Hige vs. Otaku

Chicks with guns in turmoil? Now there’s a twist. Initially Revvy fulfills everything about the male wank fantasy: aggressively masculine, acrobatically violent, nihilistically badass. I started watching Black Lagoon with a tentative shrug, thinking it seems nicely made and reliably entertaining – probably won’t change my life, but sometimes meathead action shows done well really hit the spot.

Then we get a rather interesting scene. After a whacky run-in with some thinly-valed Neo Nazis Revvy and Rock, initially an ineffectual fish-out-of-water protagonist, find themselves in a sunken Nazi u-boat waxing philosophical about the nature of human value systems. During this conversation Revvy suddenly jumps from gun-toting arse-candy to a bleakly thoughtful existentialist. What she says won’t rock the worlds of anyone who has read a Wikipedia article on the subject, but in the context of the show it was quite a shock. We actually get some qualification for her amorally violent tendencies and, damn, character development for an archetype otherwise shallowly reserved for Awesome Action Sequences and not much else.

The scene stands out for most people because it’s the moment when Black Lagoon ascends from brainlessly enjoyable entertainment to a ethically searching character piece. It’s just a little bit rubbish that, apart from one scene subsequently, we never get anything as philosophically potent as Revvy sitting with a skull in one hand, a medal in the other and some difficult questions on whether either, symbolically, truly differ from one another.

What follows this turning point is the development of Rock and Revvy’s relationship. What’s best about it is that it’s not explicitly romantic — or at least that isn’t the focus. Those feelings seem to develop later in the series, but initially and centrally it’s about how both characters are drawn to the other’s opposing ethical position. Revvy views Rock as a sort of saviour for her soul. It’s a clumsy way of describing something that plays out much more subtly, but she grows to need his altruism so she can hold onto the last vestige of her humanity. It exasperates and frustrates her, but his hope and trust becomes something compulsive and necessary for Revvy. His helplessness too brings out a virtuous sense of duty, suggesting that by protecting Rock Revvy is protecting something inside herself.

Rock, conversely, sees Revvy a guide to disenfranchisement and moral ambiguity. A major theme of the show is his displacement from civilized society into one that seems completely lawless and amoral. He finds his prevaling ideology of ‘good’ is constantly challenged by Roanapur and its inhabitants. He’s confronted with serious questions over whether he can resolve his good nature with the baseness that surrounds him. It’s not covered explicitly until that other scene of dramatic internal tumult when Yukio, school girl turned Yakuza leader-apparent, directly confronts Rock’s ambivalence, his lurking in the twilight as she calls it. And she gets it in one: Rock has the luxury of not committing to either life style. He can survive in Roanapur and slide just as easily back into his life in Tokyo; both are accessible but neither offer any real sense of belonging. Unlike Revvy, who has grown into a person who can only survive in a state of lawlessness Yukio forces him to acknowledge a choice has to be made before a genuine sense of place and belonging can develop.

It’d be silly to talk about Black Lagoon without mentioning arguably its most brilliant scene. While the other two I’ve spoke about have a complex depth, nothing compares to the intensity of Rock’s confrontation with Revvy in episode seven. I mean, the guy almost gets shot in the face for speaking his mind. Notable not only for being one of the most tense moments in an anime it signifies a choice of Rock of growing a pair of balls and really committing himself to this ragtag group he fell into. Rather than being scared into submission, he takes Revvy head on and asks all the questions he’s been warned to avoid. Revvy, having no real attachment to Rock at this point, reacts is the way we expect: a gun pointed in his face with no hint of restraint in what she intends to do with it. The conclusion proves to be yet another fundamental turning point for the show. It shatters the tentative veneer alluded to between the pair and allows them to forge ahead with what is arguably the most important and most uniquely intriguing element of the show.

Black Lagoon isn’t necessarily perfect but it is excellent. It never really dwells on what makes it so fascinating, what makes it ‘different’, which proves to be a blessing and a curse. We get a very capable action series that ticks all the boxes while taking the odd moment to remind us that there’s more to it than just explosive gun battles and nautical dog fights. When we do get the occasional moment of existential turmoil or ideological conflict it explodes expectations and makes the show seem much more than what is superficially apparent. Their rarity makes them notable and important, which feels like the right decision, but the ease in which we forget them means it never genuinely ascends to something categorically deep. But then this isn’t a bad thing. Why can’t a hard-boiled action show first honour the core principles that make it such? The odd change in tone merely supplements it and pulls it outside those genre boundaries to make it special. And it is, only just so much that it doesn’t alienate its audience and confuse their expectations. I do wonder if the Third Barrage will change things dramatically. That flashback of Revvy’s seems especially loaded, and not in her usual incendiary fashion.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Black Lagoon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.