Wirusan

Watched on Blu-Ray DVD Release- Covers Fisrt And Second Season

Foreword

 Daisy Dukes, gunfights, nazis, attack choppers, pirates, samurais, smoking, bad language, asscheeks, and MORE GUNS! All of what you can ask for in an action anime rolled up into one nicotine and scotch flavored burrito wrapped in a testosterone tortilla. This is Black Lagoon & here's ya boy Wiru-san's take on it! Let us begin!

Story

The city of Roanapur it's where all the filth accumulates, all the crooks and the theives congregate here basically nothing good comes from here

 Like a certain website

 Enter our pal Rokuro Okajima,he is a buisnessman for a large company that seemingly deals with data and stuff like that. He is brought along as a translator and pushed around to do basically whatever his superiors want

 Pushover is his middle name

He lives a pretty mundane life that he's content with. He goes on a cruise because of a business trip with the company and this is when he gets a warm welcome 

Say hello to Mr. Smith & Wesson and his Lady Friends Beretta

 Rokuro's company ship gets hijacked by pirates known as The Lagoon Company, kind of like Captain Phillips with less africans and more Femme Fatales with daisy dukes on. The Lagoon Company kidnap Rokuro in hopes of ransoming him to his company and getting some extra money. Shit hits the fan and it turns out Rokuro's company had a CD that was being transported that carried nuke algorithims on it that they were going to transfer to someone and Rokuro happened to be on the boat that contained said nuke codes....So they kinda say fuck you and make it their goal to destroy everyone on that boat so the secret doesn't get out 

Sorry buddy you're not worth it

His past life is now gone, they already have the funeral planned. To everyone he ever knew in Japan he's a dead man. Now the Lagoon crew are pissed and Rokuro joins forces with the ragtag group to try and get out of this flustercluck

From Left to Right: Benny, Rokuro, Revy, Dutch

 He must join forces with a black guy,a jew, and hot headed gun toting chinese american. After they get out of their quagmire Rokuro meets up with his boss and The Lagoon Company helped set up a transfer,however Rokuro abandons this offer and decides to join the Lagoon Company, he is no longer Rokuro but is now Rock and accompanies them throughout all their misadventures.

 Badassery insues

The plot is very episodic but the events that take place carry over, they follow the characters and because of that it stops just being a action show about blowing shit up. You want to see why Revy is so pissed or why Rock is feeling sad. The episodes range from mindless micheal bay type shit, to touching and serious, to funny and it's never a dull moment in between. Each episode felt satisfying, some things they hint at in the story and never really fully explain what or how it happens. That kinda ticked me off don't bring it up if you aren't going to at least give a smidge of information.

Story:8

 Animation

 I'll tell you one thing about MADHOUSE they LOVE their guns and I love the models for their guns. I mean look at this show and Gunslinger Girl  they always do a great job and realistic portrayal to their weapons.

Not only do the weapons look great the overall animation is badass too. Characters pull off shit straight from a John Woo movie, and speaking of that this anime is just oozing with western cinema tropes. They actually make referecnes to western action flicks, Sunao Katabuchi probably loves these action flicks and you can see the influence just by watching it

 You can't tell me Chang isn't supposed to be Chow Yun Fat

Not to mention the ever so blatant homage to the best 90's action film there is...mohterfucking T2 I jizzed when I saw this reference

That's fucking amazing, you see it has the influence from western and gunslinger movies as a whole here and the gun fights look fucking badass too.

 There's never really a moment when the animation looks shitty. It isn't top notch at all times but it's never bad either.

Also

I laughed so fucking hard when I saw this

Animation: 8 (Lotton 10)

Sound

Let me just clear this up now, if there is one thing that definately is bad about this anime it's the fucking Opening. That Op sucks eggs, I don't know why they thought it'd be a good idea to have some lady sing in Engrish. It's skippable and I can't imagine someone listening to the entire song let alone the op more than once but I guess it's not super terrible at least it has a good structure?

As for the other music two things stand out.

There's the song "The World of Midnight" which is used in the conclusion of my favorite arc, it gave the show a different tone. The song is a beautiful one that paints the characters in a different light who I believe are another movie reference.  I like the solo version better

There's also the ending theme that is remnisent of some orchestral piece in minor. It's a sad piece and it's cool how the use it to end the episode

Also each time there's a fight scene this typical heavy guitar badass theme plays and that was pretty good got you ready for the scene. It was aight

As for the sub and the dub, the voice acting for both were good and the curse words just flow better in english (because that's my native tongue) however I prefered the sub's voices over the dubs. They were both good though so you'd be good with either one

Sound: 7.5

Characters

From left to right: Balaika, Eda, Revy, Shenhua, Roberta

The cast of Black Lagoon is full of badass characters and most of them are female too. Lets focus on the main four though

 Let's start with "everyone's favorite femme fatale" Revy or by her real name Rebecca which no one ever calls her, if someone did she'd probably kill them. Revy is the gunman of the Lagoon crew and she's damned good at what she does

 She's like a fucked up version of Lara Croft

She's not lady like at all and doesn't give a damn what other people think of her, she does what she wants when she wants. She drinks her rum straight and curses like a sailor and is the definiton of badass. Rock is the main character but you will see her on the cover & posters all do to her badassery.

 Straight Bacardi...Now It's a Party

Revy is not only a musclehead she actually develops as the show goes on. She's had a damaged childhood and shows no remorse for her actions until Rock joins them. Rock is like the polar opposite of Revy and with him here she starts to think about her actions more often, something she isn't fond of doing. 

Revy is awesome and there's no denying that but I want to take a moment to adress all the people that say Revy's character is sexist and all that other bullshit. There's no denying that they use her for fanservice

I'm not denying that, but so what if they are. They are in the islands of Roanapur and it looks like it's pretty fucking warm over there. Revy looks like the type to get pissed off in the summer and cut her pants into shorts, that's probably what happened. That's just how she is, and all of the female cast are the most badass out of everyone in the show.  I mean my favorite character in One Piece like never has on a shirt and is ripped as fuck that doesn't make his character sexist

 He looks like a gay cowboy stripper

Now if that isn't manservice then my name is Edwardo Jamestown Jerimiah the 4th...and it's not

The things I do for lulz

There's also this

Revy raised Hilda and you can't tell me otherwise 

 Then we have Dutch the leader of the Lagoon crew and captain of the ship. He is philosophical and very wise. He's a mysterious man, one thing we do know is that he knows a lot of people and cares for his ship and crew. What we don't know is if he actually cares or is it because they make him money? I like to believe the former but I could really see it going both ways, although Dutch doesn't seem like an asshole. We never really know about Dutch's past and that's one of the main things with the Lagoon crew anyway you don't have to discolse that and they rather you didn't.

 Dutiche leads and Benny does machines! Benny is the tech guy that does...er tech stuff. Him and rock are two sanest indiviuals in the entire show. Benny is a pretty chill guy and we never know that much about him either. He's always by their side and without him they wouldn't get anywhere

 We have our protaginist Rock who at first glance looks like he might turn out to become a Shinji and let me tell you it's the exact opposite it's what Shinji should've become. We see Rock grow the most and he has an influence on the Lagoon crew it's badass to see him stand up after he's been ordered around his whole life

These two here

There's this obvious attraction going on between them although you could argue that it isn't a romantic one, but that's not what i want! 

Just do it!

A character that deserves a worthy mention 

 Balalaika is the head of the Russian Mafia and she gives the Lagoon a bunch of their jobs. She is hands down the most powerful person in the entire show and we all want to know...

How'd you get those got damned scars

She is cold blooded and a total badass there are parts where I think the show wants to you to root against her but I always found my  self rooting for her. She's just too badass.

There are more characters that are also cool but these are the main ones you'll be seeing the most of 

Characters: 8.5

Overall

Black Lagoon is an action packed anime that starts off with a sprint and is able to keep up the pace even though each episode brings different elements: some serious, some funny, and some that are dark. The show is consistently badass and it rarely lets up

Score: 8

Verdict: Grate

Something that is grate takes you on a great journey and ultimately leaves you satisfied. Any bumps along the road are taken with stride and don’t take away from your experience

Recomendation: Watch it! and Buy it!

 As always that's your boy wiru-san's take on it. Follow me on my Tumblr and check out my channel on Youtube. And Remember to stay the hell away from woodchippers.