak physical even though his brain helps get him out of some situations.  Also, we get to see Revy going a little soft for Rock for some reason.  It's not explained too well in the show.

The ending of the show is a disappointment in my view.  It ended with 13 episodes which I thought was too short.  You would think there is more to the show, but there isn't.  It doesn't show much character development when things get good & the show does open up for continuation if there is any.  I felt it end it too poorly for such an interesting series.

Overall Conclusion

Black Lagoon is a great action show to watch.  Lots of fights & heart pounding scenes.  However, the show ends too sudden & leaves a lot of things untied.  Unless another season is in the works, this show is a disappointed as it makes you say "that's it?"  If you like gun slinging action & don't mind a lot of blood, this is a highly recommend choice.

Black Lagoon gets an eight out of ten from me.  The show is packed with action & really mature.  However, the story & character elements need a lot of work for a show that is 13 episodes short.  You will like it at the start, but may feel upset at the end.  However, another season would later appear.

Last updated on December 19, 2007