[Anime's Carnot] Black Lagoon, Episode 1 review
Guns, brilliant and wacky action scenes and a salaryman turned pirate?
Original Writer and Artist: Rei Hiroe
Publisher: Shogakukan
Anime adapted by: Studio Madhouse
Original run: April 9, 2006 – December 19, 2006
It might be Stockholm Syndrome, or it might just be the way you were always supposed to live. Tough questions are pointless when the answer is whatever you make of it. There’s that sort of “alternative” depth coming from Revy. It might be used as an excuse for her nature, or a patch for whatever explains the colour in her eyes departing when there’s murder to be had. Or a message that if you drum loud enough, we, the viewer, and Rock accept that a salaryman turned pirate is somehow plausible. On the surface, that is what Studio Madhouse-adapted Black Lagoon, seems to be offering.
Asahi Industries doesn’t bother with the distinction, steeped to their neck in this world of mercenaries, nukes, and the black market they cut ties with Rokuro Okajima–making him Rock. Coming out of the episode only able to remember the new pirate by an off-the-cuff nickname, the episode does a job of making the salaryman forgettable.
Rock was dispatched to Borneo to deliver what to Asahi Industries was a weapon of mass destruction waiting to go off. They likely knew they could count on him due to his spineless nature, and malleable sense of comfortability. With a dull outlook on life, characterised by the greyed colour pallet in the episode’s beginning, he’d be the one to kick others down when he was promoted, because it meant it wouldn’t be him anymore. In a sense, the setup was handmade for someone like that to turn to piracy; with episode 2 still to flesh out what his fate will be, there’s little doubt that he’s in this for the long haul. The camaraderie of what feels like a ragtag group, where everything is normal to them and ludicrous to us, and Rock who serves as our eyes, there’s even less doubt that this is the first of an exciting twelve to get into.
Rock somehow managed to be just barely whatever the situation required in the moment. He freaks out in a way that was hilarious, lamenting that he’d just gotten into a good company while shots are ringing over his head. He’s indulging in the sort of drinking games with Revy that he might have done on one of his former superior’s whims, yelling for Bacardi, almost like he isn’t a hostage and he’s right at home playing the fool in a place which makes Revy look mature and at home.
Her indifferent advice should be crushing Rock in a frenzy of situations beyond his understanding. Kageyama, one of the members of the Asahi board is charged with recovering that disk in a way which translated to legal, extrajudicial: do whatever it takes to get it back. Rock wrapped up in the middle of this, Shingian’s Wan Taikei was contacted, leading to E.O. (Extra Order) dispatching mercenaries to reclaim the disk, but only after we learned that the Russian Mafia, recently unseating the Chinese and who was originally supposed to mediate the disk’s recovery, hadn’t actually had it in their possession yet.
Considering these circumstances, Rock has no choice but to adapt, to take the open door because the only other one is death, and the scene of Revy sympathising in what already feels like a very Revy manner showed us the only direction is Next: Not the past, and not even what Rock feels is the present.
In the bar, he looks to Benny, our homely Hackaa-taipu who brushed against the wrong side of the law, drawn in the tech-geek fashion of whistleblowers, hackers, and unsurprisingly the most relatable to Rock. Dutch is the calm to Revy’s storm, sorting out how Rock gets to go back to being Rokuro.
Revy challenges Rock to a drinking game.
In a sense, he couldn’t have had a better trio. Dutch laments being just a delivery boy in a shared moment between the two of them which I hope we get more of. I hope Rock keeps some of his humanity for as long as possible—difficult when the workplace he was going to devote his life to told him to die for the greater good: A half-promise of attendees to his funeral and a double promotion what he gets in return. I hope he keeps his humanity so that for this ragtag group’s sake, we can relate to theirs.
Final thoughts:
Brilliant first episode. An exhilarating shootout, and the jerk animation on Dutch’s gun as they escape the bar earned a couple of rewinds. I really get the sense I’m going to like this group, and I’m really going to like Revy. It might be wishful thinking, but in cutting short Rock’s questions towards Benny, and giving him a gun out of sympathy, she might display far more depth than she’s letting on. The ending song acknowledges it too. Dropping everything behind, standing barefoot in beach water, she will still always be holding a gun.
Like Sugimoto from The Twelve Kingdoms, she fits into one of my all-time favourite character types.
Please help me in building a list:
Eve, from Killing Eve.
Sugimoto, from The Twelve Kingdoms.
Revy, from Black Lagoon.
LJ, from Snowpiercer.
Let me know if you have any additions to the list.
EDIT:
The list has grown!
I asked this question over on Reddit and got a range of answers. Some of the most promising include:
Motoko Kusanagi, from Ghost in the Shell
Pretty much every woman, from Jormungand
Pretty much every woman, from Black Lagoon
Jolyne Cujoh, from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean
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It makes for a good change to “Is this you? IP: 192.168.0.1 has accessed your location from Tromsø, Norway.” Brighten things up with some anime instead.
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