Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail

OVA (5 eps x 34 min)
2010 - 2011
4.11 out of 5 from 11,772 votes
Rank #580

When someone kills Diego Lovelace, the only man to have been kind to 'the Maid' Roberta, any shred of faith and hope left within her is destroyed. For her, the only recourse is to find those responsible - allegedly agents of the United States of America - and make them suffer the same fate as her late master. Meanwhile in Roanapur, the mafia bosses are getting nervous about the world's deadliest woman running wild and drawing the attention of a superpower to their comfortable nest of sins. When Diego's son, Garcia Lovelace, arrives asking the Black Lagoon company to track her down, this seems the perfect opportunity to avert disaster. But can they stop Roberta before she reaches the United States Army and, inevitably, brings their wrath upon all of Roanapur?

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Reviews

VivisQueen
7.5

Story Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail fully exploits the OVA format to deliver a grittier, grimier ride through Roanapur. While the franchise traditionally splashed more explosions on our TV screens than gloopy ruby-red blood, that trend reverses here as our heroes slice, dice, bludgeon, and even saw their way through a bunch of unimportant nonentities. And that’s probably why we’ll love it despite some of its unfortunate blunders. Broadly speaking, this third outing is Black Lagoon suited, booted, and ready to conduct poker-faced business. Of course there still throbs a vein of chaos in this violent story: young maid Fabiola Iglesias’ ball-smashing debut fight in a bar is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser worth watching on repeat. Not to mention, the plot – one barmy housemaid against the US Army – sounds as though it was brainstormed with the same respect for plausibility as a Family Guy sketch. Nevertheless Black Lagoon: RBT reveals a new flirtation with sobriety, delivering more introspection and fewer action sequences to push the narrative along. Dense characterisation and naval-gazing discourse are the main courses on its menu, so that as the story progresses the action becomes progressively thinner on the ground. The main reward of this approach is the greater prominence of the dialogue, a peculiar Black Lagoon hallmark that has let it comfortably occupy a place at the top table of intelligent thrillers. Its playfully ironic repartee, as vague and metaphorical as it can get, also has superb comic timing and an urgency that skips and dances even when its intention is to slow things down. If anything, it thickens the characterisation precisely when the characters threaten to morph into silly cartoons. Even so, the bottom line sees Black Lagoon: RBT all too often abandoning the straightforward fantasy of Roberta’s revenge hunt for unnecessary, ultra-complex politics. In this murderous game everyone gets to play, from the various mafias to government agencies, and the viewer will often have to take for granted that the developments are natural since untangling everyone’s motivations becomes a mental assault course. Related to this is the unconvincing shift in Rock’s personality. The normally reserved salaryman transforms into a scheming antihero who can outthink even the most twisted of villains. At one point he predicts in preposterous detail the contents of a discussion happening miles from him merely because he thought hard about it. Assassins dressed up as maids – yes, this we can accept; gentle Rock in a sudden Death Note turn – no, no, no. It is a transformation that seems as unwelcome as it is sudden. The fact that the plot mechanics hinge on him becoming as cunning as the murderers he hunts only leads to the events at times appearing contrived and overcooked.  Animation Dingy alleys and crammed slums. Guns gleaming with dark, phallic pride. Scowling faces with penetrating stares. And all of this overhung with a semi-permanent sunset lighting in which violets and reds and pinks and oranges simmer and smoulder in a sultry symphony of colours. On the other hand, blood splatters. Blood splatters on the ground, blood on the walls, blood even on the implied camera lens. Black Lagoon: RBT’s animation envelops the viewer in a thick atmosphere and a gory conception of realism. The characters, unlike the backgrounds, look conventionally flat and move with no extraordinary dexterity unless required to during action scenes, but the show remains nevertheless damn beautiful to watch.  SoundI adore Mell’s ‘Red Faction’, which explains my acute disappointment at the bland remix that serves as the opening theme. I would have preferred either a new offering entirely or the old version with all the lyrics in place. The rest of the score functions well but evidences no notable artistry. Characters Anyone notice that the deadliest and bat-shit craziest people in Black Lagoon: RBT are the women? And queen of the cuckoos Roberta brings in a mesmeric performance here. She swallows handfuls of pills, which she then distractedly chases down with a straight whiskey. That merely suggests she didn’t read the packet instructions. But then we must consider her burning desire to take on the United States Army! This involves running around like a she-wolf in a butcher’s shop while the would-be warriors in her path become only so much sausage. Ferral and howling, she recreates a particularly awesome kind of animalistic rage: she slinks across rooftops light as a cat, she vaults and somersaults and lands on all fours; her eyes are always darting, her teeth shine in the moonlight, and the wolfish grin she wears is something straight out of A Clockwork Orange. Yet, we cannot dismiss her role as mere gimmickry. While she’s boldly caricatured on the edges, she displays the satisfying two-dimensionality that we’ve become used to from this franchise. During her monologues with ghosts of people she has killed, we witness a human as tortured as her squirming victims. Only, her scars are invisible. It seems almost unfair how uninteresting the guys are in comparison, with most of them popping up just to die anyway. Only Rock continues to have any significant impact, with his neutral, peace-seeking ideals morphing into something more unnerving. The good part is that his performance here relies far less on his interaction with Revy; whereas he seemed to exist mainly to serve as her foil in previous seasons, here he becomes a force in his own right. In fact, Revy mostly contents herself with sitting in the background, in turn glaring and smirking at events around her until called upon to back him up. My concern is mainly with the suddenness of the change in Rock. The show spends too little time laying the groundwork for his performance to convince, leaving us instead with an uncomfortably confused character. Moreover, I question the future utility of Rock, who represented the last glimmer of morality in the darkening cesspool of Roanapur: with powerfully enigmatic antagonists like Balalaika and Mr. Chang already commonplace, can a moody, scheming Rock still stand out?  OverallA growling, pounding funfair of violence and collateral damage – like Disneyland in reverse – Black Lagoon: RBT offers a fascinating maturity in style. Moreover, in terms of dialogue, its humour and self-awareness remain gleefully intact. Only Rock’s unnatural performance as a tortured antihero skulking and plotting mysteriously in the shadows bogs down an already overcomplicated plot. Instead of a whirlwind narrative with a bemused, morally upright salaryman at its eye, we get a web of intrigues and personal subplots that binge on melodrama once too often. Still, for all its flaws, Black Lagoon: RBT remains one of the few shows still giving us what we used to take for granted in the 90s: pretty-looking violence, rampant fun, and wit as sharp as an oiled machete. 

ThatAnimeSnob
6

Notice: This review covers all three installments of the franchise. No reason to make different reviews about the same thing.In a nutshell: A distillation of every bad or semi-competent Hollywood action flick cranked up to eleven, interspersed with some light philosophy, homage to other media (war films, Yakuza films) and some mature subjects like terrorism and child abuse. It got a cast like a Tarantino film, actually strong and competent female characters who don’t break down and need the male shoulder to cry on, and its tone and content is both over-the-top hilarious and at the same time features moments more mature than ten dozen Claymores and Narutos… That, AND boobs and guns.Black Lagoon can be a highly entertaining anime if you go all myopic on it; meaning to watch only specific aspects of it and have a blind eye to all the rest. To put it bluntly, it is a guilty pleasure series and you are going to watch it for the violence and the profanity. One should see it as a fun ride and not a profound deep show. Here is a list of the things it does right:- Very good production values, detailed backgrounds, exciting battle choreographies, good use of lighting effects, the BGM has its way of making your blood boil or making you feel the drama of the moment.- Extremity in violence, character personalities, battles, profanity, death toll, explosions, smoking, drinking, usually all of the above at the same time.- Gar fighters and butchy women. Uncommon at an era of moe girls and pitiful male protagonists.- Hints of seriousness thrown at intervals. Despite being a guilty pleasure series aiming at entertainment and not at realism, it was constantly throwing at you info about the harsh reality and how the cruel world really works behind the scenes. That was making it seem a bit intelligent and with some substance.- Making a parody of it all. It’s poking fun at the clichés of its own genre, thus becoming self-aware satire.- Best “chicks with guns” anime ever made thus far.You should not try to make sense out of it or you will hate it right away. The action scenes lack realism and a critical viewer will most likely bitch at how bullets never hit important characters while mooks die with instant headshots, or how the villains constantly freeze and stare like idiots or how useless they are at aiming at something standing half a meter away from them, or how the heroine can do some really impossible acrobatics to kill 10 men with a six-shooter.Besides the badass attitude of the characters at shooting bullets left and right, cursing, and laughing maniacally, they also have a softer side to them. Meaning they are not just hollow FPS caricatures; they get some fleshing out by revealing their backgrounds and things which affected them and turned them to what they are today. There isn’t much character development though, outside the main duo and even then it only appears in the last part of the franchise almost for playing against the stereotype.The story is mostly stand-alone arcs, but they don’t overstay their welcome and differ enough from each other in situations and gimmicks. Rock will be usually bitching about immorality, Revy will be shooting at everything that moves, and the discussions they will have with secondary characters during the intervals (while Revy is reloading guns, lol) provides a simple yet satisfying immersion to the story, leaving the viewer to ponder a bit about values… before Revy starts shooting again and all that matters is who remains standing up in the end of the battle. Since bullets change trajectory when they come near her and villains are complete idiots, well, there is little worry regarding if she wins or not.A point of notice is the gradual swift from mostly action to mostly social drama. Later arcs are longer with less action and better fleshed out situations and adversaries. It’s as if the creators of the show got bored with animating elaborate action scenes and went for characters that got fed up with their line of work. The badasses wanted to be pitied, while Rock had no more tears to shed and suddenly turned to a Machiavellian anti-hero. This reversing of personalities didn’t sit well with most, since nobody expected or wanted characters to develop in this sort of show.But anyways, if you manage to be half blind to the farfetched situations and don’t mind the emo-ness that slowly crawls in along the way, it is a great action show.

TeeDeeDubYa
8

Plot and Characters I loved Revy in this, Same cold stare and with that zero f's attitude she keeps in her pocket. The sexual advance she made at rock was awesome and how she took rejection was even more interesting. Revy has done zero harm to this anime and I'm glad they're writing more manga. Rock... sucked. I mean I expected a lot of what he did, but I detested how ideological he was. I mean... He's always ideological but they went WAY overboard during the OVAs. He's always quick to share what's on his mind and that makes for unnatural dialogue. I knew one guy like Rock and the guy was a complete tool. The string of events leading up to the maid's capture seemed lame and unbelievable. The fact that Rock orchestrated this makes it even more unbelievable. The Maid - I love how she totally loses her mind to the point where she can't tell what's reality. Her logic and backstory make it easy to see why she's so batshit crazy. Loved it. Balalaika - I loved her in the first two seasons... but they kinda changed her personality in the OVAs. Definitely the same old mob chick I love but something was off. She doesn't have anything to prove to the Americans and she already knew that. So, why would she do what she did? Why would she go on her crazy little rant to the Americans. Mind you, this is coming from the same chick who said she only wanted to see how long she could dance in the pit of hell. Lovelace kid - He wasn't too bad. I didn't hate him and he's kinda required considering he's the Maid's boss now. I think he was a positive force in the OVA. Mini maid - Not goanna bother to look up her name but she was interesting and consistent with the Lovelace family. The clash she got into with Revy over finishing off a dying man was pretty epic. Eda - I disliked the part where she spoke with Mr.. Chang through a voice modulator. It was mostly out of character... And Eda wouldn't do that... ---- Conclusion The OVAs are definitely worth watching however several of the characters have sudden personality changes from previous seasons. Far too much to be considered character growth.

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