Rokuro Okajima has the misfortune of being on a boat targeted by the mercenaries of the Lagoon Company, and his normal life as a Japanese salary-man gets turned upside down. The gun crazy Revy wants to hold him for ransom, only to find out that his employers have decided they don’t need him back. Having been abandoned by his employers and left for dead he has no choice to but to stay with the Lagoon Company and try to stay alive, taking on the name Rock. And I do mean try. Military, mafia, Nazis, gunfights, and a psychotic maid are just a few of the things he’ll have to deal with if he wants to stay alive.
Right of the bat I might as well mention that this isn’t exactly a plot heavy series, especially in volume one. But that isn’t always a bad thing. It’s still an entertaining series, so long as you find copious amounts of gun fights and psychotic people entertaining. The entire plot revolves around various dealings of the underworld; smuggling, kidnapping, and the like. It’s as good as you would expect from a series about mercenaries. The real draw to the series would most certainly be the character Revy, a short tempered, gun crazy, violent, doesn’t take crap from anyone kind of woman. In the first chapter alone she single headedly takes out a bar full of mercenaries, all the while with a big smile plastered across her face. In the next chapter she proceeds to take out several boat riding enemies while listening to a White Zombie song. Suffice to say, as shallow a character as she seems to be, she’s still immensely entertaining to watch. Most of the characters in this series are, if nothing else, extremely fun to watch.
Fortunately by the second volume Revy’s character is developed some more. She acts the way she is because of how she grew up, and this drastically altered her views on the world. There’s also a short plotline regarding how her view of the world clashes with Rock’s views. It was an interesting development, even if it only spanned a few chapters, and it showed that there’s more to these characters than just the crazy, over the top traits that they have. It leaves me optimistic that there will be more interesting character development along the line, which is a nice addition along with all the action the series presents. I should also mention that the writing is peppered with swear words, and the occasional racial slur. Depending on your views on that sort of thing this either makes this manga the greatest series ever or offensive garbage. Personally I don’t really care either way; swearing, or lack thereof, doesn’t really do anything for me.
The artwork consists of a lot of explosions and gunfights, all of which are fairly nice. The character designs are also well done, and Revy is worth mentioning in this aspect. She has a, for lack of a better word, ridiculous tattoo on her right shoulder. I can only imagine the attention to detail it would take to draw that in every panel she’s in. All of the character designs are interesting and well drawn, as is the manga as a whole. Viz labelled the series as ‘mature’, so as one would expect there are a few scenes with some nudity in them, though nothing to really get excited over. That, combined with the swear word laden dialogue, makes it obvious why they chose to have these books in plastic wrap.
Black Lagoon starts out seeming as nothing more than an over the top action series, but certainly becomes more than that once you get further into it. It will certainly appeal to fans of action series, but its interesting and well designed characters present something enjoyable for people who prefer that sort of thing. I recommend reading it, as I found it an enjoyable read, so long as salty-talk doesn’t turn you away from things.
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