Anime Review :: Black Lagoon: The First Barrage

Director - Sunao Katabuchi
Language – English Dub
Run – 12 Episodes [2006]
Genre – Action. Modern Pirates. Boobs & Guns

I am hopelessly devoted to explosions and swearing. Sure, at the end of the day my true loves in life may be slow-burning, thought-provoking travels into the soul, but, it’s hard to deny the sheer joy of a good pistol-whipping at the hands of a foul-mouthed, scantily-clad anime gal with an unreasonably mysterious past.

Substance isn’t exactly a strong-suit of Rei Hiroe’s Black Lagoon. But, honestly who needs substance when things explode.

Black Lagoon: The First Barrage, set in the 1990’s, focuses on the story of The Lagoon Company, a group of loveable smugglers working the high seas of Southeast Asia, and their adventures involving newest kidnapee-turned-recruit Rokuro Okajima. After a classic wrong-place-wrong-time for Rokuro, who’s taken along with a set of classified documents that you wouldn’t expect to be left with a low-level, unarmed company guy, he’s taken onboard by Lagoon after proving himself as a strategic thinker, business asset, and all-around swell fella.

The cast is rounded out by Dutch, the cool-headed gigantic black ex-marine leader of the team, token computer nerd Benny, and Revy, the resident murderous bipolor lunatic who graces most of the series promotional artwork and eats up most of the screen time.

(Benny, Benny's Orange Shirt, Rock, Revy, Dutch)

From there begins the fast-paces, high-energy, often scattershot tales of Rock (Rokuro) and friends on the high seas.

For a series well known for its violence and adult content, it’s actually quite tame outside of the fierce language. With only one notable appearance of boobins and most of Revy’s samurai-like entire-army-killing sprees obscured by smoke, shadows, or camera pans, it’s the sort of violence that’s easy to take if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t stomach it easily. Something that was a wise choice in maintaining the action sequences “oh shit” factors while never becoming a big bloody distraction.

The English dialogue flows remarkably considering its lack of content, mostly filled with quick insults, yelling, and obtuse observations to pull the story along behind the trail of gunsmoke, cigarette butts, and cold bodies. The bad guys always explain their motives at length and the good guys normally wrap everything up in a tight package before the one-to-two-episode arcs finish up. The small plot pay-offs come in the interaction with Revy and Rock who jump from deploring eachother to being bros on an almost daily basis while Dutch shows up for hacky-cool one-liners and Benny stands in the background entirely forgotten were it not for his tacky orange shirt.

Still, there’s enough chair-jump moments and fist-pumps to keep you wanting a little more with each installment and the 12 episodes fly by in no time at all.

Clichéd low-brow action fodder at its absolute best.