Review of Black Lagoon

Opening Thoughts : Black Lagoon is about a japanese businessman taken hostage by the Lagoon Company, a mercenary pirate group sailing around Roanpur,Thailand. He was taken hostage because of a disk that contained important data from the company he had worked for and later realized his life in Japan was thrown away from his boss to as a cover up. Sick and tired of his old businessman life, he ends up joining Lagoon Company on an epic adventure in the criminal underworld. The crew of the Lagoon Company is Dutch, a black man that seems to be in charge of the entire crew, Benny, theintelligence guy. Not very combatant but is good for information, Revy (a.k.a) Two Hands, a chinese woman who has a dark past but one of the best sexy gunslingers you will ever see. And Rock. The name of that Japanese businessman who used to be known as Rokuro Okajima.

Plot : Is the plot any good? Hell yes! Many animes usually take place around Japan or some fictional land. Black Lagoon is not. I am amazed at the writers of this anime and manga where it originated from. The world in Black Lagoon is portrayed very realistically. I'm sure the creators have took the time to study how different cultures are in the several locations and characters of the series. The plot mainly revolves around the many jobs and missions Lagoon Company operates. Each of their tasks aren't very straightforward. They usually go out of hand because of some trouble or they were lied upon. /10

Characters : Very well-crafted set of characters. Some of them have deep backstories such as Revy but we pretty much know the race and location of each character. Not all of them are asians and stereotypical white guys. We got columbians, russians, germans, each with their own accents. 9/10

English Dub : As I mentioned above, many characters have their own unique accent depending where they are from. Many anime fans probably think english dubs are inferior to the regular japanese cast. But for Black Lagoon, that is a different story because the characters are multi-racial and are from different countries. Revy is chinese, but was born in the Manhatten area of New York. Benny is from Florida. One character is from a Cartel in South America and speaks in his native accent. There is also flashbacks for a small side plot portraying nazis back in the 40's. The voice actors for those back story characters did an. excellent performance portraying genuine german accents. Another character who is taiwanese speaks "chinglish" which is basically a broken english dialect. This just shows how great the dub is and isn't just some english voices slapped on great anime. Rock and some of the minor japanese characters however sound like the typical english dub voices.

Animation/Art : Very well done. A ton of things are in details such as the many weapons in featured in the anime. Everything looks beautiful especially since many of the scenes take place in the middle of the ocean. 9/10

Sound : (Read English Dub section of review for voices). The sound for the guns are just great. Everything feels believable. Not much I can say about background sounds but everything feels like the anime is real. 9/10

Final Thoughts : If you love guns, actions, a sexy strong female character, and tons of profanity, then Black Lagoon is for you. There isn't really anything bad about Black Lagoon. It's just perfect. The English dub alone just tells me that the actors took great effort to make their voices be part of this great anime. It's just totally entertaining including the gun fights. The action scenes aren't overly cartoony but feels more like typical american action flicks. The series does take place around the 90's after all. One freaking great anime!!!!

10/10