History Manga / BlackLagoon

''Black Lagoon'' is a {{seinen}} action manga series created by Rei Hiroe and published since 2002 by Creator/{{Shogakukan}} (with an English localization by Creator/VizMedia). The series delves into the underbelly of international crime like a Tarantino-esque crime story in Southeast Asia, while also ruminating on existentialism, a man's place in the world, and the thin line between civilization and savagery.

Not to be confused with ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'' or Mike Thaler's ''Black Lagoon'' children's book series. Also not related in any way to ''Manga/BlackButler'' or ''Manga/BlackClover''.

** There's Hansel and Gretel, who think they can murder just any Russian gangsters and run without consequence from Balalaika

* SanityHasAdvantages: Mostly played straight but occasionally averted. Hansel is led into a trap that Balailaka notes no one who was sane and not blinded by bloodlust would have fallen for. Sawyer collapses into catatonic depression when her [[MagicFeather audiovox]] is lost (though she gets better). On the other side, [[spoiler:Roberta, in her second appearance]] is blinded by anger, and pain, but remains a devastatingly effective combatant, with complicated strategies and maneuvers other distressed characters have lacked. In fact, [[spoiler:Roberta]] [[PowerBornOfMadness becomes ''far'' more powerful]] when [[spoiler:she]] is angry.

** First off, we have Eda's gun: a Glock 17L. The interesting thing here is that although the Glock 17L is a rare gun today, it had just been introduced around the time that the series takes place (early-to-mid 1990's)

** Alternatively, the story can be about how wallowing in nihilism and cynicism makes you a pathetic wreck of a human being. As Revy so aptly puts it, Roanapur is the city of the walking dead; nobody there is happy or content, they just ''exist'' and let their nihilism control them.

* EverybodySmokes: Especially Revy. If she's not drinking, she's got a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Or both. The fact that even the relatively wimpy ''Rock'' smokes is pretty much a dead give away of the author's [[SmokingIsCool opinion on smoking]].

** The "Goat, Jihad, & Rock n' Roll" arc was heavily edited for the anime. The manga explicitly named the Islamic terrorists as being part of [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict Hezbollah]], but the anime used a fictional name for their group. In addition, the manga's drawings of the terrorists had them wearing [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keffiyeh keffiyehs]], including Ibraha, but the anime changed it to ski masks and left Ibraha bare-headed. Coincidentally, these episodes originally aired in the summer of 2006. [[TooSoon A few weeks later]], Israel and Hezbollah went to war. Again.

* BiTheWay:
** As of Chapter 81, Revy.
--->'''Revy''': [[SituationalSexuality In prison]]... I've won over some sex-starved dykes by playing the man's role. And... after that, their fingers just weren't enough for them ever again.
** It's also a deliberate [[InvokedTrope invocation]] of DepravedBisexual, as Revy was saying that as a ''threat''.
** Also somewhat evident in "Calm Down, Two Men" (anime episode 7, manga chapter 9), where Revy seems ''very'' interested in the porn that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSc16zKFAJs Balalaika's editing.]]
--->'''Revy''': Hold on a sec… Is she taking it up the ass?!\\
'''Balalaika''': ''[-{in not merely a deadpan voice, but sounding downright ''bored'' }-]'' ...sure is.
** She can be seen, at one point in the manga, looking at a porn magazine with a naked woman on it (chapter 12 [[http://mangafox.me/manga/black_lagoon/v02/c012/7.html here]] and [[http://mangafox.me/manga/black_lagoon/v02/c012/9.html here,]] to [[IncrediblyLamePun bi]] exact).

* FreudianExcuse: Hansel and Gretel are nutcases because of their childhood. [[spoiler:They were porn and snuff film starlets.]]
* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Early on, Revy blames the way she is now on her rough childhood. During her argument with Rock, he gets fed up with this attitude and accuses her of wallowing in self-pity, which puts a serious crack in her shell.

Rokuro's life changes forever when the company asks him to deliver a data diskette to a customer in the South China Sea -- his ship comes under attack by [[RuthlessModernPirates pirates]] with a torpedo boat, who nab the disc and bring him with them as a hostage for ransom. Twenty-four hours later -- after 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") joins up with the pirates, who run a small boat courier service known as the Lagoon Delivery Company.

* ThreeDEffectsTwoDCartoon: The vehicles, which can get pretty obvious at times, but is especially noticeable during the chase scenes.

[[folder:Tropes A to C]]

* ConspicuousCG: The vehicles, which can get pretty obvious at times, but is especially noticeable during the chase scenes.

* RuthlessModernPirates: The eponymous Black Lagoon company hijack ships, smuggle merchandise and loot for profit. Revy even calls her guns "cutlasses".

The manga was adapted for anime by Creator/{{Madhouse}} in 2006, and was dubbed in English by Creator/{{Geneon}}. In total it consists of two twelve-episode seasons covering the manga series through the [[{{Yakuza}} "Fujiyama Gangster Paradise"]] arc, and an OVA of the subsequent arc titled ''Roberta's Blood Trail''.

* StoryArc: With few exceptions, ''Black Lagoon'' contains nothing but self-supporting arcs describing the crew's current job. They will reference past events, but they rarely influence each other.

* ShownTheirWork: In the [=OVA=] version of the "El Baile de la Muerte" arc, ''Roberta's Blood Trail'', the first Ninoy Aquino International Airport complex is properly depicted as the main terminal of the Philippines in 1995.[[note]] As of 2015, it's being relegated to a few international airline companies since most of them are being moved to the [=NAIA=]-3 terminal complex.[[/note]]

* DirtyCommies: Roberta used to be one until she grew disillusioned with the revolution. [[spoiler:Her former organization, the FARC, are one of the factions after her in the "El Baile" arc, being led by a Cuban commando.]]

This series has also become notorious for going on hiatus, to the same extent that it is regularly compared to ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' and ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' in terms of how frequently the updates start and stop. There was an [[ScheduleSlip almost-three-year hiatus]] from June 2010 to March 2013 before the series started releasing new chapters. As of February 2014, [[HereWeGoAgain there were no new releases]] except for May 2014 when Volume 10 of the manga was released in Japan (American release date April 2015)... which not-so-coincidentally covered up to all the then-released chapters. Chapter 88 finally dropped in May 2017, more than ''three years'' after the previous chapter. The manga then went on hiatus ''again'' in August 2018 after Chapter 101 was released... [[HereWeGoAgain which was just enough material to compile Volume 11 together.]]

''Black Lagoon'' is a {{seinen}} action manga series created by Rei Hiroe and published since 2002 by Creator/{{Shogakukan}} (with an English localization by Creator/VizMedia). The series delves into the underbelly of international crime like a Tarantino-esque crime story in Southeast Asia, while also ruminating on existentialism, a man's place in the world, and the

''Black Lagoon'', a {{seinen}} action manga series created by Rei Hiroe and published by Creator/{{Shogakukan}} (with an English localization by Creator/VizMedia), 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, he seems destined to live a life of abused mediocrity as a small cog in a large corporate machine.

Do not confuse this series with ''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'' or Mike Thaler's ''Black Lagoon'' children's book series.

Not related in any way to ''Manga/BlackButler'' or ''Manga/BlackClover''.

After an [[ScheduleSlip almost-three-year hiatus]] from June 2010 to March 2013, the series started releasing new chapters. As of February 2014, [[HereWeGoAgain there were no new releases]] except for May 2014 when Volume 10 of the manga was released in Japan (American release date April 2015)... which not-so-coincidentally covered up to all the then-released chapters. Chapter 88 finally dropped in May 2017, more than ''three years'' after the previous chapter. The manga then went on hiatus ''again'' in August 2018 after Chapter 101 was released... [[HereWeGoAgain which was just enough material to compile Volume 11 together.]]

The manga was adapted for anime by Creator/{{Madhouse}} in 2006, and was dubbed in English by Creator/{{Geneon}}. In total it consists of two twelve-episode seasons covering the manga series through the [[{{Yakuza}} "Fujiyama Gangster Paradise"]] arc, and an OVA of the subsequent arc titled ''Roberta's Blood Trail''.

* TheLadette: Eda and Revy are heavy drinkers who tend to swear like sailors. Revy's also shown to be quite a slob empty beer cans strewn about her room.

* {{Tsundere}}: Revy qualifies as a terrifyingly psychotic Type A. When she's being angry and confrontational she's bad enough, but when she lapses into [[AxCrazy Whitman Fever]] during the Nazi arc, she's even ''worse''. She has even tried to ''shoot'' Rock on two different occasions during the first season, with her "dere-dere" side surfacing during the "Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise" arc from the second season (though there was that time she saved Rock at the end of the first season, something she swore she would never do). Other dere-dere moments include: inviting Rock to join the Lagoon Company at the end of Episode Two, the infamous "Cigarette Kiss" in Episode Seven, threatening to kill Gretel if she ever fucks with Rock again (Hey, we did mention that Revy was [[AxCrazy psychotic]]?), and trying to stop Rock from watching [[spoiler:Yukio's]] suicide. She also smiles several times at Rock during the Yakuza Arc. Justified in that she had such a violent messed up life that she simply doesn't ''know'' how to act normally around people she likes.
* TwoShotsFromBehindTheBar: The owner of the [[BadGuyBar Yellowflag]] keeps a shotgun behind the bar handy for inevitable shootouts. It doesn't hurt that the bar itself is fully armored to withstand shots.

* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: Gretel states she feels a little bad about killing a couple of orphans so they could be used as decoys.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:
** Lots of people give them in this series, especially Revy and Balalaika, but one that's of special note is [[spoiler:Eda]] explaining to Mr. Chang why the Triad is nothing but street trash compared to the might of the United States, which is probably the first time in the entire series that ''anything'' made him lose his cool.
** Rock gives Revy some harsh criticism in episode 7. She nearly killed him for it, were it not for the fact that he finally showed some backbone, refusing to back down, and pointing out that she's the reason that he feels like he's making something of himself for a change (after having lived his life sucking up to his bosses prior to joining the Lagoon company). She does change her attitude slightly towards him afterwards however.
* TheTriadsAndTheTongs: Mr. Chang and his Sun Yee On syndicate. Probably the most influential of Roanapur's four major powers, but not the strongest (that'd be Hotel Moscow).
* ThoseWackyNazis: The neo-Nazi group from episodes 4-6. The actual forces of Nazi Germany seen in the flashback were portrayed as more affable and humane (save one). This is mostly because they were only German soldiers, and not actual party members. The one exception is an SS officer, who is played as a fanatical JerkAss.
* ThrowAwayGuns: In a gunfight on the CoolBoat, Revy throws a gun at a mook when it runs out of ammo. Eda [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this by asking if Revy is made of money. Both the mook and the gun probably end up in the ocean.
--> '''Revy:''' it's only a fuckin' [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(manufacturer) Taurus]]

* TwelveEpisodeAnime: The first two series.