History Headscratchers / BlackLagoon

* It's been ''over a year''. WHERE IS CHAPTER 82?
** Well, it took [[ScheduleSlip 3 years]], but it's finally here.
* It's been a few months. Where is chapter 88??

*** The somewhat short version is that Roberta's situation serves as the catalyzing agent for a number of Roanapur's latent-yet-constantly-boiling-under-the-surface tensions between criminal factions to hit the very tense edge of a boiling point. Roberta drives herself insane in order for a suicidal chance to take out the US special forces because their bombing of, and meddling in, the affairs of South American drug cartels and FARCs resulted in the death of her beloved benefactor. Garcia and Fabiola come to stop her and save both her life and her "Roberta" personality and place in their house. Boss Chang of the Chinese Triads realises that this going down in Roanapur is, both on its own and due to the instability it will cause in the knife-edge balanced environment, going to light up the proverbial powder-keg. Likeise, if Roberta kills the American team IN Roanapur, then the city will face the retribution and armed intervention of the US Government which it has enjoyed freedom from since coming into existence. As seen later, he also wisely realises it will give Balalaika/Hotel Moscow a clandestine chance in the resulting chaos to finally strike out and destroy the incredibly tense armistice that exists between the Russians and the Chinese, who have been battling for years for total dominance in the city. On top of that, the CIA, personified by Eda, is pissed at the Special Forces (specifically "Grey Fox") for stealing and putting their own plans into action in the field, and because they threaten her division's position. Therefor, they attempt to play the field from the background anonymously, helping Chang, Roberta, and Rock. Ah, Rock. He's in the toughest position of them all, because Chang, representing the controlling faction(s) of Roanapur, drafts him to monitor, analyze, and somehow control Garcia, Fabiola, Roberta if possible, and the ENTIRE situation at large in order to make sure that Roanapur doesn't descend into the critical mass meltdown of chaos, anarchy, and self-destruction. It should be noted that neither Chang nor anyone else really thinks Rock is capable of this, and expect to take advantage of the situation in their own ways. Rock spends a long, sleepless, painful time drafting out ALL the possible motivations, interactions, and outcomes of every single choice that the involved parties can make...and then attempts, over the course of the Arc, not so much to control, but to steer, co-opt, predict, and coerce all the involved players such that the entire unholy mess is defused as cleanly as Humanly possible without getting himself or the others killed. For these purposes, other than contacting and controlling all the involved parties, he drafts Revy, Shenhua, Sawyer, and Rotton (as well as working with Garcia and Fabiola, and later involving Benny and Dutch). Things go sort of according to his plan, which surprises the hell out of a lot of people, continuing the grand tradition of Rock earning a lot of respect points from high places and his fellow workers, whilst forcing Revy to acknowledge he's finding his own place in the "world of darkness" to which she was sure he didn't belong.
*** For what it's worth, the author also admitted that the arc was starting to drag and said he was trying to wrap it up quickly.
*** This is the usual reaction to trying to understand a GambitPileup
**** The OVA seems somewhat a saving throw on this as it condenses things down and only leaves what's really needed, it also makes the final battle seem far less lopsided and ridiculous at least in my view. It's a bit hard to be exact, but it seem she only seems to manage to kill eight of the Spec Ops team while being virtually torn to shreds by them in return. She only lives because they allow it (which is unbelievably charitable given the situation frankly) and we see probably over a dozen guys return unscathed, while she's clearly crippled for life, which is more in keeping with what you'd expect from the setting when one lone badass tries to fight an elite military unit.

** Actually, "Big Sis" is a translation for "Anego", which is a respectul form for an underling to call someone who is the head of a group of yankees. Yankee in Japanese culture is a female delinquent, generally still a student, but some continue to be this even after growing up, with the expected repercussions.

*** Looks like the El Baile de la Muerte arc is suggesting that it start by '95, which possibly means that Rock starts working in Roanapur somewhere between '94 and early to mid '95.

*** That's bullshit. He wants to atone, he should give up himself from the start. No need to involve his men.

*** Tried and failed, he still pulled his men into this whole horseshit, but he probably thought, that Miss Terminator Maid's gonna continue with his men after she shoots him.
** So...what? Whyn't he let his soldiers defend themselves again? What's his reason?

* did Hansel and Gretel have huge power and skill like Revy and Roberta ? if so why were they shot by an unnamed soldier and an old man , if not , how did they survive Revy , Eda and pretty much the man hunt?

** Poor adaptation of El Baile de la Muerte arc into the anime, made this confusion. If you can recall, Caxton already shoot his men in Vietnam. Those events made him what he is. But, unfortunately OVA ignored those things.

** Revy provoked Ginji since she saw him splitting the bullet. She was looking for the reason to start the fight. Of cource, Yukio did nothing to stop this.

** Revy provoked Ginji since she saw him spliting the bullet. She was looking for the reason to start the fight. Of cource, Yukio did nothing to stop this.

** Just to make things more confusing, the OVA explicitly gives the date of Lovelace's assassination as October 1995.

** That's bullshit. He wants to atone, he should give up himself from the start. No need to involve his men.

* Was the ship of these Neo-Nazi dumbshits directly above the old Nazi submarine? If it wasn't, why didn't they just sent a torpedo against their ship, Black Lagoon is operating from an old torpedo-boat!

* Just to begin with...the ''Black Lagoon'' is a WorldWarTwo-era PT boat. Those things were largely built out of wood, and were almost all destroyed by a few years after the war was over. How was this one missed? Also, if I were up to various illegal shenanigans, I wouldn't want a vehicle that draws the eye merely by existing---using this vintage collector's item for their illegal errands would be like running drugs in a Cord 812 automobile. Even people who aren't interested in what I'm doing would be interested in the car/boat.

* In the first Killer Maid arc, when Roberta's just finished shooting up the Colombians, why in the name of sweet sanity didn't Revy just yell something like "Hey! Over here, lady!" and shove Garcia toward Roberta? She could have saved herself a painful bullet wound (and I should note that a bullet in the shoulder is no joke in real life; she should have been a lot more incapacitated than she was) and a beating-up.

** A well-placed sniper attempting to pull a hit on a Mob Boss - especially if that boss is Balalaika - would imply a skilled hitman who specializes in it. Such talent would require money to pay for it, and the only people who ''really'' want Balalaika dead with those kinds of resources are [[BalanceOfPower the other mob bosses.]] This would instantly bring suspicion upon the heads of the other bosses in the area - and out of those other three bosses, Chang is actually ''[[FriendlyEnemy friendly]]'' with Balalaika despite being a competitor. That leaves suspicion to Abrego and Verocchio, and considering this is ''[[EvilerThanThou Hotel Moscow]]'' we're talking about, [[SincerityMode I wouldn't like those odds either]]. The objective in question was two-fold - kill Balalaika, and don't get caught doing it in the process as to avoid retribution from her [[BadassArmy Vysotoniki]] or [[TheMafiya the rest of the organization she works for.]] Bringing in a couple of outsiders made it look like some kind of vigilante drifter was after the various mafias in town at first - which ''everyone'' (except maybe Balalaika) actually thought it was. It wasn't until someone actually got a glimpse of [[CreepyTwins Hansel and Gretel]] and [[LeaveNoSurvivors survived long enough]] to tell others what they looked like and their mannerisms that Verocchio's plan started to unravel. Verocchio's only real mistake is that he brought in a couple of ''[[AxCrazy psychotic children]]'' who started killing ''several'' people instead of who they were supposed to. And the fact that in the case of the last bar said children destroyed, they made the mistake of [[LeaveNoWitnesses leaving a witness.]]

** A well-placed sniper attempting to pull a hit on a Mob Boss - especially if that boss is Balalaika - would imply a skilled hitman who specializes in it. Such talent would require money to pay for it, and the only people who ''really'' want Balalaika dead with those kinds of resources are [[BalanceOfPower the other mob bosses.]] This would instantly bring suspicion upon the heads of the other bosses in the area - and out of those other three bosses, Chang is actually ''[[FriendlyEnemy friendly]]'' with Balalaika despite being a competitor. That leaves suspicion to Abrego and Verocchio, and considering this is ''[[EvilerThanThou Hotel Moscow]]'' we're talking about, [[SincerityMode I wouldn't like those odds either]]. The objective in question was two-fold - kill Balalaika, and don't get caught doing it in the process as to avoid retribution from her [[BadassArmy Vysotoniki]] or [[TheMafiya the rest of the organization she works for.]] Bringing in a couple of outsiders made it look like some kind of vigilante drifter was after the various mafias in town at first - which ''everyone'' (except maybe Balalaika) actually thought it was. It wasn't until someone actually got a glimpse of [[CreepyTwins Hansel and Gretel]] and [[LeaveNoSurvivors survived long enough]] to tell others what they looked like and their mannerisms that Verocchio's plan started to unravel. Verocchio's only real mistake is that he brought in a couple of ''[[AxCrazy psychotic children]]'' who started killing ''several'' people instead of who they were supposed to.

** A well-placed sniper attempting to pull a hit on a Mob Boss - especially if that boss is Balalaika - would imply a skilled hitman who specializes in it. Such talent would require money to pay for it, and the only people who ''really'' want Balalaika dead with those kinds of resources are the other mob bosses. This would instantly bring suspicion upon the heads of the other bosses in the area - and out of those other three bosses, Chang is actually ''friendly'' with Balalaika despite being a competitor. That leaves suspicion to Abrego and Verocchio, and considering this is ''Hotel Moscow'' we're talking about, I wouldn't like those odds either. The objective in question was two-fold - kill Balalaika, and don't get caught doing it in the process as to avoid retribution from her [[BadassArmy Vysotoniki]] or [[TheMafiya the rest of the organization she works for.]] Bringing in a couple of outsiders made it look like some kind of vigilante drifter was after the various mafias in town at first - which ''everyone'' (except maybe Balalaika) actually thought it was. It wasn't until someone actually got a glimpse of [[CreepyTwins Hansel and Gretel]] and [[LeaveNoSurvivors survived long enough]] to tell others what they looked like and their mannerisms that Verocchio's plan started to unravel. Verocchio's only real mistake is that he brought in a couple of ''psychotic children'' who started killing ''several'' people instead of who they were supposed to.

** A well-placed sniper attempting to pull a hit on a Mob Boss - especially if that boss is Balalaika - would imply a skilled hitman who specializes in it. Such talent would require money to pay for it, and the only people who ''really'' want Balalaika dead with those kinds of resources are the other mob bosses. This would instantly bring suspicion upon the heads of the other bosses in the area - and out of those other three bosses, Chang is actually ''friendly'' with Balalaika despite being a competitor. That leaves suspicion to Abrego and Verocchio, and considering this is ''Hotel Moscow'' we're talking about, I wouldn't like those odds either. The objective in question was two-fold - kill Balalaika, and don't get caught doing it in the process as to avoid retribution from her Vysotoniki or the rest of the organization she works for. Bringing in a couple of outsiders made it look like some kind of vigilante drifter was after the various mafias in town at first - which ''everyone'' (except maybe Balalaika) actually thought it was. It wasn't until someone actually got a glimpse of Hansel and Gretel and survived long enough to tell others what they looked like and their mannerisms that Verocchio's plan started to unravel. Verocchio's only real mistake is that he brought in a couple of ''psychotic childen'' to do the job who started killing ''several'' people instead of who they were supposed to.