Review of Black Lagoon

Black Lagoon is a frantic shoot-em-up anime that also provides substance to its characters. This show manages to find a decent balance between crazy shootouts and character development to satisfy those looking for an action anime or a decent story. Story: 7 The premise of this series is how a clean-cut businessman, fed up with the demeaning work life of someone at the bottom of the corporate ladder, breaks free of the shackles of his condensed world and pursues a completely opposite lifestyle for a chance to truly feel alive. This story is akin to that of Fight Club, though on a much more radical scale. Thereisn't much of an overarching storyline to this series. The season mainly follows Lagoon Company as they perform deliveries for clients, which almost never go as planned. Beyond this, the show steadily fleshes out the internalization of each character, to remind us that even the craziest of gun-toting mercenaries are still human after all. While this is all something to take note of, especially for an action anime like this, it isn't presented in a way that would really tug at your emotions, at least not enough for the story to really be considered that of great merit. Still, it's great to come across an action anime that actually cares about the people carrying the guns.

Art/Sounds: 6/7

The art, while nothing really worth singing about, is tailored nicely to display all the visceral scenes of destruction and bloodshed. What else is that the artists have made great using of lighting and shadows in certain scenes, mainly for scene structure and highlighting faces. The show features a wide variety of firearms and explosions that all sounds believable enough. The action scenes are often scored with some mean metal rock music, which I guess is to be expected. And while it isn't much worth noting, I always enjoyed how the music at the end of each episode transitioned into the ending credits, which is a nice touch.

Characters: 7

While the show features plenty of entertaining, yet often ridiculous, firefights, the show pays close attention to its cast members more than you'd think for a show as gritty as this. A major theme presented throughout the show is the struggle to deal with the woes of the past, something that nearly every character in the show has in common. Probably the most often explored character is Revy: a person who was forced into a life of constant struggle for survival at a young age, who eventually used her lethal skills as a means for profit, because it is the only thing she knows how to do. Everyone in Lagoon Company, even some of the antagonists for that matter, all have demons from their past that they're carrying with them. One complaint I have is the dialogue. It is weirdly hit or miss: you have some situations that truly sound organic, especially during those of character exposition, then you have others that don't quite hit the mark. I think the greatest example of this is Rock's frequent internal (sometimes external) monologues. I won't say that they're annoying, but they often sound like someone who is reading off of a script, as opposed to someone who is truly lost in thought. Despite this, it is still a pleasure to delve into the inner workings of these crooked people, who all gather at the city of Roanapur to relish in the only life they've even known, while knocking back a few drinks at The Yellow Flag.

Enjoyment: 8

The action scenes are a lot of fun to watch. Though in some cases (ESPECIALLY episode 2) they just get downright absurd, but in sort of a good way that ends up being more entertaining. It manages to hit that sweet spot where the ridiculousness adds to the enjoyment, without overdoing it to the point where you become detached from it all and wait for the scene to be over. Now and then you have refreshing scenes of character development and story progression, and the producers did a good job of knowing when and where to place these scenes in a way that feels natural, and not forced.

Conclusion:

Black Lagoon is quite entertaining on both an action and story level, sort of a rare breed in the genre. While its story and characters may not be something worth an Oscar nomination (they have anime at the Oscars, right?), they still hold a good standard of literary merit, enough for you to care about the characters and their outcomes. The action is, to put it in a weird way, reservedly over-the-top, meaning that it's crazy and frantic in a good way. Black Lagoon offers a lot of entertainment value for a variety of audiences, something that you might find yourself having a marathon watch if you allow yourself to get hooked on it.