2011-07-19, 20:56 | Link #681 |
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: In a world all my own
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Blood Trail Fail
I just finished watching Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail and I have to say, after watching the whole thing I ended up rather... disappointed.
I'm not quite sure why, but it just didn't have the same feel as the original series. I guess part of that is the ending was such a downer. In the last episode: Spoiler for Last Ep:
In the end, as much as I enjoy the original two seasons, I doubt I'll be watching this OVA ever again. EDIT: Having read back a couple pages in this thread and seen that the manga ended without the last of my spoiler comments, I like the anime even less.
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Last edited by mdauben; 2011-07-19 at 21:07. |
2011-07-19, 23:15 | Link #682 | |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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Quote:
I mean, I've been watching some anime with a friend of mine, he doesn't read manga and barely knows anime, just likes some of the ones I've been watching. I was thinking of eventually getting BL (god that's such an unfortunate acronym for me), but with this, now I'll have to go out of my way to explain that's not what happened to her, explain I don't know why they changed it or how she lost the limbs in the first place, all when the anime team could've just made that unnecessary. And even without that factor, it just rubs me the wrong way, as it seems to have the majority of people whose opinion I've seen. For me at least, again I think it's because a large part of Roberta's appeal in this arc was her sheer invincibility. When you have women like Revy and Balalaika, and then you have a character come in who is more rabidly frightening and physically beast than anybody else - now that's impressive. But to suddenly at the very last second of the ova see her so completely shattered is like a blow to that perception. It's disheartening. I think it was a stupid decision. |
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2011-07-19, 23:25 | Link #683 |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
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Whats wrong with Roberta being like that?
She's lived a hard life filled with violence and cruelty. One thing about her though is that once the head of the Lovelace family took her in, she started to change. She began to repress her old life, and live for something new. I see nothing wrong with how things ended. If anything, I'm glad she can finally end her reign as the "terminator" and can live in peace with Garcia. It is better of this way than to have her go out in some glorious Tony Montana style and just...die. At least things are somewhat resolved and concluded with this ending. And if you guys are still not satisfied, last time I checked, there's still at least four female characters in the series that I would never want to meet in real life. |
2011-07-20, 00:52 | Link #684 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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When did I say anything like I didn't want her live in peace and change? My only complaint is she didn't have to be so brutally defanged/amputated to do so. She wasn't in the manga, and it sucks that she was here. It wasn't even explained why she lost the arm and leg between scenes.
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2011-07-20, 01:54 | Link #685 |
~Night of Gales~
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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The way I see it, it feels like Madhouse was injecting some degree of 'sensibility' to the arc.
Shane's slight restrictions of his team to snipe Roberta in the manga... made no fucking sense, for one. In the OVA, Shane was shown that the only person holding back and complying to Garcia's request is himself and still gives accurate leadership in engaging Roberta. And to an extent, I liked it that Roberta was struggling against the US Special Forces. I didn't like how badly she got de-fanged, but it was also ridiculous how literally no one in the special task force did any damage whatsoever to Roberta, despite being portrayed as a group of highly capable and experienced elite soldiers in the manga. Yes, I know it's the Terminator Maid and she's supposed to be invincible, but even Arnie gets massively beaten up in all movies. I still like Black Lagoon to not turn Roberta into Steven Seagal. Rock's plans and foresight were also given significantly greater amount of detailing in his thought process... significantly so. Whereas previously, the most we could do was infer from an estimation of how he managed to think out the scenario, we are engaged to his deepest analysis of the situation.
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2011-07-20, 10:10 | Link #688 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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If Madhouse wanted more sensibility, they shouldn't be animating Black Lagoon
I ultimately just think Foxxfire is right, it was obscene. And I'd even say the degree to which she was maimed made just as little sense as her being perfectly fine in the manga, especially given the scene prior to the credits. I'd say at most, the loss of an eye and maybe the arm would've been enough. |
2011-07-20, 12:01 | Link #689 | |
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Moscow, RU
Age: 35
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Quote:
Spoiler for Rock's plan:
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2011-07-24, 13:12 | Link #696 |
from head to heel
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 42
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A bit late to the party, but that ending prompted a reaction from me.
Spoiler:
All in all, the OVA series has been an enjoyable ride for me. But it's sad when a good thing ends as they say, and this is true for this adaptation in more ways than one. |
2011-07-25, 22:32 | Link #697 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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I guess I must have watched a different OVA then everyone else, because it showed Roberta getting hit by bullets multiple times in the version I watched. On top of that they're in the middle of fucking nowhere. Loss of blood, broken bones, and infection would all be a major problem before they got anywhere close to a hospital and any of them could account for an amputation.
That said, I thought this arc was missing something overall and didn't enjoy it as much as the first 2 seasons. |
2011-07-25, 22:54 | Link #698 |
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: ニュー・オーリンズ、LA
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^ Black Lagoon is just a really indulgent and over-rated anime in general...IMO the best, or potentially best aspect of the show is the main cast group dynamic, yet it seems the show goes out of it's way to never really let them spend much pertinent time together...
As for the Maidinator, I mean after the 3rd OVA Roberta's uberness looses some steam to me..Although she was still l33t as hell at many moments here, I just fail to render Black Lagoon as anything more than a wannabe Quinten Tarentino-esque kinda shock-value show with not much between the two pieces of bread...Bailaika is merely the bait to make the show appear as if it has an anchor when it really doesn't... I mean I swear to God Rock might become the head of Crime Sydicate one day without ever doing anything but smoking a cig, scratching his crotch, and fapping to his emo-slacker philosophical ramblings... Overall it had it's sheer cool violent moments, but I just can't look at this series and subsequent OVA as much more than a blip in the end...Especially when I had expected so much more from this show from the start...It's a pretty pretentious show if I'm being honest, but I don't think it wants to be taken that way, so it loses me... Some good violent action though...
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2011-07-25, 23:04 | Link #699 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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Infection isn't something the animators can just think everyone will assume. It's not clearly evident, like an arm hanging loose at her shoulder would be. It's an explanation that needs, well, to be explained. If it gets infected, they need to say it got infected. It's irresponsible to make fans wonder, "Oh, I guess maybe it could've been infected?" without knowing if they're right. Gives off a bad feel, I say.
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2011-08-03, 05:03 | Link #700 |
Natural Born Killer
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Roanapur
Age: 32
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I didn't expect Roberta to get out of it without a scratch, but losing an arm, a leg, two fingers and an eye? Should have just killed her off while they were at it.
It was nice (well, not that nice) to finally see a bit of Revy's past, and as expected, it wasn't a happy one. It kinda reminded me of the OVA anime 'Kite', one of the most controversial anime of its time.
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action, seinen |
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