Welcome back, to another week of Black Lagoon! I have another pair of episodes for you, these two wrapping up the Jane arc with just as much fun as it started. There’s a decent amount to talk about, and I want to actually get this up on time for once, so lets dive right into it!
Starting off we have episode 17, “The Roanapur Freakshow Circus”. This picks up right where we left off, with bounty hunters storming the hotel and Eda explaining her brilliant plan. Turns out? I was right! She did plan all of this. In fact, she’s run this so many times that she not only has a specific room picked out, she has signs setup directing Jane right to her alley. Hell, she has a track record of doing this. And you know what makes it all even funnier? The moment Eda and Revy get involved, all of the other bounty hunters immediately back off and demand more pay. Not because they are afraid of them, we see later they gladly fight. More that fighting them simply isn’t worth the paltry 1k they were being paid before. The hilarity! And that’s exactly how I would describe both of these episodes: Hilarious.
Simply put, the jokes across these two episodes were great. Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t like this many, this often. They would take away from whatever serious plot was happening. But right now, in this arc? The jokes, the family nature of the bounty hunters relationship, all of their interactions, were never serious to begin with. Really, the only people taking this arc seriously at all are the outsiders. Everyone else, despite being shot at or choked in a window or possibly burned alive? For them this is a normal Tuesday in Roanapur. Hell, even Rock is treating all of this like a regular occurrence, staying generally calm and defending himself throughout it all. Together, this all ended up making these two episodes of Black Lagoon a lot of fun to watch.
On top of that, the action was pretty fun too. All the bounty hunters had just enough personality to make them stand out, from the fat guy and Wizard to Shenhua and Sawyer, while still supplying enough disposable mooks for Revy and Eda to gun down. I wouldn’t call it all that well animated, Black Lagoon just doesn’t have those kinds of chops it feels like. But as far as situations go, the use of various weapons the personalities involved, it was some fun action. I especially enjoyed Sawyer’s chainsaw, just awkward enough that Rock can survive it but just dangerous enough that Revy couldn’t take her out instantly. That and something about her design is just really nice. Anyways, the point is, this episode had a lot of things going for it and the next one, 18, did a great job closing it all out.
Speaking of 18, that brings me to “Mr. Benny’s Good Fortune”, the bulk of the ending for the arc. Lots of random bounty hunters day, fat boy blows up like rocket man, and Russel figures out something he shouldn’t have before getting shot. All in all though? No one died that really mattered. In fact, as far as the bounty hunters are concerned, I’d say the most impactful thing was that a romance might have been started. That’s right, I’m talking about Shenhua and Wizard. And you know what? This was actually really cute. For some reason them comparing advice, vests and monologues, helping each other to the doctor, Shenhua basically saying he’d be better fit as a gigolo, it all just worked for me. Like a cherry on top to close out the bounty hunters side of the. Suffice to say, I really liked these kinds of small details.
As for the main story, this is mostly a boat fight where everyone gets to strut their stuff a bit. Revy gets to shoot people, Dutch gets to drive the boat and buck people off showing how skilled he is, and Benny even gets to hack an encrypted server to download the plate information that Jane lost because her system admin from 2 episodes ago was shot in the head. Funny how those things come full circle huh? Anyways, that last bit worked really well for me. It added some non-combat sort of conflict, something for Jane, Rock and Benny to do and worry about while everyone else was fighting. I also think those 3, as the most “White collar” of Roanapur, have some great chemistry, what with them all being various level of criminals but also non-combatants. I hope they get more scenes together in the future.
Finally lets talk about the big reveal of this episode, the twist at the end sort of kicked us back into “serious” mode: Eda is a CIA agent! I’ll admit, this caught me completely by surprise. Not only because Eda has never hinted at it before, but because I didn’t think the arc would go for something serious right at the end. It works of course, it’s like small look into Eda’s past that, most likely, won’t get expanded upon at all in the time we have left. And while that’s sad, I think it makes Eda a lot more interesting now. Is all of this, everything she does here, part of her job with the CIA? Or has she come to enjoy this life more, has she “gone native”? Or maybe she was kicked out entirely, we can’t know! But whatever it is, it’s another layer I never expected her to have. And I like that.
So yeah, all in all this was a really fun week for Black Lagoon. A bit of a shorter post this week, mostly due to me being busy and a loss in the family, but I want make this clear: This Jane arc is probably the most fun I’ve had with Black Lagoon since the first few episodes. It was fun and actiony, just the right amount of raunchy and crude, and the English dub continues to impress. It’s wild that I originally didn’t enjoy the dub, cause listening to it now I think it’s the better way to enjoy the show. With only 6 episodes left, I’m really looking forward to what Black Lagoon has prepared for its finale. I’m not expecting anything final, the original manga is still ongoing to this day I believe. But I’m hoping for something about as good as what we just got. Lets hope it doesn’t disappoint.
Oh also one last thing, I could do with a few less panty shots on Jane, thanks, and Revy’s casual back and forth with Shenhua/the reveal that the driver OD’ed was hilarious.
