When I watch anime, I usually look for two things. One of those things is a deep plotline. Personally, I really love the feeling of being able to prolong an anime's viewing experience after it ends. Character development is nice, too, which allows for attachments to certain characters. Black Lagoon takes these two aspects and fucking torches them, then takes a dump on the ashes. Regardless, though, I'm surprised to say that I found this show amazingly well done.
Black Lagoon takes place in the modern world. Rock, an unremarkable businessman, is held up for the possession of a certain disk. The Lagoon company, his captors, consist of a professional black man, a computer geek and a woman with a possible case of rabies. One thing leads to another, and Rock finds himself thrust into the world of organized crime, where no mercy is shown to anyone at all. The show's plotline is basically one massive excuse for the writers to blow shit up, with no meaningful arcs save for the story of the vampire twins.
Although mostly underdeveloped, the characters in this show are what really make it so badass. Aside from Rock, everyone else is a professional killing machine. Revy, a hired gun, wields two custom made pistols, whereas Dutch is a black man with charisma and a torpedo boat. I feel like Revy is mainly there for fanservice, though, and serves the purposes of blowing shit up and killing anyone she sees. Of course, the latter purposes apply to everyone who we see in this show. Honorable mentions include Roberta, a Terminator equivalent of a maid, and Balalaika, a Russian Captain with a scar and an attitude. What results is a clusterfuck of mayhem, with entertainment being the main goal. I'll say this again, but the show really doesn't give a rat's ass about much of anything. An attitude of "Physics? What are physics?" is taken throughout the show's course. I don't intend on making this sound like a bad thing, because this is exactly what makes this show so fucking amazing. In the real world, physics are something which set the law for the way things move. In anime, though, it only serves as a limitation towards what the writers can make happen. Hell, if physics, or even basic common sense had any influence in how Black Lagoon worked, everyone would have fucking died by the end of the third episode. Beautiful animation also aids this action, making one of the most visually entertaining shows I've seen.
This isn't an anime I can really say much about. As I stated in my intro, character development is mostly absent, with plotlines serving only to provide the most violent set up possible. I'd recommend this anime if you're bored and have nothing better to watch. To be honest, the lack of depth resulted in a mere spur-of-the-moment entertainment that was whisked away the moment the last episode finished. When the series was running, however, I found it difficult to take my eyes off of the screen. Although worth watching for its action, Black Lagoon lacks a deep characterization and story. All in all, I'd recommend this to you if you have spare time and a case of boredom, simply because it kills the latter faster than civilians die in the show.
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