Review of Black Lagoon

Black Lagoon is an action series, people have guns, people use guns, people die, pretty standard sounding, but everything about it works and creates a truly brilliant experience thanks to it's memorable cast of characters. The setting focuses on Southeast Asia where the Lagoon Company who are a team of mercenaries that specialise in smuggling goods. A lot of the time is spent in a fictional town in Tailand which is very run down and gangster run, it actually give a bit of a break from the almost perfect cities a lot of series are based in. The actual story is divided into small arcs made upof two or three episodes, they start with the introduction arc where we get to find out about the characters then goes onto various others where we get to see characters from all over the world including Russia, Germany, Columbia and Japan.

The art is very basic and not too much detail is drawn and some of the characters got slightly disformed in certain scenes but it never ditracts from the show, saying that the backgrounds were really nice, the animation is top notch and every scene is animated nicely, it even shows the slightest amounto of movement when a cigerette is burning and the motion of boats.

The sound for this show is sensational it really fits the setting, the opening is a great techno song with rather vulgar/agressive lyrics which adds to the flavor of the Anime, the ending is a slow sad feeling song, now it may seem weird after the opoening song comments but this also gives a great meaning to the show, although the opening shows whats on the outside and in the present of the show, the ending gives a feeling of what the main characters pasts were like and maybe gives the true feel.
Black Lagoon along with shows like Cowboy Bebop and baccano give us one of the best English dubs out there, every actor gives a great performance and we are treated to a variety of accents including those mentioned earlier we also have Chinese and Irish and they make the show even more fun to watch.

The characters of the show are what drives this show, they make everything fun as there is not one bad character, Revy is a foul mouthed girl-with-guns trigger happy type with a harsh past and Rock is a white collar type and doesn't like to get mixed up with the action but has a good mind and fights with words, these two really bounce off each other and make up for what the other lacks. One thing i noticed is most of the action comes from females, it seems that if you are female you are most likely more badass than all the guys. Dutch, Benny and Balalaika are fun and each have their own style as well as all the antagonists and minor characters

Black Lagoon is one of those shows that you can easily sit back and just enjoy, your not going to get any heavy drama here, your also not going to get a huge complex plot thats hard to keep up with, the cast of characters, the setting and the incredible voice acting make it one of the most enjoyable action shows.