This was a very fun amoral little series. It was a bit different than I thought it would be. Actually it was exactly what I expected it to be, only more awesome. I remember getting a flyer for it at Tokyo’s yearly new anime fair. I shrugged and thought it was another “girls running around in skimpy clothes with guns for guys who like that sort of thing” story. A few years later a friend made me watch the first episode because it was “the best thing ever." I don’t know if I would call it the best thing ever (Monster already has that place in my heart) but it was certainly entertaining! The ladies in the series were decently dressed overall and were such strong presences it went beyond being a fetish. More series need to have the heavies be women.

The story is like a non-sci-fi, more amoral version of Cowboy Bebop. Or as my friend put it, “It’s like those shoujo anime where the girl gets whisked off to another world to become a princess, only here it’s a Japanese business man getting spirited away to become a pirate/mercenary in the South Asian Sea.” It’s so true too. The plot is episodic and deals with Rock (formerly kidnapped Japanese business man) coping with his new life of vice with his new business partners. The story takes place in the fictional “worst place on earth”, Roanapur, Tailand. The town is overrun and run by gangs and mafia, who have uneasy alliances with each other and which often degrade into gun fights every so often.

The show was a fun ride, but it is kind of disturbing that the people you’re rooting for aren’t really the good guys- far from it in fact. They often do things or find themselves in situations that made my moral compass do little squirming things. Cowboy Bebop had our lovable, bounty hunter rascals who, while having moral quirks, would always do the right thing in the end, after a lot of protest and fit throwing because ultimately they knew it was the “right thing to do." In Black Lagoon, if the right thing does get done, it’s not on purpose. Also Rock’s role is a little ambiguous. He’s supposed to be bringing them up from the squalor of lawlessness, but always fails and then at one point admits to be waiting around for when his sensitivities are as dulled as his cohorts. But then again, the women are strong, the fight scenes are awesome, and I am really shallow in that I can forgive the inner qualms the show gives me to like it.