I was tricked into this show after watching the pilot, and unfortunately spent the next 20 or so episodes grinding my teeth and hoping for things to get back to where they started. They did not. The basic premises of Black Lagoon is fairly exciting - a bland Tokyo office clerk gets mixed up with a bunch of modern day pirates, who gradually help him find his real self and enjoy life. Not a lot, but mixed with a neat amount of gore and sexuality it could have worked. Unfortunately the show's biggest problem is that never really figures out what it wants to be about. Themes such as coming of age, finding love, loss of innocence, brutality of crime and the hypocrisy of the modern world get tossed around, only to be abandoned yet again as the characters indulge in another outrageous prepubescent fantasy action sequence, ridiculous in its unbelievability. Don't get me wrong, I am all about silly. And all about realism. It's just that for me, the two don't ever work together in the same episode. Or the same show. I call this the "Gungrave Syndrome". It seems like the writers did not believe they can have a successful show that is based solely on real-life physics and multi-dimensional characters. So they throw the whole one-man-killing machine thing, evil vampire twins, blade throwing women, bullet splitting samurais etc. etc....I AM actually grateful there were no zombies. I mean if you are going to make an Anime about ridiculous gunfights right out start it up as one, and maybe place it in some alternative universe, or at least far far in the future. "Trigun" worked exactly because of that. And because it had characters. Black Lagoon has two - Revy and Rock, but they struggle between ridiculousness and determination in such a pathetic fashion that midway through the viewer finally abandons all hope that they will ever care if something happens with either of them. Unsurprisingly, nothing happens. The rest of the players are barely worth mentioning, because all they ever do is more of the same. Over, and over, and over again.
All in all, the way I see it, this is a kiddie show disguised as an adult one. It could have worked, had they kept it simple and realistic, but a failed opportunity is all it is in its current form.
All in all, the way I see it, this is a kiddie show disguised as an adult one. It could have worked, had they kept it simple and realistic, but a failed opportunity is all it is in its current form.