Sartre's Existential Action Bonanza (Black Lagoon - The Second Barrage (DVD))

Member Name: berlioz II

Product:	Black Lagoon - The Second Barrage (DVD)
Date:	05/08/09 (42 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good continuation with a more thoughtful stance coupled with stylish action

Disadvantages: Main characters often somewhat sidelined

After turning out to be so successful, the production team on Black Lagoon immediately set out to do a second season for the kick-ass action series based on Rei Hiroe's popular manga. With the original run of 12 episodes appearing between April and June of 2006, the second season - titled "The Second Barrage" - aired during the same year's October to December with another 12 episodes. In many ways, as you might expect with a series that has a second season appearing during the same year as the first, the quality remains as strong and the general tone of extreme violence, no-nonsense action, and a fairly light-hearted attitude still colour a lot of the second series' episodes. However, at the same time, it is interesting to note how very different The Second Barrage actually is when compared to the first. Whereas the first consisted of generally short story arcs of two to three episodes in general, The Second Barrage breaks this convention somewhat by having only three story arcs for the entirety of the season, while it also ups the ante on issues not squarely dealing with only simple shooting and killing.

The first two arcs are fairly much in the style of the first season's constructs, though with the marked difference that the character development of the main cast so prevalent in the first season is largely absent in the first two arcs. The first arc consists of three episodes, detailing how the Italian mafia is attempting to take over the power of Roanapur's criminal city from the other crime bosses with the help of two twin children who boast a very innocently violent temperament and a hunger for bloodsucking. Of all the Black Lagoon arcs, the Vampire arc is by far the creepiest of the lot, with the implications of two vampire twins rampaging on the streets with a smile on their faces and little sense of morality (much because the children's pasts have been littered with paedophilia and death to make them not to think much about death themselves), making this the most supernatural of the otherwise very earthly stories seen thus far. This arc - and consequently really the majority of The Second Barrage as a whole - actually focuses less on the main characters of the Lagoon Company than it does with the major criminal cartels that run the city of Roanapur. Balalaika as the main honcho of the Russian mafia's Hotel Moscow along with Mr. Chang's Triad of the most powerful of the groups provide a lot of the focus in this first arc, and the main cast really only make few sporadic appearances throughout.

One of the most interesting and fun aspects of this first arc, which also applies to the rest of the season, is the deepening of the main nihilist Revy's social structure. Whereas in the first season, Revy was often mirrored against a lot of the other characters, particularly the salaryman Rock in her development as a woman to whom only her weapons provided the security of being someone, in the second season she gets more expansion on her involvement with other people outside of the Lagoon Company. This in particular comes across from her interaction with Sister Eda of the Church of Violence, who only made a short appearance in the seventh episode of the first season. In here the interaction between the two is significantly expanded, showing that on an ideological and personal level, Eda can most likely be considered as somewhat of a best friend to Revy. Revy's character isn't, of course, terribly altered from her previous grumpy attitude, but she still allows the rather more pervy and light-hearted Eda to come close to her with only threats of beating the crap out of her coming across rather half-hearted and annoyed than serious. When a hit is given on the vampire twins heads, Revy is the first Eda enlists to help her catch them and collect the bounty, which Revy then accepts in a rather amusing set of bantering that is companionable amid all the verbal assaulting. And when things don't go exactly as planned (and their arguing in the aftermath running out of steam), Eda still asks Revy to walk her to her car, while Revy walks off saying Eda's old enough to go by herself.

But on top in this first arc is left the strategies of the main gangs rather than the occasional simple outing of the individual characters. Also it raises issues about life and the evil of the world - something again which is a dominating force for a lot of the second season - which makes the viewer question what in the end is right in this oddly absurd world of crime and violence. The twins contain a lot of this ambiguousity in determining how one should really think of these two. Two children, raised in violence and the abuse of older men in paedophilic slavery, can one fault them that their world is coloured a certain way? When they noticed that hurting others made them accepted better by people, then can one blame them for the way they grew up with no sense other than to kill and maim as this was the only thing they ever knew about and were given importance because of it? At the end of the arc, you are left wondering whether their ultimate fate is justified or whether they end up getting dealt with unfairly, thus leaving you off in a feeling of conflict that has no right or wrong answer.

The second arc is considerably more humorous and in the style of whirlwind action almost from start to finish, being the closest in terms of feel to the first season. This arc features the master counterfeiter Janet Bhai - or "Greenback Jane" - getting into trouble with her criminal American employers and, following the execution of her head technician by their disgruntled employers, is taken to Roanapur and given a couple of weeks to finish manufacturing the perfect One Hundred Dollar plate. However, knowing the impossibility of the task, she rather decides to escape and in the process gets dragged into one of the most massive action outings of the whole anime. Played considerably more for some plain fun action, the Greenback Jane arc ups the concept of the action spectacle way out of proportion to make it absurdly gleeful to watch. Unlike the first arc, the second is not really complicated at all, nor does it present any deep sociological or existential questions for you to consider. This is all about guns and violence, nothing more. The running joke is to see the hapless perfectionist Jane getting more and more deep into trouble that one just has to wonder how much worse can things get for this poor woman who just wants to do an exceptional job. When her initial pursuers chance to catch up to her as she has just reached the Church of Violence in search of sanctuary, it again gives a fun glimpse into the mentality of the people living there. Eda, who is drinking liquor with Revy, initially doesn't want to let Jane in at all ("Jesus is on vacation!"), but as one of the American thugs makes the mistake of shooting toward the church (and in the process destroying Revy's glass), then there is no stopping as both gun maniacs get angry and pull out their own pieces.

Spurred by this failure, the Americans quickly decide to hire a large group of mercenaries to hunt down Jane which, as Eda gets in on the catch of also wanting the plate for the church and dragging Revy and Rock into the plot too, ends up pitting the quartet against all the specialised mob of killers and oddities. The second half of this arc really is all about the massive action that never relents and can easily leave you breathless. To make the arc even more interesting is the inclusion of several eccentric characters to make out the attacking mercenaries. First we are re-introduced to the blade-wielding Shenhua, whom we had already seen before collaborating with Revy in the first season's final episodes, and she makes for a welcomed return here (though her former companion, the coke-head Leigharch is too OD'd to even make an appearance). Other notables are Sawyer the Cleaner, a woman whose job it is to cut dead (and sometimes not so dead) bodies to pieces with a chainsaw when the different crime cartels need to get rid of their problematic snitches (she however seems to have a bit of a complex about her talking machine she needs to generate sound from her cut throat that is very funny); then there's the human torch Claude Weaver, who likes to use some heavy-duty flamethrowers on everything; the rather pathetic Rotten the Wizard, who's major appearance on the stage of carnage is so pathetic you don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him; and then there's the Cowboy, who somehow tries to control his hired thugs... often with rather poor success due to the fact that none respect him for being an outsider.

This second arc is definitely the least deep and thoughtful of the other two, but it offers a nice change of pace to some truly breathless action this series does so well, and the scale of which makes it perhaps the most enjoyable on a purely entertainment level. Also it further adds to the close relationship of Eda and Revy in how they spend more time together as opposed to being mortal enemies rather wanting to shoot one another as the first season might have projected. What does start to come across here, though, and which is only emphasised in the following arc, is the thinning down of the main group of characters in The Second Barrage. Notably Black Lagoon owner Dutch and the technician Benny shine with their absence through a lot of the season. In the first arc they only made a couple of background appearances, and in the second they only appear for the final episode. And even if Benny does get a bit of a love scene to him when Jane finds herself attracted to the hacker, and Dutch gets to show what it's like to be in a rodeo on the open seas, the two really make only a few appearances through The Second Barrage, which is a bit of a shame. And in the third neither really figure at all. It is Revy who really gets the main starring role in being involved majorly in all three arcs over any of the other characters. But for any fans of the other characters, this can bring a small dampener to the proceedings.

The third arc is the most different to the established Black Lagoon serial considering it runs a full six episodes, and only features Rock and Revy of the main cast along with Balalaika. The Washimine arc finds Rock trailing Balalaika back to his home city of Tokyo as an interpreter, and Revy joins him on this trip as his bodyguard. Now considering the length of the third arc being twice as long as the first two (or any of the preceding arcs in the whole series), this also allows for a deeper and more in depth look into the characters that are on show here. More than anything, it is here that the prevalent existential issues that the series deals with on an intellectual level get free reign. Rock upon reflecting on the changes in his life in the old haunts of his life, meets a young girl and instantly hits off with her. However, what he doesn't know is that the girl is actually Yukio Washimine, the heir to the Washimine yakuza-clan, who becomes the head-of-operations after her father gets killed by Balalaika due to disagreements on Hotel Moscow's way of handling business. A lot of the third arc is really considerably slower moving, and a lot more time is given for character exposition and development. This arc also returns to that area of ambiguousity seen in the Vampire arc, with the fate of the young high schoolgirl Yukio getting put in charge of a major crime organisation, and how the effects are seen in the people this touches. Rock, forever the conciliatory person with hopes for humanity's fairness and the freedom of choice, cannot accept that this young girl is involved in something that will ultimately ruin her and deny her of normal life. Yet Yukio sees it differently, and tells Rock several times that it is he who does not understand, and that it is Rock who stands in the darkness, unable to give nothing more than empty advice as he himself is just hiding away from the tough realities - unwilling to choose sides and always staying neutral, thus forsaking his own right to choice.

There are many instances of reference to the work of the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre and it is these questions that provide the framework for a lot of the third arc's evolvement. This arc also sees a marked change in Revy, who adopts a more professional attitude over her usual hot temper. Revy is more often seen giving advice to Rock, for instance in prompting him to go see his family because he may not get a second chance again, even if Rock is hesitant due to his less than warm relations to his parents, while she also tries to govern Rock's attitude of wanting to do his utmost in helping Yukio by at the same time going against Balalaika's goals. It is a much more mature Revy that has to get by in not solving everything with the blaze of weapons, though once the situation escalates, she once more enters her familiar element of violent problem solving. At the other end, Yukio herself is again a character that can leave one conflicted with feelings on her fate and her choice of path as with the vampire twins. Yukio is very much an existential heroine in her attitude and her views on life, and it is her choice of falling in to become the head of the Washimine Group, thus forsaking the "darkness" she has always hated for a clear direction, no matter how romantically misguided it is. Whether one should feel sorry for her or accept that within every heart there lurks darkness that only needs to be motivated enough to come out, leading to its rationalisation and once more the freedom of choice or its ultimate inevitability that determines how you view the girl.

Further aspects of the third arc details once more the operations of the criminal organisations, and the different modes of their handling business. Balalaika is ruthless in her operations, originally attempting to undermine the power of the rival Kousa Council in favour of an alliance with the Washimine Group, but as their association goes sour, it starts an open war between Hotel Moscow, the Russian mafia branch in Japan, and the Japanese crime organisations. Also throwing a wedge in between all this is the traitor of the Washimine Group, Chaka, who rather would like to take charge of the group himself instead of Yukio, and thus also ends up kidnapping her. Of course this is a cue for a wonderfully exhilarating action sequence as Yukio's personal bodyguard, the katana-wielding Ginji, and Revy attack the thugs in a spectacular show of skills. This arc is in many ways a very multi-faceted one that draws a lot more detail for the characters of Rock, Revy and Balalaika, the last one's general tone in particular of not accepting reprimands for her actions is nicely illustrated when she ends up holding Rock at gunpoint due to his attempts to make Balalaika give up on destroying the Washimine Group, and only really sparing Rock due to seeing a certain type of ruthlessness in him as well that she identifies in herself. And her sense of dominance outside of others is only further emphasised when she tries to offer a deal to the Kousa Council to annihilate the Washimines' only to end up whimsically betraying them as well in a somewhat humorous, yet disturbing way.

Also, as a side note, this arc brings about an interesting point of languages, which had never been addressed in Black Lagoon before. Considering the amount of nationalities, it is in the third arc that we see the characters actually not speaking Japanese, but most likely English for a lot of the time, with the Japanese just dubbed for the benefit of the watcher. As Rock has to interpret Balalaika speaking English to the Japanese, there are many sections where both languages overlap on a very realistic level that is not often done in many likewise series. And it only gives a fun little addition in hearing the Japanese seiyuus speaking their somewhat garbled English, particularly Revy who doesn't understand Japanese and often ends up blowing her top to various people with her quaint pronunciation ("What the f***? Bullshit! I don't have to take that, motherf*****!"). One of her most funny such moments comes when faced with a random thug who wants to give up, just shouting "Give! Give!" to her and Revy smiles back with "Give? Give me something? What you want to give me? I don't understand what the f*** you're saying," all spoken in a very rounded English before she shoots the poor ass anyway.

As with the first season, the animation quality remains high and detailed, while the odd decision of using blatant CGI for cars and such within basic 2D animation remains a curious choice. The sound elements also remain an important part of the general ambiance with its explosions and gunfire paving the way in many places, while the voice acting is as strong as it always was, even past the somewhat flubbed English and rather fake Russian in the third arc. Likewise the opening and ending sequences have not been revamped for The Second Barrage, even if this is usually a norm in many series spanning several seasons with the exception of episode 3's requiem song taking the place of the usual Apocalypse Now end credits piece. In conclusion, even though The Second Barrage takes a bit of a turn from The First Barrage's clear-cut action and more rounded character development, this second season remains a highly enjoyable sequel, expanding on certain aspects of the characters and the world they inhabit, while revamping things enough to not just be another case of same ol' same ol'. For action junkies looking for something a bit deeper amid the spectacle-like action, or anime fans in general just wanting something with a healthy dose of action, a great set of characters, a great feeling, and still have actual character development to boot, Black Lagoon's first and second seasons are both worthy acquisitions.

© berlioz, 2009

Summary: A wonderful Black Lagoon first season companion with more thought instilled amid the action.