Black Lagoon Review

Revy is the reason it endures. She is written as a genuinely damaged and unrepentant killer rather than a cool one, and the series keeps setting Rock next to her to test whether his decency is a moral position or a comfortable habit. That argument is the spine, and when the show remembers it the writing is excellent. The action is Madhouse near its peak, with weighty gunplay, real recoil and a Roanapur that feels like a functioning criminal economy rather than a set.

Two-episode arcs give the villains room, and the Nazi treasure hunt, the Hansel and Gretel story and Roberta's rampage are all built well. The tone slips into posturing more than once, and the dialogue's fondness for profanity as characterisation gets tiring across twenty-four episodes. There is no overall plot and the series simply stops, because the manga was never finished on this schedule. Taken as a set of self-contained crime stories built around one outstanding lead, it is still the best hard-boiled action anime available.