Black Lagoon - The Second Barrage: Volume 3

Introduction

This is the bit I hate most, the final volume, especially when it's a series that I have been enjoying as much as Black Lagoon. For once, I don't want a series to end, I want it to keep on going, keep on delivering more and more of those great characterisations, more and more of those gritty stories, more and more of that dark humour, and more and more of that hi-octane action that leaves this series head and shoulders above its rivals. Then I remind myself that this is the whole reason I like anime, short, discrete stories that don't outstay their welcome, that don't keep on going until the cast are of pensionable age, and never even consider jumping any sharks. Then I look back on the sheer brilliance that Black Lagoon has delivered over the last 6 volumes, and I can't help it. I want more. Fortunately there may just be a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

The life of a salaryman, or white-collar worker isn't an easy one. Years of hard competitive education just to get your foot on the first rung of the corporate ladder in a big firm. As the lowest of the low, you get the toughest work, and all the abuse from the higher ups. You spend years of your life, make sacrifices of your family and free time, pledging eternal loyalty to the company, all in the hope that one day, you'll be the one doing the abusing instead of being abused. Then, while acting as a courier, you're kidnapped by mercenaries for the sensitive data disc that you're carrying, disowned by your superiors as an unfortunate loss, get caught up in battles and gunfights with the mercs your company send to retrieve the disc, and start a new job as a pirate. Okay, so that doesn't happen to your average Reginald Perrin, but it does happen to Rokuro Okajima, in the acclaimed anime Black Lagoon. The Second Barrage concludes on this MVM disc, with the final four episodes, chronicling the further adventures of Dutch, Revy, Benny and Rock.


21. Two Father's Little Girls
Previously on Black Lagoon… After a year away, Rock returned to Japan for the first time, although it was a business trip. Of course it's business the Roanapur way, as Balalaika wants to establish a foothold in Japan, and needs Rock to act as an interpreter with the local Yakuza. Of course Revy is along as Rock's bodyguard, and the two are getting some culture clash moments in, as Rock shows her around. It's friction as usual, especially when Rock meets and hits it off with a nice Japanese girl named Yukio, while Revy has more in common with her sword-wielding bodyguard Ginji. What does a nice respectable girl need with a bodyguard? Well it turns out that Yukio is heir to the Washimine Yakuza group, and when Balalaika's negotiations break down, and she resorts to her own brand of boardroom dealing, Washimine is in the firing line. As we begin this volume, Yukio has to put her old, respectable schoolgirl life behind her, and don the mantle of the head of the Washimine group. After taking all that abuse from Washimine flunky Chaka, Revy's just glad to get her guns, while Rock gets a streak of chivalry and decides to rescue Yukio. Revy reminds him that by working for Balalaika, he's actually the bad guy this time around, but it's too late regardless. When they get to Yukio's house, she's been taken.

22. The Dark Tower
It's an unlikely partnership, but ostensible enemies Ginji, Revy and Rock team up to rescue Yukio. A traitorous group who want to sell her to Hotel Moscow is holding her at a bowling alley, and Ginji and Revy go in the front, sword unsheathed and guns blazing, while Rock sneaks in the back. But while Yukio may need saving, Rock isn't the saviour she's looking for, as she makes painfully clear when Rock rescues her. Suddenly he has to re-evaluate just what the past 12 months with Black Lagoon have been all about for him, and the answer isn't at all comforting.


23. Snow White's Payback
Hotel Moscow is on the rampage, reaping through the Washimine clan, and Yukio decides to fight back, to protect her clan. It's like that brief moment of normality as a schoolgirl was just a dream, and she's waking up to the real world. The strange thing is that it's oddly thrilling. Rock on the other hand is depressed, trying to face up with what his life actually is, and Revy is having a hard time cheering him up. When he tries to talk 'sense' into Balalaika and gets a gun in the face for the trouble, it's finally the rude awakening that he's been avoiding for the last year. He realises that it's time to say goodbye to his old life.

24. The Gunslingers
After 'negotiating' with the rival Kousa group, Balalaika declares the war over, and sends Rock to tell Yukio the good news. But not before Rock comes up with a new plan to save Yukio, one that shows just how much he has learnt. The trouble is that Yukio wants revenge, and she's heading after Balalaika with Ginji. When Rock and Revy get in the way, it's not a question of who is saving who, but whether anyone deserves to be saved at all.

Picture

Black Lagoon gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which is as good as it gets without it being a native PAL source. The image is clear and sharp, detail is excellent, colours are consistent, and I didn't notice a single compression artefact. It's a good thing too, as Black Lagoon has some of the best animation I have seen in a television anime. It's fluidly and dynamically animated, the attention to detail is astounding, especially with the military equipment. This may be the anime of choice when it comes to gun porn, with Revy's Cutlasses getting special attention. It's an action packed show, with plenty of gunfights, explosions and chases to be getting on with. The character designs have had a lot of thought put into them, and are particularly effective with a cast of grizzled and battle worn mercenaries. CGI texture mapping comes into its own here, as I doubt the plethora of scars and tattoos adorning some skins could have been possible were they animated traditionally.

Sound

An action packed show needs a suitably expressive soundtrack, and my preference of the DD 2.0 Japanese doesn't disappoint, with plenty of directionality to the sound design, especially when pro-logicked up, while keeping the dialogue clear and audible. Translated subtitles are provided of course, along with a signs only track. Unfortunately, and apparently a legacy of the Australian release from Madman, the 5.1 English audio has been dropped second series, replaced with a vanilla stereo track. Given the action nature of the show, this is a bit of a blow, and to add insult to injury the 5.1 audio track is mentioned in the end credits. I'll never be a fan of English dubs, but Black Lagoon's is near passable, with some impressive performances. I think the English language actor chosen for Dutch is perfectly cast, and if some other performances are a little too typical of dubs, they don't detract from the show.

Extras

Jacket picture, animated menu and trailers for Black Lagoon and Daphne In The Brilliant Blue.

Conclusion

The cons of Black Lagoon's final volume: Dutch, Benny and Roanapur barely get a cameo in this final set of episodes, as the concluding story is set in Japan.

The pros of Black Lagoon's final volume: It's bloody brilliant, an awesome ending to one of the best series released this year, a story that delivers in every aspect, in terms of character, story, action, suspense, as well as bringing to a logical conclusion the main character arc, which began all those months ago when hapless and lowly businessman Rokuro Okajima wandered into the wrong part of town and started a new life as a pirate.


Six discs, two seasons of Black Lagoon have delivered a hell of a ride. It's been one of my most enjoyable anime experiences as I have lusted after each successive release with an ever-decreasing dignity. The first season was amazing enough, offering us eighties style action adventure with some wry 21st Century characterisations. Central to it all was the sublime role reversal of the meek young damsel in distress being the mild-mannered male Rock, while the badass, two-fisted gunslinger with a foul mouth and fouler attitude that rescued him, the female Revy. The two in close proximity was an explosive combination, and the relationship fireworks that flew indicated that the two would either kiss each other, or kill each other, possibly both in quick succession. The first season was played more for laughs, with comedy Nazis and the Terminator homage guaranteed to keep a s***-eating grin on the face throughout the run time.

The second season followed on in quick succession, but all of a sudden the tone turned darker, the comedy blacker, and a sense of realism began to seep in. Surprisingly the series got even better as a result. There have been just the three stories to this season, with the comic Greenback Jane diversion sandwiched between two stories so bleak that they leave your mouth dry. The Romanian twins storyline may have had some of the show's darkest humour and a premise that looked at the start, completely unreal, that of child assassins reaping through a city of killers, but as their background began to be filled in, it became startlingly plausible. It's impossible to generate sympathy for child killers, but Black Lagoon managed it, and anyone who watched it would have understood exactly what Rock felt at the end of that story.


Then there is this final story where all of a sudden we're back in the real world. That's been the arc of the whole show really, following Rock into an unreal underworld where life is cheap and a man's worth is measured by the graves he fills. It's been a combination dream/nightmare for him as he adjusted to life as a pirate, or at least he believed he adjusted. The truth becomes apparent when the unreal world of Roanapur collides with the real world, and the results aren't pretty. That friction between Rock and Revy is never more apparent than here. He's forever been the white knight, managing to survive in Roanapur without picking up a gun, without sacrificing his ethics, without killing anyone, or so he believes. It's what so infuriates Revy, as she sees her life as it could have been, had she been as innocent as Rock. At the same time Revy's no holds barred, amoral approach to life must have appealed to Rock, whose inner strength and stubbornness reflects Revy's, even if his pacifism doesn't. Yet she has been rubbing off on him as well, as despite his best efforts, he's developed a rudimentary shell to block off the harsher aspects of the world, and a cold detachment.

That detachment is lost when he returns to Japan, and Balalaika introduces Roanapur style bargaining to the Yakuza, which bloodily and messily spills out of the underworld into society. Suddenly Rock realises that he hasn't moved on at all since he joined Black Lagoon, and he's always held Japan as a place to return to, a sanctuary in his own past. Balalaika cruelly informs him that just by living in Roanapur he's become part of the darkness, the choice has been made for him, even though he has refused to make it, and that words can kill as effectively as any gun, and that he's been wielding that weapon like a pro.


Yet unexpectedly, it also becomes clear how much Rock's words, beliefs and purity have been an example to Revy, how much they have inspired her despite her rough and ready treatment of Rock. For when push comes to shove, and the results of his actions become clear, and the consequences that will forever taint him, she urges him to look away, to hide from what he has become, to maintain the innocence that she needs in him. All this time, Rock has in a way been trying to save her, and at the end Revy tries to save him. It's a delicious irony that highlights just how powerful and well thought out the characterisations and writing have been, in a show that is ostensibly just an action anime.

It doesn't matter about the loose ends, the character arcs left hanging, the little plots that could use some more development. Even if Black Lagoon were the tightest anime ever, rounding everything off with a thick underlined conclusion, I'd still be hammering on doors demanding, begging, pleading for more. It seems that I won't have to debase myself, as earlier this year, a third season was announced. Before you get your hopes up, it has to be made first, become a success in its native Japan, then the licence has to be bought in the US, and an English dub created, followed by a DVD release. Then it has to come to the UK, via Australia who will supply the PAL conversion. Even if this chain of events works flawlessly in this credit-crunched era, it will still be a good 3 to 4 years before we get to see more Black Lagoon on UK DVDs. Until then I'll just have to settle for re-watching these six sublime anime discs again, and again, and again. I'm already looking forward to it.


Black Lagoon gets the perfect send-off in this final volume. If you're collecting the series you'll already have this one on pre-order. If you aren't collecting the series, what's wrong with you?