History Manga / BlackLagoon

* RomanticismvsEnlightenment: Strongly romanticist from art style and shot composition to character motivations to the heavy RuleOfCool , Romanticism, in action scenes. Balalaika's rationalist ideology and fighting style, Enlightenment, make her that much more intimidating as a result.

* VillainousIncest: Hansel and Gretel

** The U.S. Army squad in El Baile is called the [[MetalGear Gray Fox]] unit. And features one guy with a bandana.

--> '''Stanford:''' Are you afraid?! There's no way you're not! Now witness the awesome power of__

* BarbieDollAnatomy: During Balalaika's retelling of Hansel and Gretel's past this trope is in effect at one point. Black Lagoon being the kind of show that it is, this scene may or may not be a example of this trope at all, but the alternative would be [[{{Squick}} much]], [[NauseaFuel MUCH]] worse.

-->'''Revy:''' It's like you gathered together all the 'ifs' in the world for this lameass plan.

* BreakTheCutie: Balalaika. For proof, see [[http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa248/taelor_mcclurg/little-balalaika.png these]] [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/balalaika.png two]] pictures of her before and after the war. Not to mention Hansel and Gretel. Oh ''God'', were they ever broken. Yukio gets her mind snapped due to the pressure of being forced to lead a Yakuza clan as well as getting kidnapped, beaten up, and molested. [[spoiler:Garcia, who has it broken SEVERAL TIMES during the El Baile de la Muerte arc..]]
* BunnyEarsLawyer: Most of the Roanapur gangster community, in one way or another. For example, Sawyer. A CuteMute goth (teenager?) who specializes in corpse disposal and uses a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw in combat]]. She's rather sociable when able to communicate with others, but becomes downright catatonic when she can't.
* ButtMonkey: Bao might qualify---''how'' often has his bar been shot up since he opened it?
** At least fifteen times, nearly destroyed six times, and utterly demolished once as-of Roberta's Blood Trail part 1.

* DressHitsFloor [[CreepyChild Gretel]] does this. It's [[InvertedTrope intended to be disturbing]]. [[ItMakesSenseInContext spoiler:We also aren't sure of her gender.]]

* CreepyChildrenSinging: "My mother has killed me...my father is eating me...my brothers and sisters sit under the table, picking up my bones! They'll bury them under the cold marble stones[[MusicalisInterruptus —]]"

* CarFu - See: Goat, Rock, and Jihad.

** Taken to UpToEleven levels with Shenhua, whose favorite weapons are twin kukris. On chains. That she is able to throw and whirl with impressive accuracy. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukri Kukris]] are not throwing weapons - they're closer to a axe/machete hybrid.

** It's true meaning is to show that Rock can never return to his home country, because now he is a prime suspect in the murder of a Yakuza boss.

* CoversAlwaysLie: See those cute kids on [[http://img.affenheimtheater.de/black_lagoon_sb_cover1_1.jpg the fourth dvd cover ?]] They are [[EnfantTerrible not as harmless as they look]].
** Though to be fair, by the time you get that far in the series, you will NOT be fooled.

* CreepyChildrenSinging: "My mother has killed me...my father is eating me...my brothers and sisters sit under the table, picking up my bones! They'll bury them under the cold marble stones[[MusicalisInterruptus...]]"

** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Benny, "Stories like this don't '''have''' happy endings."
*** The worst part is that there are several hints that Benny is ''wrong'', and Gretel ''COULD'' have been redeemed. Maybe she'd never be normal, but perhaps she could have learned to be selective about her killing such that a place like Roanapur could tolerate her.
* DressHitsFloor [[CreepyChild Gretel]] does this. It's [[InvertedTrope intended to be disturbing]]. [[spoiler:we also aren't sure of her gender, ItMakesSenseInContext]]

* DrugsAreBad: Leigharch is implied to have become irreversibly fucked up after snorting too much coke in the manga.
*** Coke? More like a whole multi-colored galaxy of [[FearAndLoathingInLasVegas uppers, downers, laughers, and screamers.]]
*** In the anime, his drug of choice is marijuana rather than cocaine.

** [[spoiler:Then she starts ODing on them, which do jack to stop her from hallucinating.]]

* EliteMooks: Balalaika's enforcers, they're former Russian Special Forces, and the name is, surprisingly, NOT just for show.

* EvilVersusEvil: You're either a mafia leader, apathetic criminal, an asshole, or a complete psychopath. [[AndZoidberg Or Rock.]]

* FreudianExcuse Hansel and Gretel

* GoodScarsEvilScars: [[BlackAndGreyMorality For a given value of 'good']]. Balalaika sports a nasty burn on the side of her face. Call her Fry Face at your peril. Sawyer has a nasty scar on her throat from where it was apparently cut, explaining why she needs the voice synthesizer.

* {{Gorn}}: In the Roberta's Blood Trail OVA's, you get to see what happens when a [[ChainsawGood chainsaw]] meets a human chest among other things.

** {{Lampshaded}} in the Viz edition: the liner-notes in the back make sure to note that, [[RuleOfCool while the 'gun-kata' style used by Revy looks awesome]], [[AwesomeButImpractical using it makes]] '''[[AwesomeButImpractical aiming]]''' [[AwesomeButImpractical all but impossible, not to mention]] '''[[AwesomeButImpractical reloading]]'''.

* HarmfulToMinors: Hansel and Gretel have quite possibly the most [[FreudianExcuse fucked up]] and [[DarkAndTroubledPast tragic]] BackStory you could hope to find in the series. Or pretty much any series.
** [[HeroicBSOD And look what happened with Garcia]] when he found his head maid doing... that. [[spoiler:She engages in a rather animalistic seduction of a FARC leader before shooting him with a gun hidden in her belt buckle and beating his head [[ChunkySalsaRule to a pulp]] with her bare fists [[GoryDiscretionShot just off screen]], while shouting about how she was doing everything for Garcia]]

* HeWillNotCrySoICryForHim: Rock, [[strike:the only truly decent human being]] one from just of handful of genuinely good people (and the only one optimistic enough to believe in redemption) in the CrapsackWorld of ''BlackLagoon'', listens with sadness and horror rather than disgust at the coldly delivered HannibalLecture of Gretel, a little girl so traumatized by rape and torture with her twin brother Hansel back in Romania that murder has become the sole source of joy for them. He holds her in a tight embrace and weeps, begging her to accept the possibility that there is hope, and still a possibility of a new and happy life for a little girl like her. This act of ''sincere'' kindness, so alien to Gretel, was enough to move even a mass murderer like her to blush like a ''real'' little girl for the briefest of moments... Cue one of the few {{Squick}}y {{Tear Jerker}}s in existence with [[EvilCannotComprehendGood how she tried to]] ''thank'' him: Lifting her skirt and giving him a show.

* HypocriticalHumor: "It's dangerous to [answer the phone] while driving, so let's do it at the hotel." Benny says. He says this while driving a car and [[spoiler:having sex]] at the same time.

* IntertwinedFingers done by hansel and gretel

** Played Straight with Garcia and Fabiola, at least for now.

* ChildSoldiers: it is mentioned that Balalaika and her at least some of her men fought them back in Afghanistan.

** The funny bit? Pay attention: Revy is a minimum of half of the Fucks spoken. Everyone else Cluster Bombs. She Carpet Bombs.
* CoolBoat: The Lagoon, a WWII - vintage [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT_boat PT boat]], retrofitted with metal armour plates and having had its deck guns removed.
** The Lagoon operates as a courier, so having the guns on deck probably doesn't bode well when dealing with authorities (those they can't bribe anyway). They can probably pass the torpedo tubes as either ship weight, empty, or just too big to unattach.

* CreepyChild Hansel and Gretel
* CreepyChildrenSinging "My mother has killed me... my father is eating me... my brothers and sisters, sit under the table, picking up my bones! They'll bury them, under the cold marble stones[[MusicalisInterruptus ...]]"
* CreepyTwins Hansel and Gretel take this trope to a whole new level, to the point that they were put in our pantheon (the family one).
* CurbStompBattle - After holding off droves of pissed gunmen and FARC troops, the U.S. Black Ops are summarily [[spoiler:slaughtered by Roberta.]]

* {{Omake}}: The manga regularly features these; most of them are varieties of ADayAtTheBizarro, like:

* JohnWoo: If he ain't a Trope all by himself, he should be. The series as a whole owes so much of its action to him. The anime sports many of his film stylings, even having a character (Mr. Chang) based off his movies. There's even a [[ShoutOut shoutout]] from his American film ''Face/Off'', when Chang pulls his [[GunsAkimbo guns]] out from behind his back, from the same midback, mirror-holster that Nicolas Cage had.

** The flashback scenes to the German submarine in episode 4 are rife with references to ''DasBoot''. The submarine even ends up stranded on the sea bottom like the U-96, although it, unlike the U-96, doesn't manage to escape.

[[caption-width-right:297:Just your everyday group of couriers.]]

'''''Black Lagoon''''', a {{seinen}} action manga series created by Rei Hiroe (which received an anime adaptation courtesy of Creator/{{Madhouse}}), starts by introducing the audience to Rokuro Okajima: after barely graduating from a Japanese community college and landing a job as an underpaid {{salaryman}} in the shipping and handling department of Asahi Industries, Rokuro seems destined to live a life of abused mediocrity as a small cog in a large corporate machine.

* AnachronismStew: Mild version. The series takes place in the early 1990s, but the computers they use are pretty darn 2000s-esque, and the Gray Foxes use [=EOTech=] sights.
* AntiHero (Type V)/ VillainProtagonist: They ''are'' [[APirate400YearsTooLate pirates]]. And [[RuthlessModernPirates not fun ]][[PiratesOfTheCaribbean Captain Jack Sparrow]] [[RuthlessModernPirates pirates either]]. Hell, they're introduced by having them hijack a boat...during which time Revy proposes that they execute Rock to tie up loose ends.

** Later used completely straight in the "Baile de la Muerte" arc. Most, or all of the Black Ops unit are wearing ballistic vests, most likely with trauma plates. Not one of them manages to stop the black powder sabot flechette rounds fired from a musket by Roberta.
*** Bear in mind, though, that 90-plus percent of Roberta's shots were fired at close range and that it is also likely that tubes carry a large amount of propellant proportionate to their size. Seeing as they are entirely self-contained, it's also possible that they are reinforced to accommodate nitrocellulose instead of black powder.

** Also, Fritz Stanford's Eiserne Reich Luger Special: gold finish, .454 Casull chambering, massive barrel, thickened grip to accommodate double-stack magazines...... the thing appears sufficiently oversized and overweight for a sidearm simply by the sound of it, and unfortunately Fritz himself is nowhere nearly as bright as any ArnoldSchwarzenegger character with a Desert Eagle.

** Hasn't gotten any better for him? I think becoming the MoralityPet to [[DragonLady Shenua]] and [[ChainsawGood Sawyer]] [[{{OT3}} worked out]] pretty well.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: [[PunchClockVillain The Lagoon Company is not really "evil" per se]], they're just HiredGuns who often do morally questionable things for money. Just about the worst thing they've done so far was to unintentionally help kidnap a child (Garcia) and plan to sell him off for money. With few extraordinary exceptions, most characters in the series don't go out of their way to be particularly nasty, but the trades they're involved in are unquestionably immoral.

** Taken to UpToEleven levels with Shenhua, whose favorite weapons are twin kukris. On chains. That she is able to throw and whirl with impressive accuracy. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukri Kukris]] are not throwing weapons - they're closer to a axe/machete hybrid.

* [[{{WorldOfBadass}} City of Badass]]: If you live in [[WretchedHive Roanapur]] and you have a name, you are a ''survivor''. Even if your name is [[JokeCharacter Rotton]].
* ClusterFBomb: The English dub, as evident by [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKwaPSkjXp0 Black Lagoon: The Fucking Short Version]]. The original Japanese is [[GratuitousEnglish not lacking in English profanity, either.]]

* CoolBoat: The Lagoon, a WWII - vintage [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PT_boat PT boat]], retrofitted with metal armour plates and having had its deck guns removed.

* CorruptChurch[=/=]ChurchMilitant: The Rip-Off Church; it's uncertain if it is an actual church, a Catholic-flavored gun cartel, or something more complicated. [[spoiler: Volume 7 of the manga shows that the Rip-Off Church is involved with information brokering as well as gun-running, with Eda working as a {{deep cover agent}} for the CIA. The head nun, Sister Yolanda, appears to have an Intelligence background herself, as her offhand comment naming Eda's boss indicates.]]

* DrugsAreBad: Leigharch is implied to have become irreversibly fucked up after snorting too much coke in the manga.

* EliteMooks: Balalaika's enforcers, they're former Russian Special Forces, and the name is, surprisingly, NOT just for show.

* FourPhilosophyEnsemble: Revy is the Cynic, Rock is the Optimist, Dutch is the Realist, Benny is the Apathetic.
* FriendlyEnemy:

* HiddenBadass: The Texan mercenary from the Greenback Jane arc. He's the butt of many a joke (given his unfamiliarity with the pecking order of Roanapour), and relentlessly mocked by the more 'experienced' mercenaries. Then he gets into a gunfight with Eda...alone. He matches her shot-for-shot for quite some time, and with a revolver, no less. It's probably no coincidence that Eda's male counterpart in one of the extras looks eerily like him, albeit in a priest's smock.

* IndirectKiss: The notorious "cigarette kiss" between Revy & Rock right after their heated confrontation is a definite winner and also one of the series' numerous CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.

* LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub: For at least a couple of organizations in the city, if not all of them. The worst offender is the Rip-Off Church, which doesn't seem to do anything remotely religious at all.

* [[AFatherToHisMen A Mother To Her Men]]: Balalaika.
** The male version of this trope is in effect as well, as the commanding officer (the Major) of the US Special Forces team is fully willing to sacrifice himself if it means that the rest of his team will survive.

* NeverASelfMadeWoman: Averted so far. Save for Fabiola and Roberta who were taken in by a wealthy widower, no female character ever mentions a relationship to a man to justify their success, line of work or skills. Their positions in the story were hard-earned and based on their own abilities.

** "Playmates! There are exactly one hundred playmates! Starting from the nineties! It's attack of the Playmate Army!"

*** Balalaika as a male is a surprisingly good fit.
*** And Benny is a flat chested {{Meganekko}} with GirlishPigtails.

** Summer ghost stories omake, everyone trying to scare each other. The winner is... [[spoiler:Rock.]] The loser... [[spoiler:''Balalaika'']], who demands that [[spoiler:Boris escort her for bathroom breaks in the middle of the night.]]

** Yolanda's gold-plated Desert Eagle has been previously mentioned, and it should be noted that while a regular Desert Eagle can cost over a thousand dollars new, a custom job with some sort of decoration or modification can cost ''several'' times more than that.

* RedOniBlueOni: Balalaika and Chang.

** This could also be considered a GaijinSmash (the act for which the blog is named.)

** And if his only real talent is not dying, he's still better than most male secondary characters in the series, ''especially'' when he takes countless hits that would have killed almost anyone else.

** A less obscure one would be towards the end of Season 1 Episode 12 where it's mentioned that Revy's still wanted in New York's [[Series/LawAndOrder 27th precinct]].

* [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids Silly Rabbit Idealism Is For Kids: The Anime]] : So much so that this entire franchise seems to be an AuthorTract of ''"It's pointless to even ''try'' to be a decent human being in the real world. Fight, Fuck, Kill, Don't Care About '''Anybody''' and Be Content."''

** The anime did a good job when Rock was translating for Balalaika during the yakuza meeting. Also, when Revy was talking to Ginji during the same arc.
* SurrealThemeTune:
** The theme song contains GratuitousEnglish that puts such gems as [[FistOfTheNorthStar "YOU WA SHOCK!"]] to shame. It still sounds rather threatening, however.

* ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend: Revy. Hurt Rock ''in any way,'' and Revy will either beat you up or kill you.

* YouMonster: Greenback Jane is running away from gangsters, while Sister Eda is driving next to her in a car.
-->'''Sister Eda''': Do you want us to save you? Think hard. If you don't want to hand over the plates, I guess we don't have a choice. You'd better run to a mosque next time. What do you think? [snip]
-->'''Greenback Jane''': 30,000 dollars!
-->'''Sister Eda''': Rock, it's almost my bedtime. I'm going back to the church.
-->'''Greenback Jane''': You monster! 100,000!

* RomanticismVsEnlightenment: Strongly romanticist from art style and shot composition to character motivations to the heavy RuleOfCool in action scenes. Balalaika's rationalist ideology and fighting style make her that much more intimidating as a result.

'''''Black Lagoon''''', a {{seinen}} action manga series created by Rei Hiroe (which received an anime adaptation courtesy of {{Madhouse}}), starts by introducing the audience to Rokuro Okajima: after barely graduating from a Japanese community college and landing a job as an underpaid {{salaryman}} in the shipping and handling department of Asahi Industries, Rokuro seems destined to live a life of abused mediocrity as a small cog in a large corporate machine.

-->-- '''Revy'''

''Black Lagoon'' is a {{seinen}} action manga series and anime, created by Rei Hiroe and animated by {{Madhouse}} studios.

Rokuro Okajima is an unhappy man. Barely graduating from a Japanese community college and getting a job as an underpaid {{salaryman}} working in the shipping and handling department of the industrial group Asahi Industries, Rokuro seems destined to live a life of abused mediocrity as a small cog in a large corporate machine.

Rokuro's life changes forever when he is tasked with delivering a data diskette to a customer in the South China Sea; his mission is derailed when his ship is attacked by {{pirate}}s with a torpedo boat, who nab the disc and bring Rokuro with them as a hostage for ransom. Twenty-four hours later, following a series of events that include being nearly shot by his captors, surviving a bar shootout, being chased by a gunship helicopter, ''and'' being declared legally dead by ''his own company'', Rokuro -- now rechristened with the nickname "Rock" -- is hired by a small boat courier service called the Lagoon Delivery Company...which is made up of the pirates who kidnapped him in the first place.

Apart from Rock, the other members of the Lagoon crew are:

* Dutch, an [[ScaryBlackMan imposing African-American]] veteran of the Vietnam War; he is the [[BaldBlackLeaderGuy leader]] of Lagoon Company and the captain of the ''Black Lagoon''.
* Revy, a Chinese-American thug; the Lagoon Company's primary muscle, she's a [[AxCrazy sociopathic]], [[NietzscheWannabe nihilistic]] [[TheGunslinger Gunslinger]] and is known as "Two Hands" for her [[GunsAkimbo style of shooting]].
* Benny, a Floridian communications expert and hacker who ran into some trouble with the FBI and the Mafia back home; he serves as the Lagoon Company's [[MissionControl technical expert and the boat's radar and radio operator]].

Making their headquarters in the fictional Thai city of Roanapur, the crew of the Black Lagoon make their living by "acquiring" goods and delivering them -- no questions asked -- on behalf of the various criminal elements who effectively run the city. The "goods" aren't always legal, of course, and the crew sometimes has to "persuade" the owners to hand over the cargo...

Not to be confused with ''CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon''.

!!''BlackLagoon'' provides examples of:

----

** (When Revy kicks him in the head to get him moving) "I forgot! We have to go to Liverpool! Jimi Hendrix is calling for me! To defeat the [[StarTrek Klingon-alien!]]"

*** Mind you, that one isn't entirely

*** Bear in mind, though, that 90-plus percent of Roberta's shots were fired at close range. It's also likely that tubes carry a large amount of propellant proportionate to their size. Seeing as they are entirely self-contained, they are probably reinforced and can accommodate nitrocellulose propellant.

* NotSoHarmless:Villain Eda, though she hasn't even revealed exactly how far this goes. As example, during Greenback Jane arc, the usually happy-go-lucky Eda [[spoiler:getting serious for once when one American gangster identified her as CIA agent, and [[YouKnowTooMuch shut his mouth for his trouble.]]]]. And guess who [[spoiler:provides our Termi-Maid with Foxes' information? She really hates NSA, that's for sure.]]

* NotSoHarmless: Eda, though she hasn't even revealed exactly how far this goes. As example, during Greenback Jane arc, the usually happy-go-lucky Eda [[spoiler:getting serious for once when one American gangster identified her as CIA agent, and [[YouKnowTooMuch shut his mouth for his trouble.]]]]. And guess who [[spoiler:provides our Termi-Maid with Foxes' information? She really hates NSA, that's for sure.]]

* {{Fanservice}}: [[http://manga.animea.net/black-lagoon-chapter-75-page-1.html I, uh, need to wipe the drool off my keyboard, give me a sec...]]
** [[http://manga.animea.net/black-lagoon-chapter-65-page-18.html Wow...just..wow]]
** Chapter 54 is called "El Baile de la Muerte 11". It could just as easily be called [[http://manga.animea.net/black-lagoon-chapter-54-page-9.html "Revy Works Out And Takes a Shower"]].
** And [[http://manga.animea.net/black-lagoon-chapter-44-page-11.html speaking of showers...]]
** Some people might find Balalaika's... dominative nature... hot.
** Well, this seems laughably tame compared to those links, but in the anime, there are frequent panty shots involving Greenback Jane.
** Not to forget Revy´s half closed Hotpants as a default outfit.

* FoeYay: Balalaika affectionately refers to Mr. Chang as "''babe''". Likely to annoy him, since he asks her not to. Anyway, they're more allies than enemies. Allies who've tried to kill one another multiple times.
** Revy is well known for her filthy mouth but [[http://manga.animea.net/black-lagoon-chapter-4-page-8.html she needs to choose her words better]]. (Last bubble)
*** Well, the addition of "up" completely changes the meaning.

* LesYay: Revy gets fed up with Janet Bhai (of the Greenback Jane story) and attacks her through her own overt sexuality (which was the source of the annoyance) [[spoiler:Revy...threatens to screw her so good that she won't be able to masturbate to satisfaction anymore.]] Admitting to having done that to women in prison. And this was to keep Jane from trying to rope Rock into [[spoiler: an orgy.]]
** Revy and Eda. The only friends they seem to have are each other, and they're also quite candid about manners of sex. Eda seems to the only person beside [[{{UST}} Rock]] who can insult her and get away with it, and since Revy likes [[BiTheWay women too]] (though the above mentioned incidents may have been Prison-related SituationalSexuality), it could very well happen.
** Shenhua and Revy are [[TheRival rivals]], insanely competitive and have an almost [[SexIsViolence sexual]] pleasure from murdering people.

*** Revy's starting to realize this. If her [[NightmareFuel behavior toward Fabiola]] at the end of ''El Baile de la Muerte'' is any indication, she is not happy.

* CreepyTwins Hansel and Gretel take this trope to [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel a whole new level]], to the point that they were put in our pantheon (the family one).

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Half of the damned cast, though [[AxCrazy Hansel]] [[CreepyTwins and]] [[NightmareFuelUnleaded Gretel]] take the cake.

* PapaWolf: Ginji. Lay ''one finger'' on [[YakuzaPrincess Yukio]] and he will deliver a [[NightmareFuel horrible]] KarmicDeath to you.

** [[spoiler: Revy herself seemed to be picking up some of Rock's idealism... And she and Fabiola had one last [[NightmareFuel talk]] at the end of ''El Baile de la Muerte''.]]

** Also somewhat evident in episode 7 of the anime (and probably the equivalent manga chapter), where Revy seems ''very'' interested in the porn that Balalaika's editing.
---> Revy: Hold on a sec...Is she taking it up the ass?! Balalaika: Sure is.

* EliteMooks: Subverted with Balalaika's enforcers, they're former Russian Special Forces, and the name is, surprisingly, NOT just for show.

[[redirect:Anime/BlackLagoon]]