(L) Black Lagoon: Season One

[anselfir]

I was watching the fight with roberta and revy.

Spoiler:

The way they portrayed roberta's' strength is totally inconsistent with how the fist fight went, and the gunfight was staged rather lamely. Way too inconsistent an episode.

The way the whole conflict started was inconsistent too, within the same episode we see two very differently managed lagoon groups, one that will do anything to protect themselves, and another taking on a huge burden apparently because the narrative main character told them to.

The Garcia kid acted like an unbelievable idiot, and an inconsistent character. Why did he ditch his maid when she took on way dangerous stuff to save him, I'll never know. The whole episode seems to be revolved around making some plot hole to have staged fights in.

The show was promising until this turn of events, hopefully it will get better.

edit: ok now there are some unbelievable physics going on, i think i'll just skip some of the action sequences.

[bloodwork]

the fragfest comes stateside in April, whooooooooooooooooooo!!!

[Jay911]

Is there an indication of who the voice actors are for the English version?

(Side note: IMDB had nothing on this series until I added it, then they put in only about 10% of what I submitted, under a ridiculously Engrished title..)

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by anselfir

edit: ok now there are some unbelievable physics going on, i think i'll just skip some of the action sequences.

Like you, I thought the unbelievability of the action sequences detracted from the overall sense of realism in the rest of the show. The protagonists are always assaulted by a hail of bullets and nearly always (but not always) escape unscathed. This was most problematic in the sequence you're talking about here between Revy and Roberta. While it's less pronounced later on, there's still a strong fantasy component in the action sequences.

I like many things about Black Lagoon, but implausible battles like these are not among them.

[ImClueless]

Black Lagoon isn't a realistic portrayal at mercenary/gang life. It it more of a Hollywood action flick where the antagonist always has horrible aim and the protagonist has unlimited ammo hack on. I personally enjoyed the battles since it is a nice departure from the typical giant robots fighting one another or heroes with swords and energy attacks versus a multi-tentacled monster. Although it would be nice to have a truly "realistic" action show, an anime version isn't really necessary since a live action version would serve a show of that genre much better.

[Jas0n]

I agree with ImClueless. I am enjoying Black Lagoon for it's over the top action and "real world" appeal. It is definitely a breath of fresh air after watching hours of giant mech sword battles piloted by superhuman high school students who struggle through social activities.

[SeijiSensei]

Rewatching the Roberta episodes brought home many of anselfir's criticisms above.

Spoiler:

It seems the only motivation for the conflict between Roberta and the Lagoon Company was the fact that Lagoon had Garcia and took him with them from the bar. Why couldn't they have just given him to Roberta, regardless of the fact that Garcia didn't recognize her as the Roberta he knew? Letting some whiny child drag all the adults in the room into avoidable danger seems rather silly.

The only other plausible explanation for Roberta's antipathy toward Lagoon is some sense of revenge or justice because they were involved in the kidnapping. (Roberta's feelings toward Revy became fixed once she held a gun to Garcia's head.) But even then you'd think Roberta would first take the boy to a place of safety and later wreak vengeance upon the Lagoon Company.

Ah, well, Fujiyama Gangster Paradise still awaits.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Rewatching the Roberta episodes brought home many of anselfir's criticisms above.

Spoiler:

It seems the only motivation for the conflict between Roberta and the Lagoon Company was the fact that Lagoon had Garcia and took him with them from the bar. Why couldn't they have just given him to Roberta, regardless of the fact that Garcia didn't recognize her as the Roberta he knew? Letting some whiny child drag all the adults in the room into avoidable danger seems rather silly.

The only other plausible explanation for Roberta's antipathy toward Lagoon is some sense of revenge or justice because they were involved in the kidnapping. (Roberta's feelings toward Revy became fixed once she held a gun to Garcia's head.) But even then you'd think Roberta would first take the boy to a place of safety and later wreak vengeance upon the Lagoon Company.

Ah, well, Fujiyama Gangster Paradise still awaits.

That's due to alterations on the part of the animators from the manga. Originally Roberta and Lagoon Company went straight from the exploded bar to, her jumping on the car and being aimed at, then straight (non-stop) to the port where Balalaika organised the showdown, so there was little time for them to let the hostage go.

(And, obviously, the extention helped add in bonus Terminator references. )

[SGT.Mitsuki]

Originally Posted by Skane

Yes. He reacted negatively to it.

LOL xD

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

That's due to alterations on the part of the animators from the manga. Originally Roberta and Lagoon Company went straight from the exploded bar to, her jumping on the car and being aimed at, then straight (non-stop) to the port where Balalaika organised the showdown, so there was little time for them to let the hostage go.

(And, obviously, the extention helped add in bonus Terminator references. )

those roberta terminator scenes were cool huh ^^ ?


anyways any 1 know lots of other animes with the main char being a girl with guns ?... gotta admit theres nothing cooler ^^ ne ? (btw swords r cool too)

Jya ne,
Mits

[dhcalva]

Hey, does anyone know what song Revy is listening to during the boat jumping/destruction scene in episode 3?

[TooPurePureBoy]

Hrrm I'm not sure, it's probably not the same as the manga...haven't watched season one in a while. In the manga though she is listening to "Devil Man" by White Zombie.

[tyciol]

So, discussion seems to have died down since this was licensed. So, to make a note as an addendum for anyone reading it, be reminded that there was a "second barrage" season 2. A separate thread for discussing that is here : http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=36151 though I imagine people do discuss both series collectively, they do have separate trackers

http://animesuki.com/series.php/792.html
http://animesuki.com/series.php/980.html

So it'd make sense to have separate threads in some situations especialy when there was a huge delay, although both seasons of this did come out rather closely, within 2006.

Lately there is news regarding Blagoon as I'm sure it's been termed (yay portmanteas) in that there is a new series of OVAs coming out intermittendly 2010-2011. 3 out of 5 have aired so far: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...7s_Blood_Trail

I'm not sure if it's been licensed like the original 2 series have been. There's currently not an animesuki tracker for it so I am unsure to suggest fansubs or not.