Anime Review: Black Lagoon, Volume 1

04 Sep, 2007

Posted by: David In: Anime Reviews

Black Lagoon DVD cover Volume One from Geneon Rachel and I recently watched Black Lagoon, Volume 1. Geneon promoted Black Lagoon pretty well at Anime Central and Anime Expo this year. I think it’s a pretty big release for them - next to Hellsing in terms of being the ‘next big thing‘. That means the show has some pretty big boots to fill. So is it any good? Well, yes it’s good. But what about the whole ‘Hellsing’ thing? That’s an interesting answer that I’ll get back to later in the review. In the meantime, check out the slogan for Black Lagoon:

Filled with scenes of heroic bloodshed, Black Lagoon is action incarnate! - The Official Black Lagoon Website

Now I don’t know how you feel about the above quote (see above), but it scared me a little. And by scared, I don’t mean in a ‘werewolf jumps out of the woods in front of me at midnight‘ kinda scared. No, I mean more of a ‘can I handle action incarnate?‘ kinda scared. Well, it turns out that yes indeed, I can handle ‘incarnate action’.

We watched volume one via English dub. One of the ‘big deals’ about the series has been how the English voice cast is great with the accents and all that. So I demanded we watch it dubbed (gasp)! Since the series doesn’t take place in Japan - and there’s only one Japanese character in the cast - I don’t feel too guilty. I will apologize to the Japanese voice actors - all of your hard work was lost to me with this one, so I’m sorry! But it’s OK, because I’m currently watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with Japanese subtitles! So the balance of good versus evil has been maintained…depending on your point-of-view.

Action Incarnate

As you may already have suspected, this is going to be an unusual ride of a review. We watched Shawn of the Dead again last night, and then I followed that up with the original cut of Superman II, so my brain might be a little mixed up. Let’s see how it turns out anyway, OK?

Story

The main story centers on the four mercenaries (kinda like the A-Team): Revy, Rock, Dutch and Benny. They call their business ‘Black Lagoon’ (Creature from the Black Lagoon is NOT a member). Their main client is the Russian mob group Hotel Moscow. The Black Lagoon company takes all sorts of jobs like gun battles, fistfights, explosions and occasionally a boat-versus-helicoptor fight!

Black Lagoon Versus The A-Team!

Black Lagoon started out as a manga created by Rei Hiroe. Thankfully they decided to turn it into an anime series. Not to imply that I have followed the manga for years. But I’m sure fans of the manga would say ‘thankfully’, so I am glad. ‘Thankfully’ there is a manga series too. Because I liked the anime and was hoping there was a manga too.

Volume One Episodes

Volume contains the first four episodes of the series:

Episode 01: The Black Lagoon - It’s a great intro episode
Episode 02: Mangrove Heaven - High-level action, followed by more action. Watch for the boat-versus-helicoptor fight!
Episode 03: Ring-Ding Ship Chase - One of the coolest scenes from the show featuring Revy jumping from ship-to-ship, shooting people
Episode 04: Die RÃ¼ckkehr des Adlers - A nice historical flashback episode. This episode helps give the show a deeper feel than the previous episodes.

Characters

Who are the characters? They’re basically the ‘heroes’. You’ll see various baddies in the first volume, but you don’t need to keep score yet. It’s easy to jump into the first few episodes, since it’s all about introducing the team. So I encourage you to meet:

Revy - She’s a volatile combination of spunky, deadly, crazy and hottie. She’s really cool during the gun battles.
Rock - He was a Japanese business person who was kidnapped by the Black Lagoon crew. Watch as he suddenly, like Anakin Skywalker, switches sides and becomes one of the team members!
Dutch - He’s the leader, who seems pretty level-headed and cares about the crew. I think he makes the team look more lik heroes than criminals.
Benny - As the ‘electronics expert’, he’s the computer guy.

Rock turns to the dark side
That was a quick transformation!

Production

Production on this show is almost (but not quite) on par with Hellsing: Ultimate. I realize that Hellsing has a much bigger budget, but this show looks great.

Character Design

Remind you of Pulp Fiction?

Very strong character designs throughout the show. Character lines are crisp and clean, colors are solid and every character has personality. Some of the expressions and camera angles make it feel a bit like Hellsing: Ultimate.

Music

I though the music was a great fit for the show. It’s energy fit well with the action.

Likes & Dislikes

I liked the overall production (attention to detail, quality of the animation, etc.). I disliked some of the Russian mob plot, but it seems like they’re building something there. I’ll have to watch additional episodes in order to say for sure.

Conclusion

Revy from Black Lagoon Overall I enjoyed the first volume of Black Lagoon. Even though this was the first four episodes, the series jumps into high gear right away. Each episodes has something unique to offer and it’s nice to see such high-quality in the production.

Earlier, I mentioned something about ‘filling Hellsing’s boots’. What did I mean by that? Well, Rachel and I were watching it and we had Hellsing: Ultimate fresh on our mind. I think it was episode four where they start dealing with flashbacks to World War II. It felt very ‘Hellsing-ishy’. Which was cool, because then we started talking about how the whole Black Lagoon ‘world’ could fit into Hellsing’s ‘world’. Anyway, I just wanted to mention it because it was an interesting though. Let me know what you think in the comments!