Black Lagoon: Volume 2 (UK) (DVD)

Introduction

As an industry watcher, it can be a little dispiriting watching the vultures circling the still twitching corpse of what was once a bastion of anime distribution. Stray Geneon licences are being pounced on by rival companies willy-nilly, and fans have something akin to a dead-pool betting on which show will rise from the ashes next. As a fan though, it's hard to care as long as you get your next hit of anime. The dealer isn't as important as the drug, and there's no drug more potent than Black Lagoon. It's the anime equivalent of crack cocaine, and we must all bow down to the brilliance that is MVM for picking up both the first series and the Second Barrage. The way things are going, we'll see the Second Barrage on DVD before Region 1, a rare enough occurrence for me to keep gloating about it in every review. As for this second volume, I haven't been anticipating it eagerly at all, not one bit, no sir! I'm clean. I don't have the shakes, I'm not drooling, no nervous twitches, honest…

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 four episodes of twelve are presented here on this MVM disc, chronicling the further adventures of Dutch, Revy, Benny and Rock.



5. Eagle Hunting and Hunting Eagle
When last we left the crew of the Black Lagoon, they were in perilous waters, literally so. Dutch had been hired to recover an inspirational Nazi painting from the wreck of a sunken U-Boat, and Revy and Rock had dived down to explore the sub while Benny and Dutch waited in the gunboat. Then the neo-Nazis had arrived, with significantly greater firepower. Dutch and Benny manage to get their boat out of range, but all they can do is watch on helplessly as the Nazis send down their own men to the wreck. Meanwhile Revy is busy plundering the corpses on the sub, while Rock is applying for the position of her conscience. She's about to go Alan Sugar on his ass when the Nazi's come knocking.

6. Moonlit Hunting Grounds
The neo-Nazis may have the painting, but that doesn't mean that Dutch is ready to let it go. While Rock and Benny wait worriedly on the boat, Dutch and Revy sneak aboard the Nazis' ship. While Revy distracts the goons, Dutch will search for the painting. The trouble is that Revy is still p***ed off at Rock, and she has a little aggression to get out of her system. All the while, a sinister figure is playing both sides against the middle.



7. Calm Down, Two Men
Office frictions can be stressful at the best of times, but for Black Lagoon they can be positively lethal. Dutch's approach to office relationships is simple, put all the bad eggs in one basket, and then see which one doesn't crack. Revy and Rock have to spend the day together running errands. Rock's attempts at lightening the mood just serves to make Revy's trigger finger itchier, then he goes and really annoys her by resolving a tense negotiation without anyone having to die.

8. Rasta Blasta
Rock's office expertise is put to good use again, overseeing a cargo exchange, weapons for goods. Only this time the goods offered in payment are a little boy named Garcia. Before Revy's babysitting skills get out of hand, Dutch tells Rock to look after the kid, supposedly an orphan, and not to get attached, as it's only merchandise that they are transferring. But reverse Stockholm syndrome sets in anyway, and Rock gets a little too attached. It's a good thing too, as he learns that the boy is no orphan, he's heir to the wealthy Lovelace family, and the Colombian mafia took him to put pressure on his father. The odd thing is that there are no ransom demands. The clients have been lying to Dutch again, and he doesn't take things well, deciding to hold on to the boy until he can figure things out. Meanwhile, Garcia's nanny Roberta is in town looking for her lost lamb.

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. For the full surround experience there is the DD 5.1 English track, and it's an excellent experience that gives punchy punctuation to the action sequences, has the show's soundtrack reverberating and is a significant step up from the stereo. 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.

It's a shame there isn't a Japanese surround track though.

Extras

Jacket picture, animated menu and trailers for Shana and FLCL, along with the Japanese opening sequence, as well as a 15 second trailer for the theme song CD, and that's all you get.

Conclusion

There are shows that inspire whole essays on their profundity, odes to their animated excellence, lavish plaudits on their groundbreaking storylines, or whole paragraphs of amazement at the depth of their characterisation. Then again, there are shows for which the only coherent and appropriate response is a clenched fist, and a resounding and fervent "f*** Yeah!" Black Lagoon belongs in the latter category. This second volume of Black Lagoon offers more over the top action, witty writing, intelligent characterisation, and a lot more Revy. For ninety minutes it doesn't put a foot wrong, and for ninety minutes I was in anime heaven. I even did an ill-advised thing and started watching it at 1 in the morning, after drifting off three times during the conclusion of an Initial D episode. Most sane people would have gone to sleep, yet with the opening theme of that first episode, I was wide awake again, and stayed fresh as a daisy through its runtime.

We have a cliffhanger to resolve, with neo-Nazis assailing our anti-heroes in an attempt to grab some lucrative Nazi booty, in this case a rather bombastic and inspirational artwork. Benny and Dutch have to stay out of missile range, while Revy and Rock are trapped together on the wreck of the U-Boat, with the Hitler Youth: The Next Generation, on their way down to invade the submarine. In typical life and death circumstances of this sort, you'd expect the two would be last-standees to be getting hot and steamy, but not in this case, as Rock is trying to make some sense of the 60-year-old carnage that surrounds them, and be respectful to the dead. Revy on the other hand sees the remains and the booty as things, some things worth more than other things, and she's all for cherry picking the best bits of the plunder. It seems to be an impenetrable wall of misunderstanding that is going up between the two, and this leads onto the following episodes.



While Revy may be profligate with her usage of ammunition, it doesn't stop the Fourth Reich getting their hands on the painting. Reputations and standing count for everything in Revy's line of work, and she's all for getting a little payback. Dutch agrees with her, and so the accountant and the mechanic stay on the gunboat, while the merc and the berserker go pay the Aryans a visit. Revy's two handed shooting style makes her more a force of nature than a mere human, but when she is annoyed or stressed, her natural response is to shoot things, well, shoot things even more than normal. For the first time in my life, I have felt sorry for the Nazis. Revy goes through them like a Terminator through a police station, but as always she has no intensity control, she doesn't care about collateral damage, and worse she has that frustrating conversation with Rock to get out of her system. When she goes overboard, it winds up jeopardising the mission, and Dutch has to rein her in before she goes too far.

It all comes to a head in the third episode, with Dutch deciding to deal with the Rock and Revy situation by putting them in close proximity, lighting the blue touchpaper, and then retiring to another time-zone. In the previous volume we learned that Rock was the office doormat, but his timid demeanour and peaceful disposition masked a steel core. When his office pushed him too far, that strength served him well in a dangerous situation, and provoked he became someone to be reckoned with. This is an episode of provocation, as Revy has had it with his sanctimonious, holier than thou attitude and proceeds to give him a piece of her mind. She's looking to make him quit and vanish from her life as a complication she can do better without. But Rock can only take so much abuse, and the two have a knock down argument that has bullets flying and innocent bystanders running for cover. It's interesting to see the role that Rock has taken in her life. Before, it was really only Dutch that had any control over her, as her boss he had to rein in her fiery temper, but that's a pragmatic arrangement with profit as the bottom line, something that Revy can understand. But then along comes this office worker and starts acting as her conscience, showing her that there is another, better way to live, and that her cynical view of the world isn't one that is universally shared. It's something that turns Revy's world upside down, and she can't deal with it. It turns out that she can't just shoot it either, and as she gets to know Rock, the two realise that despite their wholly different upbringings they do have something in common.



With at least a temporary truce in place, it's back to relative normality for the Black Lagoon crew, with a hostage to deliver for the mafia. It turns out to be a more complicated job, although Revy trying to shoot the merchandise was to be expected. But Rock and his conscience cause problems when he bonds with Garcia, but it also gets more complicated when they learn that the boy isn't who his kidnappers claim him to be, and that there will be some serious firepower looking to rescue him. And as you would expect, we end on a cliffhanger. Drat!

I can see the problem with Black Lagoon. It's Revy. The series is the Revy Show in all but name, and if you can't warm to the character then there's not a lot else the story has to offer. But Revy is the most insane, mind-blowing, psychopathic antihero that I have seen in anime, or in any other media as it happens. She's the ultimate fantasy of anyone with a death wish. You'll have the time of your life until she gets bored, or you say the wrong thing, and she blows your brains out. But, you may actually think it worth the price. There's obviously the visual appeal of hotpants, skimpy top, tattoo and automatic weapons, but Revy is a surprisingly engaging character. Her upbringing has made her brutal, giving her a shoot first and screw the questions attitude to life. She's fuelled by rage, and is practically superhuman and freewheeling when she fights. But then Rock turns up and starts looking for the humanity in her, and it causes her no end of stress when she realises that it still exists. The interactions between the two are priceless, fizzing with rage and energy, and dramatic gold. Of all the episodes, the first has the action and suspense, the second has the slaughter of the Nazis, the final one has the comedy, but it is the third more understated one that is my favourite. What stands out about Revy is her approach to the violence she inflicts. Your average animated female psychopath will get off on the violence, and find some way to suggestively lick her weapons while slaughtering her foes. It's practically an anime rule. But not Revy. There's no doubt that she enjoys the violence, you can practically see the head rush take effect as she goes into berserker mode, but it's a brutal combination of rage and delight that actually has nothing to do with her sexuality. She may be psychotic but she's not perverse, and in anime that's a rare enough occurrence to make Black Lagoon utterly refreshing.



Your mileage may vary as to how much you relate with the characters, but I'm finding it to be the best anime around right now, and that's up against some stiff competition from the likes of Beck and Mushi-shi. The action in this show takes a leaf from eighties action classics like Commando, but the writing and the characterisations put it in a league of its own. You may as well pre-order the rest now.