Review of Black Lagoon

Black Lagoon is a unique little anime, stuffed to the core with heart pounding action, crazy shootouts, insane characters, knee-slapping black humor, and enough f-bombs to make your grandmother's ears bleed with rage. [Story] The episodes of Black Lagoon consist of the Lagoon crew's various jobs as mercenaries/pirates. These jobs are never peaceful and simple. They all usually end in dramatic shootouts. There isn't exactly an overarching storyline, you just see the Lagoon crew take on their jobs. Occasionally we get a little backstory on the characters, but this anime mostly uses over the top action and dark humor to keep the audience hooked. Its muchmore interesting than it sounds though. The style of this anime is reminiscent of action films, the kind that awe you with its actions, guns, and violence, not so much with its deep storyline and character development. Its fine though, because although Black Lagoon isn't big on its storyline or characters, it still manages to play out well and keep you hooked. 8/10

[Art and Sound]

As a 6 year old anime, it holds up well in the art and sound department. The english dub in particular is what shines about this anime. Its excellent, and every bit as entertaining as the original audio. Revy takes some getting used to, but everyone else is mostly excellent. This is probably one of the best dubs I've heard. Its also a nice touch to hear all the different accents. You'll hear everything from Russian to Spanish to Chinese accents. The gratuitous swearing is hilarious to me, but I can see some people seeing the foul language as unnecessary. 9/10

[Characters]

Oh yes, the characters. Being primarily focused on action, Black Lagoon is chock full of badass characters. The Lagoon crew dukes it out with everyone from maids with umbrella guns to Neo Nazis. Each new enemy always manages to be interesting, brutal, and unforgiving, carrying their own arsenal of unique and odd weapons. The only real complaint I have is how little development and backstory we get. Revy and Rock get a little backstory and development, while Dutch and Benny get almost none. This doesn't mean they are bad characters. Their personalities and interactions are all interesting, especially when you see how city boy bussinessman Rock's ideals clash with his ruthless Lagoon crewmates. But you also have to consider what Black Lagoon was trying to do. It takes a leaf out of the book of western action movies, and in those types of movies, characters tend to be sort of static, getting little to no development. But the saving grace of these characters is that they are cool, powerful, and interesting. Looking at it this way, the characters are all great, and succeed at entertaining the audience. 8/10

[Enjoyment]

I thoroughly enjoyed Black Lagoon. It made me laugh, it made me sigh, it made me go DAMN, it had me on the edge of my seat. This is probably one of the coolest action anime out there. Its definetly an anime that no hardcore action fan would want to pass up. 9/10

[Overall]

Overall Black Lagoon is a great anime. Its foul, its funny, and it oozes action from its veins. I'd highly recommend this to any fan of action anime. I'd even go as far as to recommend it to someone who hasn't watched anime. Its got a sort of western appeal and vibe to it, sort of like Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop. The kind that draws in fans and non fans of anime alike. 8/10