Should I watch Black Lagoon?
note: I'm LA
The world is cruel, unforgiving and unfair...
Black Lagoon is an anime that lives up to it's name of high octane thriller whilst looking at the morality and virtues of humans by looking at the darkest, crime-riddled sectors of the world where our main protagonists resides.......Roanapur, Thailand.
Black Lagoon's plot format for the most part are isolated jobs the Lagoon Company goes through besides the first few episodes that focuses on the Rokurou "Rock" Okajima voiced by Daisuke Namikawa and how he became a part of the Lagoon Co. Each of the villains of this first season is "diverse" for the most part though they go to extremes mainly due to Revy, the gun totting madwoman of Lagoon Company only wanting to finish the mission at any cost, and other third parties pushing either the villains themselves or pushing a mission onto Lagoon Company and getting them involved with the villains of each arc. There are two villains however that get a bit of sympathy, those being Roberta voiced by Michie Tomizawa, a mercenary maid looking for her master who is very similar to Revy in many ways but becomes friendly rivals to her, more rivals than friendly, the other being Masahiro Takenaka voiced by Katsuhiko Sasaki an extremist only due to society pushing him to the brink. However for the rest of the rogue gallery the Lagoon Company faces off, they are stock evil but crazy at that considering what part of the world this anime takes place in and what jobs they go through, that's ok as it makes for great relief once these scummy villains meet their demise.
So what about the Lagoon Company themselves?. Revy is LA's favourite character mainly because of her badassery (of course), however her lack of morality and her horrible upbringing does cause friction to Rock as Rock was having a normal life before getting recruited into Lagoon Company and wants to help innocent people who are in the firing line and sympathize with the villains at times but also succeed in their mission at the same time. They are complete opposites and oddly enough it makes for a dysfunctional relationship between the two. Dutch voiced by Tsutomu Isobe the leader of Lagoon Company has his past comes to haunt him but overall tries to keep Revy in check and usually takes contracts through Balalaika voiced by Mami Koyama, one of the more powerful characters in the anime right next to Roberta and Revy, Benny voiced by Hiroaki Hirata, Lagoon's mechanic and computer specialist, he probably has the least development in the group. LA presumes as much as Black Lagoon's plot forces the characters to act, it's not so much a bad thing as the characters and their interactions with one another are the most interesting things in this anime as much as the plot forces them, we get batshit crazy gun totting thrilling action laced with deep morality issues, makes sense to LA.
The animation by Madhouse still stands out to this day, even when this anime was released in 2006, the action is amazingly fluid and addrenalined fueled and wholesale destruction. Character designs are very distinct and exotic, Revy being an obvious example and the beautiful and intentionally depressing backgrounds and differing locales makes the animation stand out even further but yeah the animation lies in the thrilling action scenes which gets more insane as the episodes goes along. Madhouse outdid themselves and is expected Madhouse quality.
The voice acting is great as well from Megumi Toyoguchi doing a great brash, no fucks given character roles and some decent English laced inbetween, Mami Koyama and Michie Tomizawa did brilliantly in voicing charismatic badass (and that's saying something Roberta's voice actor!). As for the differing accents considering that the majority of characters aren't Japanese, LA gets at the time Black Lagoon was released, finding different voice actor who are fluent in English, Irish, Taiwanese or Deutsch would be extremely hard to find thus LA gets the awkward accenting done with some of the characters the best example being Shenhua voiced by Youko Sasaki. LA's favourite voice actor?...Megumi Toyoguchi of course bar none.
This being is a creation by Rei Hirose who loves Western media and Black Lagoon shows it in spades, from characters quoting American movies and pop culture and prominent figures in America, the name dropping in this anime is amazing and many of it isn't just for a name drop as many of shoutouts to American pop culture and movies makes sense to the context. It might be annoying at times but LA quite enjoyed it, it gave not only the characters personality but gave the anime itself it's own solid personality by paying homage to Western media.
LA definitely understands Black Lagoon's fame and popularity and LA merely had a taste of it with this first season, sure this first season's finale ended on a vague note but LA kinda understands this due to the isolated job plot format this season had and again LA gets this. Black Lagoon is an amazing thrill ride of destruction, deep introspective of human morality without it being preachy about it and through that are able to develop it's mysterious main characters of Lagoon Co. through the odd jobs they go through.
note: I'm LA
The world is cruel, unforgiving and unfair...
Black Lagoon is an anime that lives up to it's name of high octane thriller whilst looking at the morality and virtues of humans by looking at the darkest, crime-riddled sectors of the world where our main protagonists resides.......Roanapur, Thailand.
Black Lagoon's plot format for the most part are isolated jobs the Lagoon Company goes through besides the first few episodes that focuses on the Rokurou "Rock" Okajima voiced by Daisuke Namikawa and how he became a part of the Lagoon Co. Each of the villains of this first season is "diverse" for the most part though they go to extremes mainly due to Revy, the gun totting madwoman of Lagoon Company only wanting to finish the mission at any cost, and other third parties pushing either the villains themselves or pushing a mission onto Lagoon Company and getting them involved with the villains of each arc. There are two villains however that get a bit of sympathy, those being Roberta voiced by Michie Tomizawa, a mercenary maid looking for her master who is very similar to Revy in many ways but becomes friendly rivals to her, more rivals than friendly, the other being Masahiro Takenaka voiced by Katsuhiko Sasaki an extremist only due to society pushing him to the brink. However for the rest of the rogue gallery the Lagoon Company faces off, they are stock evil but crazy at that considering what part of the world this anime takes place in and what jobs they go through, that's ok as it makes for great relief once these scummy villains meet their demise.
So what about the Lagoon Company themselves?. Revy is LA's favourite character mainly because of her badassery (of course), however her lack of morality and her horrible upbringing does cause friction to Rock as Rock was having a normal life before getting recruited into Lagoon Company and wants to help innocent people who are in the firing line and sympathize with the villains at times but also succeed in their mission at the same time. They are complete opposites and oddly enough it makes for a dysfunctional relationship between the two. Dutch voiced by Tsutomu Isobe the leader of Lagoon Company has his past comes to haunt him but overall tries to keep Revy in check and usually takes contracts through Balalaika voiced by Mami Koyama, one of the more powerful characters in the anime right next to Roberta and Revy, Benny voiced by Hiroaki Hirata, Lagoon's mechanic and computer specialist, he probably has the least development in the group. LA presumes as much as Black Lagoon's plot forces the characters to act, it's not so much a bad thing as the characters and their interactions with one another are the most interesting things in this anime as much as the plot forces them, we get batshit crazy gun totting thrilling action laced with deep morality issues, makes sense to LA.
The animation by Madhouse still stands out to this day, even when this anime was released in 2006, the action is amazingly fluid and addrenalined fueled and wholesale destruction. Character designs are very distinct and exotic, Revy being an obvious example and the beautiful and intentionally depressing backgrounds and differing locales makes the animation stand out even further but yeah the animation lies in the thrilling action scenes which gets more insane as the episodes goes along. Madhouse outdid themselves and is expected Madhouse quality.
The voice acting is great as well from Megumi Toyoguchi doing a great brash, no fucks given character roles and some decent English laced inbetween, Mami Koyama and Michie Tomizawa did brilliantly in voicing charismatic badass (and that's saying something Roberta's voice actor!). As for the differing accents considering that the majority of characters aren't Japanese, LA gets at the time Black Lagoon was released, finding different voice actor who are fluent in English, Irish, Taiwanese or Deutsch would be extremely hard to find thus LA gets the awkward accenting done with some of the characters the best example being Shenhua voiced by Youko Sasaki. LA's favourite voice actor?...Megumi Toyoguchi of course bar none.
This being is a creation by Rei Hirose who loves Western media and Black Lagoon shows it in spades, from characters quoting American movies and pop culture and prominent figures in America, the name dropping in this anime is amazing and many of it isn't just for a name drop as many of shoutouts to American pop culture and movies makes sense to the context. It might be annoying at times but LA quite enjoyed it, it gave not only the characters personality but gave the anime itself it's own solid personality by paying homage to Western media.
LA definitely understands Black Lagoon's fame and popularity and LA merely had a taste of it with this first season, sure this first season's finale ended on a vague note but LA kinda understands this due to the isolated job plot format this season had and again LA gets this. Black Lagoon is an amazing thrill ride of destruction, deep introspective of human morality without it being preachy about it and through that are able to develop it's mysterious main characters of Lagoon Co. through the odd jobs they go through.
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