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Cartoons are certainly enjoyed by all children, however as most people grow up, they inevitably become more mature and stop watching these cartoons. However, it seems like the Japanese have been able to keep teenagers and even adults drawn into seemingly childish shows in the form of animes. They’ve probably captured the hearts of so many people due to their simple presentation but yet deep and immersive plots and stories. One such example of a pretty good anime in my opinion would be Black Lagoon.

Despite the title of the show, it has absolutely nothing to do with an actual lagoon. It is set in the port city of Roanapur where the biggest criminals and gangsters in the world gather at. Black Lagoon is the name of a “delivery company” which often has brushes with the wrong side of the law. Their job is simple: deliver a package (or even a person at times) to a specific location, except they usually use a torpedo boat to do so. The show starts off with the crew (Revy, Dutch and Benny) hijacking another boat to steal a certain disc containing valuable information to the client and then delivering it to the client. While doing so, they kidnap one of the office workers on board and intend to collect some ransom for his safe return. However, due to a turn of events, Rock ends up joining the crew of Black Lagoon and then follows them on their various missions throughout the 25 episodes.

Probably the most stunning and striking thing about Black Lagoon is its presentation. Being a show with many violent scenes throughout, the show makes use of a lot of graphic violence in order to portray large scale gun fights. Oftentimes, characters seem to possess extraordinary strength and skills which help make the show all the more exciting. The different characters and personalities of the crew members also make for interesting scenes. For example Revy is a trigger happy girl who always uses violence and guns to solve problems and has little disregard for other people. However, Rock is almost the direct opposite as he dislikes violence and is a cool headed negotiator who is able to help the group out but hinders them at times due to his inexperience in gun fights.

Initially, the jobs they get are on a fairly small scale, however as the series progresses, we get to see a lot more action, mostly in the form of gun fights. Revy has the nickname of “Two-hands” for a good reason, she has 2 pistols (whom she names Cutlass) in holsters that are easily accessible to her at all times, and she frequently pulls them out throughout the series to take down enemies and defend Rock and the other crew members of the Black Lagoon. This becomes all the more important later in the series when the crew becomes entangled with modern day Nazis, triads and even a triad war in Japan. The stories become more and more epic and deaths aren’t uncommon. The different story arcs are all very well thought out and provide plenty of opportunities for large scale gun fights which make the series all the more exciting to watch and enjoy.

Unfortunately, despite many great story arcs throughout the 25 episodes, there isn’t much continuation between the different arcs. One arc just suddenly ends and the next one begins in the next episode and the viewer is left to wonder what happens in between. This means that there is no overall storyline to make the show feel complete, rather it feels like bits and pieces thrown together to form an entire series. For example there are a few twists near the end of the series (for example one of the characters turns out to be CIA operative) but nothing ever comes of them, which is really disappointing. The last episode also doesn’t seem to round up the series at all, but it’s still unclear as to whether there’ll be a third season. However, that seems unlikely since the second one ended a year ago and there’s still no news about a third season.

All in all, Black Lagoon is still a really great anime series which I would recommend to almost anyone who enjoys watching action packed gun fights as well as detailed and compelling story arcs. The only drawback is that there isn’t much of an overall story to the whole season. Still, the individual story arcs as well as the great presentation all make up for it.

You can watch this anime series for free over at Anime Crunch or you can search for it at Veoh. It’s in Japanese with English subtitles.

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(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
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