Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

And, only a few weeks overdue, the Animation Revelation staff produces a second review! As the forum’s resident weeaboo faggot, I have taken it upon myself to review this DVD. How is it, you ask? Read on and find out!

Black Lagoon is often cited as being one of the greatest action anime in recent memory, and it certainly deserves the praise. For those unfamiliar with the series, it’s basically about four badasses (okay, Rock isn’t much of a badass, but he’s still cool in his own right) riding around on their torpedo boat, working for the mafia, delivering packages, and killing people for money. Because they’re hardcore.

And that’s all the back story you’ll need.

The disc opens up with two children (who happen to be twins; and I still can’t figure out which one is the male and which one is the female) discussing cannibalism and necrophilia before killing some people and then making out with each other. The first three episodes on the DVD comprise the Vampire Twins arc, which, completely unlike the first season, is morbid and depressing, not humorous and over-the-top (though there’s still the occasional black comedy). Dutch, Benny, and even Rock take a backseat to Balalaika, Mr. Chang, Revy, and Eda this time around, and the results are interesting, if not all that satisfying. These are some of the best episodes yet, though they’ll almost certainly leave you feeling empty.

The next episode is a return to the form of the first season, for better or worse, though it’s a lot goofier than anything we’ve seen in the show before. The first episode of the Greenback Jane arc is present on the DVD, and it really isn’t very good. The first half of the episode basically consists of 5000+ bullets being shot back and forth between two groups of people, panty shots of the one character no one wants to see panty shots of, and quite a bit of failed humor. It does get better in the second half, though, and shows promise for the rest of the arc to be an enjoyable romp.

The animation quality is great as always, and the transfer to the DVD is flawless and in anamorphic widescreen. The series has voice acting ranging from good to top-notch in both the original Japanese version and in the English dub of the series. While Revy and Rock (the two main characters) sound much better in Japanese, the rest of the English cast performs on par with or better than their Japanese counterparts (especially Dutch and Benny), so it really just boils down to personal preference.

The DVD case has a reversible cover (though the artwork on the other side is of low quality, in my opinion) and there are absolutely no special features on the disc, unless you count the “Geneon Previews.” If you order the Limited Edition, you receive a steel case that looks like this: