Characters / Black Lagoon - Lagoon Delivery Company

Just your everyday group of couriers.

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General tropes

• Blond, Brunet, Redhead: The three Lagoon Company employees are Benny (blond), Rock (brunet), and Revy (redhead).
• Brains and Brawn: Benny and Rock are the tactical Brains; the former in charge hacking and research on their clients/enemies, while the latter handles finances and negotiations for the business side of the company. Dutch and Revy are the action-oriented Brawns who do the heavy-lifting and physical labor, usually through combat and guns, but also through athletic skills and prowess. Dutch explicitly saying he didn't hire Revy for just her fighting skills.
• Corrupted Character Copy: They're dead ringers for the Bebop Crew, being a four-man crew with very similar roles and having their own their personal ship and collecting bounties in a Crapsack World. Revy is a clear pastiche of Spike Spiegel being the main gunfighter and also a chain-smoker, but while Spike is ultimately an Unscrupulous Hero, Revy is unambiguously a Villain Protagonist and a violent, psychopathic Straw Nihilist who very frequently loses her cool in contrast to Spike always having a cool laid-back demeanor. While Spike's backstory and attitude aren't all sunshine and rainbows, Revy has an even worse backstory (living in a trashy abusive household, being raped by a cop, living as a Street Urchin) and is an extremely fucked-up and ultimately emotionally vulnerable woman underneath caustic attitude. Dutch is very much a dead ringer of Jet, being a bald big guy leader with similar backgrounds, but their motives contrast, with Jet being a former cop who left the police force in pursuit of (in his own way) law and justice, while Dutch was a former US Marine during the Vietnam War who went AWOL to become a mercenary (although it's possible he may have lied about his tour of duty too, which only adds to Dutch being a corrupted copy of Jet).
• Experienced Protagonist: The Lagoon Crew are experienced in handling cargo work in Southeast Asia, which sometimes does lead in to hijacking ships if needed to, and are also seasoned gunrunners and arms dealers. Dutch and Revy are experienced fighters, with either bare hands or small arms while Benny is familiar with hacking thanks to some of his years in university before he was forced to drop out. While Rock is new to the crew, he is familiar with the business world, as well as fluent in several languages.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil:The Lagoon Company consists of an African-American man, a Chinese-American woman, a Japanese man, and a Jewish-American man.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The company fits the ensemble near-perfectly. So much so that their primary colors reflect it.
  • Rock (Melancholic): The conflicted and troubled negotiator who is constantly forced into difficult situations against his better judgement.
  • Revy (Choleric): The tough and brutal muscle of the team and easily the most reckless and violent member of the group.
  • Benny (Sanguine): The most cheerful and friendly member and likely the least violent one spends most of his time sitting behind a computer screen, away from all the action.
  • Dutch (Phlegmatic): The calm and collected leader who manages the day-to-day affairs of the Lagoon company and moderates the tensions between the members.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Yes, they're Villain Protagonists and are very ruthless mercenaries who are willing to resort to mass murder to meet their own selfish gains. However, they still have their own moral lines and they aren't as bad when compared to the Neo-Nazis, child traffickers, rapists, child murderers, drug dealers, and other mass murders and psychopaths they have to face.
• Multinational Team: Subverted. Despite their diverse ethnic backgrounds, three of four of them are American citizens.
• Punch Clock Villains: It's their job. Nothing personal, Just Business.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: They are shown hijacking a ship after Rock first joins them. Basically, they commit whatever crimes they are hired to do.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: These are some very foul-mouthed people. Revy, especially, almost has every sentence she says contain at least one curse word.
• Smoking Is Cool: Nearly the entire cast seems to chain-smoke, including the Lagoon Company.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Revy, Dutch and Benny form the core trio of the Lagoon Company's crew.
• Vague Age: All four of them, although Rock was said to be born in the 70's, so he's almost certainly in his 20's during the show's time-frame. As for the rest of them, Revy is also highly likely to be in her 20's, Benny appears to be in his early 30's or at least under 40, and Dutch is probably anywhere from his mid 40's to mid 50's.
• Villain Cred: Shenhua told Guy Russell and the rest of the out-of-towners in his Carnival of Killers that regardless of what someone thinks of the Lagoon Company as people, anyone operating in Roanapur knows who they are and respects them as an entity.
• Villain Protagonists: Considering that they're all pirates, they often take villainous roles in some arcs by doing stuff like kidnapping, or supporting Balalaika. They're also not good people by any stretch of the imagination; Benny is the least villainous of them, but he's also a Non-Action Guy and takes no issue with what the rest of them do as long as Revy doesn't get out of hand, while Dutch is strictly professional and isn't outright malicious, but is also defined by his pragmatic ruthlessness and willingness to cross most lines to get the job done, and while there are probably some jobs he wouldn't take for moral reasons, self-preservation seems to be a much more common reason. Rock started out as the most decent and upstanding person on the crew, but by the events of El Baile de la Muerte, he is easily the most villainous next to Revy with his The Chessmaster antics and selfish, underhanded, untrustworthy nature, and Revy herself has consistently been a violent, psychopathic nihilist who would absolutely be a major recurring villain in almost any other series.
• Villains Out Shopping: Since they're all Villain Protagonists, any time they are "off the job" would probably qualify for this.

Rokuro "Rock" Okajima

Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (JP), Brad Swaile (EN)

"My life had become the rush-hour commute, the fake laughing, lowering my head, risking my life to score points. And all of that was fine as long as I had a place to drink after work and a batting cage nearby. And then, just like that, none of that mattered anymore."

A former Japanese Salaryman, Rokuro "Rock" Okajima serves as the the Lagoon Company's negotiator and translator, and is the series' primary POV Character. Although the least physically dangerous member of the Company, Rock possesses the ability to negotiate with heavily-armed, insane, hyper-violent individuals; he not only gets out of such negotiations alive, but even convinces them to see things his way.

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• Action Survivor: He's survived being caught in the middle of multiple gunfights, being kidnapped several times, a collapsing building, boat chases, car chases, assaults from various ultra-violent maniacs… and Revy.
• Adaptational Heroism: In the manga, Rock's motivation in "Baile de la Muerte" are mostly for giggles and to win a bet with Chang. In the OVA, rather than a bet with Chang, he's actively trying to break the cycle of crime and violence in Roanapur by cutting the gangs off at their source: the drug trade coming through the Golden Triangle. It's also indicated he's much more driven to help Garcia and Roberta by his failure to save Yukio. To still show he's going down a dark road, by the tail end of the arc Rock is relishing his planning and manipulation of events almost to the equivalent of Revy when she's shooting people.
• All-Loving Hero: At first, that's what he tried to do. He tried to keep violence down, respect the dead and even save nutjobs like Hansel and Gretel.
• Amazon Chaser: While is unknown if it's romantic on his part, he's close to Revy a violent and dangerous female criminal. When he saw her take out two boats of hostiles in the first arc, he was in awe of her. She's definitely got a thing for him however.
• Anime Hair: He has a strange hairstyle that's spiky and unkempt on one side and straight and groomed on the other side. Possibly to reflect his being caught between the Dark and the Light.
• The Anti-Nihilist: His response to Revy's retort that Robin Hood doesn't exist; be Robin Hood.
• Audience Surrogate: Starts out as the normal guy thrown into a dangerous situation. Then he evolves into a Guile Hero.
• Badass Bookworm: Not only does his business and schmoozing experience cause him to be the best negotiator of the Lagoon company, he also plans out the events of an arc beforehand based on his limited knowledge of the people involved.
• Badass Pacifist: Rock absolutely refuses to use firearms, and the furthest he has gone to inflict bodily harm was to assault Chaka with a bowling pin. But he has Nerves of Steel and is an extremely effective negotiator, and is very good at manipulating situations to his advantage.
• Being Good Sucks: At the beginning of "The Wired Red Card", he complains of this because of being shot with a blank at the end of the previous arc after all his efforts to save everyone.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: He and Revy take this to new extremes, seeing as she's nearly blown his head off multiple times.
• Berserk Button: Don't imply that he Can't Hold His Liquor. Not only will he call you out over it, but he can match you shot-for-shot.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Easily the most decent and sympathetic human being in Roanapur, and usually very polite and even-keeled… but just as dangerous as his crewmates, albeit in a different way.
• Butt-Monkey: In his old job, he got his ass kicked a lot by his bosses. He's shaken this off as he adjusts to his life as a pirate.
• Character Development: Growing from his first appearance as a sad sack into one who can survive among some pretty awful people; not necessarily a completely positive change. Case in point of his growing darkness; this scene. After Feng asked for his help, the old Rock wouldn't hesitate to give her a hand. But now, he's starting to see things from a more selfish "will this hurt ME"? point of view. Much to Revy's disappointment.
• The Chessmaster: Shown in full flux during the end of the "Baile de la Muerte" arc, where he sets up nearly the entire ending with a few choice words and a really accurate prediction of how people would act.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Saving people is his "hobby", like how going to war is Balalaika's hobby.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Often has many of his dangerous female (and one Ax-Crazy underage girl) peers flirting with him or interested in him sexually (Revy, Eda, Balalaika, Jane, Gretel, and Feng are some). None of them take him seriously once they discover how polite and proper he is, and most proceed to tease him. Either way, expect him to light-up red whenever Eda whispers in his ear.
• Clock King: Downplayed. Many of Rock's bigger and more complicated plans relies on timing and the schedules of the people involved in them, though he tends to plot events out in hours rather than exact seconds.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Living in a Wretched Hive is bound to corrupt a guy.
• Creepy Monotone: In the OVA, Rock's voice remains dead flat for nearly the whole duration after his master plan begins. Given his usual excitable nature, it gets unsettling fast.
• Cunning Linguist: It's unknown exactly how many languages Rock speaks (or at least understands) but they include Japanese, English, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese. He was also the first to figure out that the language Hansel & Gretel were speaking with each other was Romanian^note  which was something Balalaika and Boris were mildly impressed with, and simultaneously a bit upset with themselves with for not catching that, since they served with several Romanians in Afghanistan. When Balalaika went to Japan for business, she even hired Rock as her interpreter.
• Cynicism Catalyst: His failures at saving both Hansel and Gretel and Yukio have made him much more cynical and bitter, along with more manipulative and ruthless.
• Dark Messiah: Shows signs of becoming one. Even though he's becoming progressively more and more villainous, his intents and goals have no malice in them, and he wants nothing more than to help people.
• Defusing the Tyke-Bomb: He tries this with Gretel, being the first adult in her life to treat her with kindness. Sadly, she's so messed up in the head that she takes this as an invitation for sex and flashes him. Just for good measure, she then gets assassinated right in front of his eyes shortly thereafter.
• Distressed Dude: Revy gripes about how Rock gets captured all the time, leading to a funny moment when Yukio abducts him towards the end of the Yakuza arc.
  "Great! Now he's been kidnapped by a schoolgirl!"
• The Dog Bites Back: After being beaten up by Chaka to goad Revy into fighting him because he was "interupting" his "conversation" with Revy (including being called a "faggot" multiple times) and seeing Chaka do numerous horrible things (i.e. kidnapping Yukio, having his men strip and humiliate her, threatening to force her into sexual slavery, just being an all-around asshole for no reason other than just because), Rock retaliates by hitting him in the head with a bowling pin.
• Does Not Like Guns: Very much so and he doesn't use them, preferring to rely on his smarts and charisma. Dutch acknowledges this as a good thing, since it keeps him from becoming too dark and even more dangerous. However, he has no qualms about letting his allies do the shooting for him.
• The Dulcinea Effect: Puts his ass on the line for Yukio, a girl he has only just met, and who proceeds to try and kill him, though unlike most examples it's because she reminded him of his old self.
• Drugs Are Bad: Different people take to different drugs in different ways. When Revy gives Rock some cannabis to calm him down during a tense car chase/shootout, all it succeeds in doing is making him extremely depressed, turning him into a pouty, rambling black hole. Truth in Television, as marijuana can cause depression for some folks.
• Endearingly Dorky: Deconstructed. While he gains plenty of admiration from other criminals who are fascinated by him, he's not intentionally adorkable on his part since he just wants to be badass. But his politeness, positivity, and social awkwardness with (flirty) women tend to give others this impression of him, and he rarely used to be taken seriously. When she first meets him, Revy notes that he needs to toughen up his image if he wants to survive. His first attempt at being "suave", when he tries to convince Balalaika that they're the same while she has him on his back at gunpoint, just cracks her up while he awkwardly laughs along. Part of his Character Development includes shedding this image as he becomes more genuinely suave.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time that Rock shows that he's not the timid weaksauce salaryman he appears to be is when Revy goes into a spiel about how Rock probably couldn't even begin to match her in a drinking game, only for him to flip his shit, call her bluff,^*By clarifying that on of his his skills a Salaryman is being able to hold your drink, since salarymen drink a lot both while on the job and off. and proceed to match her shot-for-shot in Bacardi (the challenge is then interrupted by grenades). The second time is when he comes up with the idea to kill an attack helicopter with an obsolete torpedo boat and flips off the pilots when it succeeds.
• Everyone Has Standards: He may have willingly chosen to become a pirate and run with very unsavory people doing very unsavory things, but dammit, he still has morals!
• Evil Makeover: Averted. He insists on keeping his typical white-collar suit from his Salaryman days instead of slipping into more comfy, action-oriented clothes. Considering that being in the Lagoon Company is his new job, he intends to treat it as such.
• The Face: He isn't much for violence like Revy and Dutch, but he makes up for it by being the Lagoon Company's negotiator.
• Good Is Dumb: Downplayed. He is not by any stretch stupid, as his Guile Hero tactics show time and again that he can compete with the best of the schemers—but as the Naïve Newcomer who's still clinging to some measure of moral character to the Wretched Hive that is Roanapur, he can do some boneheaded things from time to time that would make him an easy target, something Revy gets on his case about frequently enough.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: His eyes were shown as fairly wide at the beginning of the series, when he was at his most inexperienced and idealistic, but over time, they have narrowed considerably, as he became more competent/cynical. It should be noted that this style of eye is used to denote such badasses as Revy, Roberta, Ginji, etc.
• Good Feels Good: One aspect of his descent into anti-villainy is that he shifted from helping people because it was the moral thing to do and instead made a "hobby" out of it. As he explains to Balalaika, when she holds him at gunpoint when he tries to protest against her plans of killing off Yukio and the Washimine Clan.
  Rock: (terrified out of his mind) You're misunderstanding!
  Balalaika: (eerily calm) Oh...?
  Rock: It's not an obligation and it's got nothing to do with justice. The only reason I want to do it is because — it's my hobby.
  Balalaika: [sing-song] Hobby?
  Rock: [putting on a Grin of Audacity] Yeah, that's right. Some people like to die in the gutters, others like to go to war. Then there's me. When it comes down to it... I'm really no different from you.
• Good Is Not Nice: He's usually the exact reverse of this trope, being rather polite and soft-spoken, but plays it straight In El Baile de la Muerte where he uses ruthless tactics to achieve a noble goal.
• Grin of Audacity: In contrast to the bloodthirsty Slasher Smiles sported by the likes of Revy, Balalaika and others, Rock's badass smiles tend toward this, and usually come out when he's got a crazy plan in mind, or when he's requesting something incomprehensible by villain standards (such as showing mercy to someone). He's made more use of it since chapter 72, which combined with the narrowed eyes has cemented his status as a badass. It was also used in his earlier moments of awesome, with Revy's drinking challenge, and with the takedown of the Extra Order chopper.
• Guile Hero: Has to rely on his wits and negotiation abilities to survive, and as time passes becomes a better and better example of this trope. In El Baile de la Muerte he embraces the role, with mixed results.
• The Heart: He isn't much for violence like Revy and Dutch are, but he makes up for it by being the Lagoon Company's negotiator and "Villain in Training". He's also the most idealistic of the crew, which occasionally puts him at odds with the more cynical Revy.
• Heel Realization: Rock grows to realize the path he has chosen after he fails to save Yukio and the Washimine clan from destruction. He experiences this again after Fabiola calls him out on his plan that, while saving Roberta from herself, also nearly got Garcia killed. Both cases are less pronounced in the anime since they were the last parts of the animation, but the manga drives the point into him a lot harder.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Rock is, at first glance, one of the most unassuming and harmless-looking fellows in Roanapur. People who don't know him think he's a little streak of nothing. The people who do know him aren't so naive. Rock has no physical power himself, but he knows how to manipulate the power of others to a dangerous level. In a way, he's one of the most powerful people in Roanapur because he knows what to do, who to talk to, and what to say to get shit done!
  • Though Rock stays out of action for the most part he does have a degree of physical ability and reflexes when pushed. When his fight with Revy comes to a head and she tries to shoot him in the face, he's quick to grab her gone to prevent a fatal wound and she's surprised when he manages to unbalance her. She even punches him in the face and he just seems to get angrier.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: The spiky fringe in his hair droops lower as time goes on. It's begun to fold over his right eye as he becomes more anti-villainous.
• Hypocrite: At heart he always has good intentions, but he has these tendencies. Balalaika points out to him during the Fujiyama Gangster arc that though he preaches "justice" and non-violence, he seems perfectly willing to massacre one clan as long as he protects the other and doesn't dirty his own hands. Later, he manipulates people and bets their lives on chance in the "El Baile de la Muerte" Arc, yet still complains of how bad the rest of Roanapur is.
• I Choose to Stay: He could have gone anywhere, could have started another honest life somewhere else, but he chose to stay with the Lagoon Company, having taken a shine to the pirate lifestyle.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Though he won't entirely accept it, the real reason he refuses to return home is because he wishes to be free and badass like his criminal friends. During the action, he often stares in total awe at what everybody around him does. His two distaff counterparts Yukio and Feng both lampshade it to him at one point.
• I'll Take That as a Compliment: Sarcastically says this to Bao when he calls Rock "a mean asshole" for using his own words against him.
• Improvised Weapon: Although not usually a physical fighter, he defended himself from a chainsaw using a metal shelf one time, and then there's the above example where he trips Chaka up using spilled cleaning fluid and knocks him out with a bowling pin.
• It Amused Me: His main reason for helping Garcia in the second Roberta arc; this causes Fabiola to give him a What the Hell, Hero? speech.
• Jade-Coloured Glasses: Living in such a Crapsack World is bound to wear on someone's idealism.
• Lima Syndrome: He tried to defy this, but he ends up sympathizing with Garcia while Lagoon Company holds him captive.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Revy. The only reason she is still (barely) sane is because of Rock.
• Loved by All: While loved is a rather strong word for this series, the fact remains that damn near everyone in Roanapur knows and likes Rock - at worst they acknowledge and respect his skills to get shit done, and this makes him extremely dangerous.
• Manipulative Bastard: Seems to be growing into one. He's a complicated example because the Lagoon Company are already very morally ambiguous and he's progressively becoming more bitter and cynical and quite enjoys playing this role, but still never quite crosses the line into becoming a full-fledged villain like the majority of the cast, and he still wants to help people.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Feminine Boy to Revy's Masculine Girl. While he isn't exactly girly, he is The Heart among the company and is much more traditionally feminine in comparison to Revy, who is The Lad-ette and the one between the two of them with all the combat skills and who in later arcs acts as his protector. In the first arc, she threatened to put him in a dress if he couldn't handle rum like "a real man".
• A Match Made in Stockholm: He meets the Lagoon Company when they kidnap him, but he ends up joining them after he begins to bond with them and his department chief declares him dead.
• Mistress and Servant Boy: His relationship with Revy, at least at first. He's aware of it and calls her out on it.
• Morality Chain: To Revy. It starts more as a Morality Pet but, as their relationship thickens, he becomes this. She makes it very clear to him that she would never let anyone else talk to her the way he does or tolerate his naïveté from anybody else. Suffice it to say that in the event of Rock's death, Revy would make the events of the Nazi arc look like cheerful shoujo by comparison.
• My Greatest Failure: His failure to save Yukio deeply rocked his world view, and he continues to blame himself for it. The OVA implies this failure is what's also driving him to help Garcia in the "Roberta's Bloodtrail" arc.
• Naïve Newcomer: He started off without any idea of how Roanapur works. That changed quickly.
• Nice Guy: Starts off humble and polite and non-violent. Roanapur changes this. As it turns out, being pleasant and polite doesn't necessarily equal a good person- and he himself has acknowledged that he's not exactly "a good guy". While he still has yet to go too far off the deep end, there's certainly something not quite right with him hidden under the manners.
• Noble Demon: Calls himself a crook-in-training, but is willing to help people like Garcia, Gretel, and Yukio.
• Nominal Hero: From the "Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise" arc until the "El Baile De La Muerte" arc. By the end of Season 2, Rock freely admits that justice is non-existent, and that morality is a sham, yet he still believes in helping people because it's his "hobby".
• Non-Action Guy: He stands as a prime example that "non-action" does not automatically equate to "weak" – put a gun to his head, and he'll not only keep it but quite possibly throw it back in your face. This fearlessness, combined with his ability to network, have made him recognized as one of Roanapur's most dangerous figures, despite his never even touching a gun.
• Non-Action Protagonist: In a setting defined for being a crime-ridden, crapsack World of Badass, Rock is (or rather, was) an idealistic Japanese salaryman who was abducted by a gang of pirates and took to life as the group's negotiator. He has no combat skills to speak out (outside of one instance of clocking somebody with a bowling pin, but the circumstances were that severe), but he really doesn't need it; he's generally bodyguarded by resident Dark Action Girl Revy, he sticks out by being a non-combatant who is very good at talking down his enemies non-lethally while using guile to overcome any problems that come his way. By the current point of the series, he's become near-universally respected among the denizens of Roanapur and is fast-track to becoming a Dark Messiah Anti-Hero, much to Revy's mild disappointment.
• Not So Above It All. For a young man who lived an entirely peaceful civilian life, he very quickly gets used to all the murder and crime that surrounds him. Even if he does refuse to take part in any violent crime, it still says something about his personality when he angsts for all of one week with the Lagoon company before he gets over murder.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Him, the Lagoon Company, and Balalaika. He makes the case himself – we're all just indulging our hobbies.
• Oblivious to Love: He does not appear to be aware of Revy's feelings. Though to be fair she does tend to express her affection in a rather harsh way.
• Only Sane Man: Rock is the one character in the show who isn't a hardened criminal, and as such he's constantly questioning the sanity or morality of the actions of his shipmates.
• Opposites Attract: With Revy. While Revy is an insane, Trigger-Happy nihilist, among other things. He's a pacifistic idealist (he never gets completely disillusioned, and he has every right to), and he's the closest a series this cynical will allow to an All-Loving Hero.
• Out of Character Is Serious Business: Rock has no taste for violence and always uses nonviolent means to resolve conflicts. When he strays from this to smash Chaka over the head with a bowling pin, it demonstrates just how pissed-off and disgusted Rock is by Chaka's actions.
• Papa Wolf: He really doesn't like children being mistreated/put in danger, as seen with Garcia, Gretel, and Yukio. When Yukio was abducted, he mounted a rescue, and seeing what her captors had done brought out his foulest language and drove him to assault the ringleader. Later, he risks his life by trying to persuade Balalaika to spare her.
• Pitbull Dates Puppy: With Revy. Rock is a kind, idealistic and caring Non-Action Guy and All-Loving Hero, while Revy is a violent and dangerous criminal who gleefully indulges in the carnage that she finds herself in, she will likely kill you if you try to get to know her better and at her worst, she can go full Ax-Crazy and start a psychotic killing spree.
• The Plan: Formed one to stop Roberta's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Precision F-Strike: He's easily the most polite and well-spoken cast member, so when he does swear, it means he's truly furious.
  • Such as when he has it out with Revy, or when he sees how Chaka and his gang have mistreated Yukio.
    "Hey! (hits Chaka over the head with a bowling pin) Fuck you!"
  • During the climax of episode 2: "YOU GOT FUCKED!" Along with Flipping the Bird.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: He isn't a clear-cut villain, but it's been pretty clear he has been going towards Villain Protagonist status quite fast.
• Psychotic Smirk: His usual wry grin darkens into this during the Roberta's Blood Trail OVA, especially when he approaches Garcia for the last time. You can see it here too, after Feng's story intrigues him.
  Garcia: I don't trust that look on your face… it's weird.
  Rock: I don't know what you're talking about. This is what my face always looks like when I'm asking for a favor.
  Garcia: You...want my help again?
  Rock: Yeah. This is my favor face.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Rock gives one to Revy when he for the first time has had enough of her behavior. It was so effective, it almost made her cry. Even more impressive considering her initial response was to pull a gun on him, and he just pulled it away before she put one between his eyes.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: In the Yakuza/Japan arc he refuses to visit his family because it's so strange to him.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Rock is the negotiator of the Lagoon Delivery Company who helps them communicate with "business partners" peacefully, and is an ace of psychological play and sweet-talking, while his partner Revy is a tough girl with two guns who scores with criminal organizations on daily basis.
• Supporting Protagonist: The story is told from his point of view, but Revy is the one who does most of the fighting and is the poster girl for the series. Later, Rock begins to get more focus and take more proactive action.
• Sympathy for the Devil: For Hansel and Gretel, the gleefully murdering and horrifically abused children. He gave the latter a hug in spite of that.
• Talking the Monster to Death: He does this several times, such as with Balalaika at the end of the "Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise" arc. Though she made it clear that she was still calling the shots.
• That Man Is Dead: Rock ends the first arc by calling out his former boss, stating that Rokuro Okajima is already dead and thus signifying his departure from his salaryman position and former life and joining the crew of the Lagoon.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: "El Baile De La Muerte" was a turning point for his character. Since the start of the manga, he'd been metaphorically hanging out in the "Twilight", not quite in the light of the "civilized" world but also not in the darkness that is Roanapur. That all changed after the situation with Roberta went completely FUBAR and most of the major players believed that the whole mess was beyond salvaging. Something inside Rock finally broke. What came out was pretty damn scary.◊
• Token Good Teammate: Of the Lagoon Company given his greater morality. Then again, "Less Evil" may be more appropriate, since he borders on Villain Protagonist, and he kinda starts to drop his being good once he Took a Level in Cynic.
• Took a Level in Badass: Goes from a meek white collar to a Badass Pacifist Guile Hero as the series continues.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Whereas the old Rock would have been moved by Fabiola's lingering idealism towards a morally-gray-world where justice and decency can exist if you want it to, the double-whammy of failing to save both Hansel and Gretel and Yukio from Balalaika's clutches has knocked that hope clean out of him. The only response he had instead is now a cold, apathetic, Revy-like snarl. Revy herself was NOT happy about that.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Considering the story details his journey to villainy, becoming more of a jerk is inevitable.
• Translator Buddy: During the Yakuza arc, Balaika used him as an interpreter when dealing with the head of the clan.
• The Unfavorite: The reason he hasn't contacted his family to let them know he's alive. He claims his distant relationship with his parents was because they preferred his older, more successful brother.
• Underestimating Badassery: While he's not a badass in the physical sense, he's one of Roanapur's greatest chessmasters. While the rest of the city eventually comes to acknowledge this, it's almost always the outsiders who severely underestimate him. At first glance, Caxton sees him as nothing more than a shabby Japanese businessman, even compares him to a lamb in a den of lions - not realizing he's one of the worst ones there.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Revy. It's lampshaded by Eda a lot, especially in Revy's face such as asking if they resolved while they were alone in Japan.
• Vague Age: According to the manga, he was born sometime in the 70's, but it's never made exactly clear what year it is in Black Lagoon; all we know is it's in the 90's, so he's could be anywhere from 18-29, likely toward the upper end of that range.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: His sense of morality, right from wrong, is jarring in comparison to the people of the Wretched Hive that he lives in. For instance, when Lagoon Company goes on a salvage mission to a submarine, he doesn't want to loot the bodies of the people that died in the sub. Revy tells him that this way of thinking is not only counterproductive but stupid.
• Wild Card: Something of an anomaly in Roanapur since he still goes out of his way to help people, not for selfish motives, but simply because he can.
• Will They or Won't They?: He and Revy, which Eda loves to tease them about. Notably, when Eda asks whether they "did it" or not during the trip to Japan, Revy's reply is a simple but rather ambiguous "Ain't tellin'."
• You Can't Go Home Again: He can, but he doesn't want to because of an emotional barrier rather than a physical one. Though with the close-up shot we're shown of his fingerprint on a gun used to kill a Yakuza boss, this may happen in actuality as well.

Rebecca "Revy" Lee

Voiced by: Megumi Toyoguchi (JP), Marÿke Hendrikse (EN)

"All they saw in me was another little ghetto rat with no power and no God. What's left for a poor little Chinese bitch to rely on? It's money of course. And guns. Fuckin' A, with these two things, the world is a great place."

A nihilistic Chinese-American gunwoman and the Lagoon Company's primary muscle. Known as "Two Hands" after her preferred style of shooting. Her first name is apparently "Rebecca", but nothing more is known of her past apart from the implication that it wasn't a happy one.

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• '90s Anti-Hero: She has a rough but cool name, a nihilistic outlook, a stripperific outfit, buxom, a gun in each hand, and to top it off, the series takes place in the 1990s.
• Abusive Parents: Revy's father was a drunk who beat her; judging by her derisive comparison of Greenback Jane to her family services caseworker, it is clear that he was regularly getting reported, but always came shy of getting her taken away from him. Eventually, she murdered him.
• The Alcoholic: She has quite the drinking habit and is frequently hung over. It is rather heavily implied that the drinking is her way of self-medicating, and her persistent foul mood and emotional volatility definitely isn't helped by either her alcohol consumption or her hangovers.
• Alcoholic Parent: Her dad was a drunkard, and a mean one.
• Ax-Crazy: When she's in a bad mood, which is often. During the events of the Nazi arc, Revy went on a quite psychotic killing spree, and in the manga, she didn't even spare the noncombatants. Dutch called her on this, telling her he "didn't remember hiring Charles fucking Whitman".
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Rock. Violently belligerent, considering she's pointed a gun at him and threatened to kill him multiple times. She even fired it at him just before the infamous "cigarette kiss" scene. It doesn't get much more belligerent than that.
• Bilingual Bonus: In Chapter 82, Revy doesn't understand a word of Mandarin that Feng says to her, and angrily tells her she only speaks "East-Coast English". Rock has to translate it for her.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Fabiola eventually gets fed up with Revy's obnoxiously overblown and belligerent cynicism and delivers a brilliant "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how Revy is so obsessed with her own Dark and Troubled Past that she is incapable of acknowledging that most of the world outside Roanapur is more good than bad, because otherwise she has no excuse for giving in to evil like she has. It's worth noting that even though Revy and Rock gang up on her and blow off the argument, neither of them can even think of a single word to actually refute it.
• Blood Knight: Revy is a Sociopathic Hero who gleefully indulges in the carnage that she finds herself in, often sporting a Slasher Smile and becomes obsessed with an enemy if they are shown to be particularly deadly or skilled.
• Boomerang Bigot: Despite Revy being of Chinese descent herself, she repeatedly flings racial slurs at Shenhua and mocks her poor English.
• Boots of Toughness: She wears military jungle boots, which help compliment her rough and tough nature. During colder climates, Revy wears cowgirl boots.
• Break the Cutie: By her nihilistic attitude, you just know that Revy went through something like this during her childhood. It turns out to be police brutality and rape.
• Broken Ace: She’s the group’s muscle and can wipe the floor with just about anyone unless they’re on her level, yet she has an absolutely brutal backstory involving an alcoholic and abusive dad.
• Broken Bird: She hits every single button on the trope (tragic past, cynical attitude, mentoring a more idealistic teammate such as Rock).
• Brooklyn Rage: Although she doesn't have the stereotypical accent (and is from Manhattan), Revy is from New York and she certainly has rage.
• The Brute: The main fighter and primary muscle of the Lagoon Company.
• But Not Too Foreign: She's Chinese-American. Word of God states that she was made Asian so that Japanese readers could better identify with her.
• Byronic Heroine: Dark and Troubled Past, very moody, extremely cynical outlook on life, borderline misanthropic, introspective, steadfast in her beliefs, and has a heavy dark streak and a very rebellious nature. She fits this trope like a glove on a hand.
• Character Development: It's watching a monster-like Dark Action Girl learning to care by spending time with a decent human being.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Although she'll deny it, she does not like other women trying to make a move on Rock. For example, she always responds aggressively to Eda's flirting with him. And, when Jane taunted her about thinking of bringing Rock into an orgy, Revy threatened her to stay away from Rock, or she would show her just what she got up to with her female partners in prison… and why she was so good at it they could never go back to anyone else.
  • Played with when Feng suddenly kisses Rock in front of her as thanks for helping. After getting over her shock, Revy acts like a reasonably mature adult about the situation (though it's clear she didn't like it). In fact, she actually seemed more upset at how Rock still didn't really want to help Feng even after she kissed him, proving to her how dark he's become.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Revy is the primary contributor to the high volume of F-bombs dropped in the series proper.
• Combat Pragmatist: She often assumes this role when she's not going for absolutely mind-boggling combat stunts. When a neo-Nazi corners her and goes on a speech about how mighty his Luger is, she shoots him in the gut, yells at him for wasting all his time talking, and then shoots him in the head.
• Commitment Issues: It's suggested by Fabiola that the reason Revy doesn't follow up on her obvious attraction to Rock is because she's afraid of being disillusioned about him.
• Creepy Monotone: Once she stops giving the slasher smiles in battle, she goes into this, and it's an indicator that she's gonna kill anything and everything in sight.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Sister Yolanda scolds her for trying to solve all her problems with a gun. On the other hand, Dutch says he wouldn't have hired her if this was the case. For instance, she's also a SCUBA diver.
• Cute and Psycho: She's attractive and looks cute enough sticking her tongue out in the opening credits, but let her anywhere near a gunfight and you'll see all the glee and excitement you'd expect from a kid on Christmas.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Among other really crappy stuff that her early years entailed, Revy was beaten and raped by a policeman as a teenager. Apparently, it was this event that finally made her snap and start fighting for herself — by killing everyone in the way.
• Dark Action Girl: Were it not for Dutch and Rock coupled with Character Development, she could easily go on a killing spree and murder as many people as possible For the Evulz, to the point of becoming an out-and-out monster.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Back when Revy was a kid, she lived with a severely alcoholic father who was horribly abusive to her, at one point smashing a bottle into her face. One day, she was chased out of the house by her father's violence and sat crying on the sidewalk when a Dirty Cop arrested her for no reason and then brutally beat and raped her once she was in her jail cell. When Revy's father apparently did not care about what had happened to her and told her to get another beer, this was the final straw which led to her making him her very first kill. Other incidents followed such as the time she was beaten nearly to death for a crime she didn't commit, and the number of crimes she committed growing up means that she's still got outstanding warrants in New York.
• Defrosting Ice Queen:
  • Whether she likes it or not, Rock's decency and kindness IS beginning to rub off onto her personality. It's gotten to the point where she's disappointed by what he's turning into. After Rock casually admits to her that he now thinks justice and duty are "a nuisance", she sadly ponders to herself exactly who he is; Rokurou Okajima the Nice Guy Salary Man, or Rock the Manipulative Bastard?
  • Furthermore, she definitely seems to be interested in protecting Rock's innocence. During the Japan arc, she urges Rock not to look when Yukio commits suicide after her bodyguard Ginji is killed, and, as mentioned above, isn't too happy when Rock begins showing a darker side, no doubt a result of his time with the Lagoon company.
• Depraved Bisexual: She has tons of Unresolved Sexual Tension with Rock, and once hinted at a possible past sexual experience playing "the man's role" to a group of women while in prison. She was trying to intimidate Greenback Jane at the time, but at the end of the PLA arc she's about to perform as domme in a BDSM show with a female sub.
• Didn't Think This Through: The whole reason the series started. Unsatisfied with the money she was receiving from the Asahi heist, she decided to hold Rock hostage for a bonus. Dutch angrily reminds her that, in addition to her being a terrible negotiator, nobody on the Lagoon knows how to contact the company nor do they know any associated bank accounts to collect the payment.
• Dislikes the New Guy: Revy is initially intensely uncomfortable with Rock joining the team, and in her typical ill-tempered violent manner acts out by gunning down^note In the manga; in the anime she only wounded one before Dutch stopped her. the crew of a research ship during one of their jobs. Dutch complains that she pulled the same crap when he brought Benny aboard, but unlike Benny there's implications later in the series that Revy reacted badly to Rock specifically because she's attracted to him and doesn't know what to do with it.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted. She hits and abuses Rock, even attempts to shoot him at one point (he pushes the gun away), but it is never portrayed as normal or acceptable. Moreover, Rock eventually stands up for himself and succeeds in convincing her that there are other ways to solve her issues than her guns. She feels ashamed after this confrontation and mostly stops abusing him after that. From then on, when Revy does yell at Rock, it's usually because he's done something stupid (like running off in the middle of a fire-fight and getting kidnapped, or nearly getting himself and Revy killed by pissing off an Ax-Crazy Russian mob boss), and she's quick to calm down afterward.
• Drives Like Crazy:
  • The one time we see her driving, you'd think the only way she ever learned to turn corners is to drift.
  • In the final episode of season two, she hijacks a truck and just like the above example, drove recklessly. Though it's justified in this case since she was in a hurry.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Her Rule 63 Omake counterpart looks exactly like her sans the breasts, causing Rock to believe that he's still a woman, but he admits to her that he is a guy and proves it by taking off his shorts and showing Rock his genitalia.
• Dude Magnet: It's noted in Japan a ton of guys tried hitting on her, and also unfortunately Chaka, then there's Jake from the novel. That said, she definitely isn't interested, unless your name is Rock, and most people who know her issues would probably be to afraid to hit on her.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: For Revy, they're a sign that she has gone into psychopathic Whitman Fever mode, and is incredibly dangerous to be around.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In the Tokyo arc, she expresses her disgust at Chaka shooting his own men in the back.
  "Wow. You shot your own subordinates. Despicable to the end."
  • She also expressed disgust at an assignment where they were to raid a sunken German U-Boat to collect long-lost artifacts from the former Nazi regime on behalf of a known Neo-Nazi. She calls said client's fascination a "pretty fucked up hobby".
• Evil Redhead: She's got maroon-colored hair, and she's one of the four villain protagonists.
• Feather Motif: Loose feathers tumbling around on the ground often show up in Revy's flashbacks. We find out later that these refer to her very first kill: her own father, where she used a pillow as an impromptu silencer.
• Fiery Redhead: She has dark red hair that matches her temperamental personality.
• Foil: Revy's improvement as a person is in stark contrast to Rock becoming more amoral.
• For the Evulz: Dutch tries to keep her from killing everyone she comes across.
• Freudian Excuse: Abusive home life, raped by a police officer, living on the streets as an orphan; pretty messed up childhood.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Gets this twice, first from Rock (who barely scratches the surface, since he mostly focuses on her behavior towards him) and then from Fabiola (who absolutely tears into her about how she needs to stop using all the shit that's happened to her as an excuse for her selfishness and lust for violence; while Rock and Revy shouted her down, neither of them actually had anything to say in Revy's defense).
• Friendly Local Chinatown: She grew up on Mott Street, Manhattan Chinatown's unofficial Main Street.
• Gratuitous English: In the original Japanese version, Revy busts out a lot of Engrish during her trip to Japan, likely to reflect her cussing out the locals in a language aside from Japanese. While heavily accented, the English she speaks is actually grammatically correct.
• Guns Akimbo: Revy's weapons of choice are two custom-modified Berettas, and her skill in using them has earned her the name "Two Hands."
• The Gunslinger: Type C, as she specializes in Gun Fu.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Revy can go from calm to extremely angry with minimal provocation and usually deals with it by shooting everything in sight.
• Hates Being Touched: As she has a Hair-Trigger Temper she will be quite violent about being touched at times. She was raped by a police officer when she was a teenager.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Later on in the manga series, and hinted in the anime, (despite her repeated insistence otherwise) Revy hates Roanapur. She hates what she has become but doesn't know how to change. She opens up to Rock after their spat with Balalaika, mentioning how she's lived on "dirty air" her whole life, and how she would be unable to live where Rock used to call home.
  • In 'Roberta's Blood Trail', after Revy says Fabiola sees the world as a garden of roses, the maid replies that it is in fact Revy that sees the world as such, a world to which she was never allowed access.
• I Call It "Vera": She calls her guns "cutlasses" after their moniker, the "Sword Cutlass Special 9mm", which is fitting, as she is a pirate.
• Inconsistent Spelling: In some early fan-translations she became "Levy", but the reveal of her real first name being Rebecca made it quite clear it was always supposed to be Revy.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: When she's in a good mood, she's so friendly that some Japanese kids thought her to be the coolest adult ever.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: During the El Baile de Murte arc, Revy and the company come across a dying FARC soldier, whom he requests them to save him for giving them information about Roberta's whearabouts. Revy, however, just shoots to kill him, angering Fabiola and making her call her out on it. Revy rationalizes that the fight's not over until all the enemies are dead.
• Killing Intent: As the most vicious character on the Black Lagoon, Revy can radiate this quite palpably when she has a gun in her hand, as best illustrated during her confrontation with fake rapper Jake in Shaitani Badi on board the ship in the beginning.
• The Lad-ette: Revy is more macho than a lot of men, even when she's wearing a skirt. So much so that in the Rule 63 Omake the only difference between Revy and her male counterpart is that the latter has a flat chest and a penis. They are otherwise completely identical.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: In a series that is not shy about profanity, Revy stands head-and-shoulders above the rest.
• Leeroy Jenkins: She can usually win whatever she starts, but the woman is incredibly impulsive and will start or join fights at the drop of a hat without any sort of planning beyond "shoot until everyone else is dead".
• Lightning Bruiser: Even when unarmed, she is very quick on her feet, hits hard, and is far more durable than she appears.
• Lower-Class Lout: While Roanapur is an entire city full of these, she stands out the most. She grew up in a poor trashy household with a violent, abusive drunkard for a father whom she murdered, has had a significant amount of contact with law enforcement prior to coming to Roanapur, and is homicidally violent, incredibly foul-mouthed, rather racist, alcoholic, crude, chain-smoking, and money-grubbing, on top of wearing revealing clothes.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Played straight, averted, subverted, and inverted in unequal measure:
  • She's the one who pulls Rock out of his stuffy desk job and into a life of exciting piracy, both by dragging him along as a hostage and offering him a position in the Lagoon Company...
  • ...but they haven't gotten together, at least from what we're shown, and the moments of intimacy between them don't command the plot and haven't blossomed into a Relationship Upgrade.
  • Meanwhile, Revy does not exist in the story for Rock's sake and her character arc only intersects with Rock's in a few areas. Revy's personality is also pretty much the opposite of what this trope demands — she's rude, crude, and has very intentionally tried to kill Rock several times. Her attempts to "uplift" Rock amount to giving him guns, booze, and profanity-emblazoned Hawaiian shirts, which he rejects.
  • If anything, Rock gives Revy positive character development. Her increasing discomfort with Rock's descent into being a Manipulative Bastard (and a What the Hell, Hero? monologue from Fabiola) suggest that Revy's only using the idea of who Rock is to lift herself up... and as Fabiola explains in the same scene, Revy deliberately hasn't followed through on her attraction to Rock because she's afraid of becoming disillusioned about him.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Masculine Girl to Rock's Feminine Boy. She swears like a sailor, chugs rum, collects guns, and has no problem jumping onto a moving boat and killing every hostile on it, by herself, like an Action Hero. She was about to put Rock in a dress and hairbow (in the first arc) because he seemed so feminine in contrast: the sensitive one who wants to talk things out without anyone getting hurt.
• The McCoy: She is easily the most impulsive driven of the group compared to the calm and calculating Dutch and the mellow Benny; tending to act on her (often turbulent) emotions and desires, and making many spur-of-the-moment decisions.
• Miser Advisor: When it comes to her priorities, making money is a close third, being barely beaten out by her love of gratuitous violence and her desire to protect Rock.
• Missing Mom: We have never learned anything about her mother. We only know about her father.
• Mistress and Servant Boy: Her relationship with Rock, especially at first. Rock calls her out on it, which starts her Character Development.
• Mood-Swinger: Her set of attitudes: sullen, Nietzsche-ing, cocky, pleased, foaming-at-the-mouth-furious, and calm. The last is by far the scariest.
• Ms. Fanservice: Revy is a looker and an incredibly immodest dresser, typically sporting little more than a tank top and daisy dukes; permanently unbuttoned, at that. We get our fair share of Male Gaze closeups of her backside and breasts whenever barreling through one of her usual killing sprees, and usually sleeps in just her black panties for good measure. She even gets a Shower Scene in the ''Roberta's Trail" OVA.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Her Trigger-Happy tendency means that, whenever she is faced with a problem, she tends to default towards attempting to kill whoever is the source of the problem.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Her Dark and Troubled Past involving an abusive alcoholic father and sexual assault at the hands of the police forms a large part of Revy's motivation for becoming the sociopathic badass she is now.
• N-Word Privileges: Revy refers to Shenhua as a "chink" in the manga and by the nickname "Chinglish" in the English dub of the anime, despite the fact that she herself is also of Chinese descent.
• Not a Morning Person: Apparently Rock has trouble waking her in the morning. Her drinking habits may have something to do with it.
• Number Two: Despite her erratic temperament, Revy is officially Dutch's second-in-command in the Lagoon Company.
• Omnicidal Maniac: If it wasn't for Dutch, Revy would have killed almost anyone she came across.
• One-Woman Army: The first of many in the series. Her introduction has her taking out a mercenary crew assaulting the bar, and later a small fleet of well-armed boats, almost on her own.
• Opposites Attract: With Rock. While he's a pacifistic idealist she's an insane, Trigger-Happy nihilist, among other things.
• Patricide: Her very first kill was her own Abusive Dad.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • Much like with most of her kills, she's seen having the time of her life when she and Ginji kill most of Chaka's men - even sadistically taunting the last few goons (they run away from her rather then shoot back) and making one beg for his life before gunning him down in cold blood. However, since they all happen to be a bunch of brutal thugs and would-be rapists who were going to sell a teenage girl into sex slavery, almost no room for sympathy is left for them.
  • This trope also applies when she beats up and humiliates Chaka - the leader of the above-mentioned goons and the one whose plan it was to rape Yukio.
• Pet the Dog:
  • She once showed a group of kids what gunplay is really about - using their popguns. We even get a Luminescent Blush after she sees Rock was watching.
  • After Rock stands up to her, she treats him a lot nicer (as nice as she ever treats anybody), to the point that she actually cares about his innocence and tries to make him look away when Yukio commits suicide.
  • At the climax of the "Goat, Jihad and Rock 'n Roll" she mounts a major rescue with Leigharch and Shenhua to get Rock and the documents back from the rebels. In the end its revealed Revy had the documents on her person all along and the rescue was done entirely to save Rock. Though she still hits him and demands he pay her back for the effort, Rock is quite touched by all the trouble Revy went through to save him.
  • Even before her Character Development she was kind enough to buy Rock a Hawaiian shirt right after he joined the Lagoon Company as a welcome gift.
• Pirate Girl: A modern-day female pirate.
• Pitbull Dates Puppy: Revy is a violent and dangerous criminal who gleefully indulges in the carnage that she finds herself in, she will likely kill you if you try to get to know her better and at her worst, she can go full Ax-Crazy and start a psychotic killing spree. It's impossible to ignore her growing attraction to the kind, idealistic and caring Non-Action Guy and All-Loving Hero Rock.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • Repeatedly calls a gravely-injured Hispanic FARC mercenary a "beaner", before shooting him dead.
  • Revy called Shenhua a "chink" in the manga and uses the nickname "Chinglish" for her in the anime's English dub (despite the fact that she is also of Chinese descent).
  • She calls the Irish Leigharch a "fucking leprechaun" in the anime. This is actually toned down from the manga, where she outright calls him a "mick".
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: She tells a neo-Nazi named Blitz Stamford to "Say hi to the Fuhrer for me" right before putting a bullet in his brain.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Particularly when she goes into "Whitman Fever" Mode, she kills on a whim.
• Rape as Backstory: In the Roberta's Blood Trail OVA, it's revealed that Revy was raped as well as beaten by a police officer during her days as a teenage street punk. Though it's definitely not her entire backstory, it and her father's complete indifference to it and her subsequent killing him for it was part of the long Trauma Conga Line that led to her being like she is now. However, this part of her backstory is mainly considered to be non-canon by fans of the series. The reasons for this is that currently, no chapters in the manga have shown flashbacks of Revy getting raped by the police officer or her talking about the event, and that the OVA simply added this in to make it appear more edgy and dark. So this history of her is considered to be a filler that was made by the studio staff and not the writer of the manga series as of yet. The author however, hasn't said which aspects of the OVA are considered to be canon or not to the manga, so we don't know if he plans to add this part to her history.
• Red Baron: She's widely known as "Two Hands" for her skill at dual-wielding guns.
• Satisfied Street Rat: Not that it didn't leave her fucked in the head, to put it mildly, but considers the "fat cats" to be hypocrites and doesn't want to be one of them.
• Sex Goddess: In the manga, we have the following quote. However, considering she was trying to intimidate Jane at the time, it's ambiguous if this is true or not.
  Revy: Hey, don't get carried away. If you really can't help yourself, I'll be your partner. In prison, I've won over some sex-starved dykes by playing the man's role. After that, their fingers just weren't enough for them ever again. Believe me. I know what to do much better than you. Okay? If you really do this… you'll never go back to Benny.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Revy is hardly modest about her body. Her usual attire is extremely Stripperiffic and she's unconcerned about coming out of the shower in front of Rock clad in only her panties and a Modesty Towel around her neck that is barely covering her.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: To Rock several times because of her materialistic nihilism. The first time was when she was grave robbing. That said, she's a weird example in that she eventually doesn't want him to lose his idealism.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She gradually becomes attracted to the decent, kind and caring Rock, even though she hates to admit it. As Rock becomes more callous and manipulative, it's suggested Revy is becoming very worried about him.
• Situational Sexuality: When she was in prison, she apparently was so good that her partners could never go back to anyone else. She even threatened to show off her stuff to Jane.
• Slasher Smile: Revy often displays these when she gets into a gunfight.
• Smarter Than You Look: Don't be fooled by her foul mouth and bad temper. She's actually quite cunning and good at thinking on her feet rather than being Dumb Muscle.
• Sociopathic Hero: Revy laughs and sings when she's gunning people down, and nine times out of ten her first recourse is to put a 9mm round in any given problem.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She's slightly abrasive but more or less congenial once you get used to her aggressive nature. However, if you start trying to get to know her on a personal level, she can very quickly become Ax-Crazy and will make a sincere effort to kill you. Luckily for her, a handful of people like Dutch and Rock have been to relate to her on some level, but even then she's still very defensive. This attitude is her way to deal with her horrific Dark and Troubled Past, which she left her with severe fears of feeling exposed and vulnerable, and she NEVER wants that to be hurt like that again. She developed an obsession with power, and she tends to be very tight-lipped about her personal life to protect herself from betrayal. As such, whenever anyone gets too close to her, she often gets spooked, and reacts with violence.
• Straw Nihilist: She denies the existence of meaning, at least academically. For practical purposes, she'll preach the virtues of money and guns over God and love, since this is what she has been able to rely on in her life.
• Street Smart: Her impulsiveness, explosive and violent anger issues, and exceptionally profane tongue may make her seem like she's Dumb Muscle, but she's actually fairly clever and cunning and good at thinking on her feet, with the time that she outsmarted a beltfed machine gun-wielding Mook by throwing a container of drink syrup at him and shooting it (thereby dousing him and his weapon), then letting the heat from the weapon caramelize the syrup and gum up the gun being a shining example of her ingenuity. As an experienced professional criminal operating in Roanapur, she also knows all the usual tricks and what to watch for, and her discovery of an imminent ambush by thinking to part the blinds enough to get a glimpse of the street below from the Lagoon Company's office space was a solid illustration of this.
• Street Urchin: Revy had a terribly abusive father, and spent much of her life on the mean streets of New York's Chinatown.
• Stripperific: Justified by the hot and humid climate of Thailand, and how it helps her blend in with other women in Roanapur but Revy's outfit is skimpy. Short jeans and a tube top may allow for ease of movement, but they're not going to protect against bullets. To her credit, she does dress more sensibly when visiting Japan in the winter in the Fujiyama Gangster Paradise arc.
  "But what would a woman who normally wore a bikini masquerading as clothes have to wear, to be even more racy?" (Rock's thoughts on the matter, when Revy finally agrees to do a show for Rowan)
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: On an occasion while accompanied by Rock during negotiations with the Church of Violence, Head Sister Yolonda threatens to sell one of the rocket launchers ordered by the Lagoon crew to another buyer who's offering more unless the Lagoon crew up their payment or offer a discount for services rendered. Revy quickly draws her pistols as a counter-threat, leveling them with the now-gun-toting Sister Eda before the two trash-talk one another and prepare to shoot one another dead. Rock waits for their talk to abate before - beginning his dialogue with compliments to her tea-making - he convinces Yolonda of the Lagoon crew's awareness of the Church's shady dealings beneath black market of their business and then persuades her to re-sell the rocket launcher to them at the same price as a show of mutual friendship. With this success, Revy holsters her pistols.
• Talk to the Fist: She's fond of gunning down blowhards in the middle of their speeches.
• Tank-Top Tomboy: Her primary attire consists of one and she has a very masculine personality.
• Tattooed Crook: Revy has a quite prominent tribal tattoo on her shoulder.
• Token Evil Teammate: In a group full of mercenaries, she’s the least moral of them all.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: She's extremely masculine and it's rare for her to ever let her hair down. ^note In a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, her hair was short in the first manga chapter.
• Took a Level in Kindness: She's still a Blood Knight but her time around Rock has softened her considerably. Compare the initial few arcs where she hit him and threatened to shoot him to the later arcs like when they visit Japan together and she has some fun out on the town.
• Tranquil Fury: Revy's "Whitman Fever" is more a relapse of Ax-Crazy than true anger. When Revy starts to look like she's sleep-deprived and stops yelling and swearing, there will be blood and there will be lots of it. Revy's eyelids lower and she occasionally smiles slightly whenever she goes into such states.
• Trash of the Titans: Her bedroom looks like a bomb went off in it, with clothes and empty containers and wrappers scattered throughout and numerous visible stains, and Rock is disgusted when he has to venture in to wake her up because the Lagoon Company has a new assignment that they need to get on as quickly as possible.
• Trigger-Happy: Her first response to a problem is to shoot it. She has a wide definition of "problem".
• Tsundere: Very heavy on the tsuntsun, and has even tried to shoot Rock several times. Then again, he's her Morality Pet so there's occasionally some deredere.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Regularly with Rock. It's lampshaded by Eda a lot such as asking if they had sex while alone in Japan.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: In the Rule 63 Omake, to prove to Rock that he's a guy and not a woman as he looks almost exactly like his original counterpart, he takes of his shorts and flashes his junk to him.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Her fighting style basically boils down to Good Old Fisticuffs with guns, with some emulation of what could happen in a John Woo movie for good measure. This is deconstructed when she gets easily trumped by trained soldiers.
• Vapor Wear: Downplayed. Her panties are visible at all times because she never zips up her shorts, but her bouncing and other clues imply she doesn't wear a bra (just a very tight top). When we see her room, it's shown that she just hangs her bra on the lamp, thus giving us a literal example of Lampshade Hanging. She definitely wasn't wearing one when she hid those documents for the CIA in her top. One of the agents even complains about them being all sweaty.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Behaves like this on Rock's behalf as they spend more time with one another, though she's not his girlfriend. Yet.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Eda, although it's hard to tell if it's this or With Friends Like These.... Somehow, the two are best friends despite over half of their dialogue consisting of them insulting each other, and they even pull guns at each other several times, but seem to get along well enough when they share a common goal (i.e. money, booze, Seinfeldian Conversation, shooting at other people, or any combination of the above).
• When She Smiles: One of the major signs of the effect Rock has had on her. Very rarely did Revy smile without it meaning something else, so getting her to smile earnestly is a major accomplishment. Such as during the Japan arc; when Revy notices Rock watching her play with a group of young kids (in her own unique way), where she not only smiles, she blushes.
• Will They or Won't They?: Revy and Rock due to their sexual tension. Eda loves to tease them about it.
• Women Are Wiser: Inverted and justified. Rock is more moral and level-headed person than her, but her lack of morals stems from a horrific and unstable childhood.
• Worf Had the Flu: While Roberta was just barely able to edge her out in their fist-fight, Revy was suffering a concussion from a surprise grenade launcher blast received before their clash had actually started (the grenade being what prompted her into fighting Roberta in the first place). Similarly, in her narrowly-victorious duel with Ginji, Revy suffered an ankle injury following a surprise vehicle collision at highway speed that had reduced her to limping only minutes before.
• Worthy Opponent: Ginji is this to her because he can cut bullets in half in mid-air. Roberta also counts through sheer strength and skill.
• Would Hurt a Child: She usually has to be provoked into it, but Revy isn't above hurting or even killing kids. As Dutch says when he's ordering Rock to take over watching Garcia from a pissed-off Revy at the beginning of the first Roberta arc, "not a lot of maternal instinct there."
• Yandere: Revy gets pretty creepy when Jane considers seducing Rock.
• You Can't Go Home Again: It's implied at the end of the Goat, Jihad, Rock 'n' Roll arc that Revy is still wanted in New York, which is likely why she ended up in Roanapur in the first place.

Benny

Voiced by: Hiroaki Hirata (JP), Brian Drummond (EN)

"Either way, we're not the type to shoot at human beings. That's why we stay with the fort."

An Jewish American computer hacker who acts as the Lagoon Company's communications officer and radio operator.

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• Affably Evil: Benny is a pretty decent guy, and would probably be great to have a beer and a few laughs with. His day job involves murder, drug running and grave robbing.
• Badass Creed: "Fuck the Nazis" is a family motto. He is Jewish, after all (though probably not particularly religious or close to orthodoxy).
• The Cynic: Benny has no illusions whatsoever about the evils he ignores on a daily basis. He hasn't got Revy's materialistic nihilism, but he's about as cynical as Dutch. As he points to Rock after Gretel gets assassinated:
  "What do you expect to happen to her? Get cured? Go to school, be happy and make friends? It will never happen and that's just how reality is."
• Deadpan Snarker: Loves to mock his pals.
• Geek Physique: Averted, Benny actually has a fairly fit body despite his computer day job.
• Girlish Pigtails: His Rule 63 Omake counterpart has these.
• Hollywood Hacking: Averted, from what little we've seen him do, it's more than just "rapidly hit the keyboard".
• Informed Judaism: He mentions he's Jewish during the encounter with the Neo-Nazism, but he drinks alcohol, smokes, and delves into cyber-piracy, so he clearly isn't very observant. Justified in that being a pirate is either the reason or the consequence of him disregarding the religion's teachings. It's ok if you forget, because Dutch does.
• Jewish and Nerdy: He's Jewish and LOVES his IT equipment.
• The Kirk: He is far more laid back and controlled than Revy, but he is also more emotional than Dutch, being quite the Mellow Fellow where Dutch is stoic and serious.
• Mellow Fellow: He is normally quite laid back and easy-going.
• Mission Control: Acts as this for the Lagoon crew from his computer.
• Mr. Fanservice: For the fans who'll Give Geeks a Chance, absolutely.
• Nerd Glasses: Like every other tech-minded person in this series, he wears glasses.
• Nice Jewish Boy: Well, at least part Jewish anyway. Sure he's brainy and usually more affable than the rest of the cast but that's it. As noted above, he's just as morally dubious as his buddies and is completely desensitized about death, killing and any other pleasantries Roanapoor has to offer.
• No Last Name Given: Benny and Dutch have Only One Name, unlike Rock and Revy.
• Non-Action Guy: Considering he's the residential techie, it makes sense for him not to be action-y.
• Noodle Incident: Benny once managed to piss off both the FBI and the Mafia at the same time, but we never learn the details.
• One Head Taller: Than Jane, his girlfriend.
• Only Sane Man: Becomes the only reasonable person in the Lagoon Company after Rock loses it.
• Out of Focus: Of the Lagoon Company, Benny tends to receive the overall least focus. Whereas Rock is the supporting villain protagonist, Revy is the deuteragonist, and Dutch the Reasonable Authority Figure with some shady Hidden Depths, Benny is sorta... there, for the most part.
• Pair the Smart Ones: His Love Interest ends up being Jane, who's a tech expert just like him. Their foreplay is computer code.
• Perma-Stubble: As seen in the picture, his chin is never clean.
• Playful Hacker: His mad skills score him a girl.
• The Smart Guy: He mostly serves as the Lagoon company's tech expert.
• Straight Man: Gives Rock occasional Breaking Speeches on what he needs to accept about the life he chose. Also see: The Cynic.
• Token Mini-Moe: Not Benny himself of course, but his counterpart in the Rule 63 Omake at least looks the part.
• Token White: Of the Lagoon Delivery Company. When dealing with the Neo-Nazis, Dutch even asks him, as a white man, what his opinion on the group is. Benny reveals that he's Jewish and hates them by default.
• Written-In Absence: He and Dutch are absent for "Fujiyama Gangster Paradise" and all but the first quarter of "The Wired Red Wild Card". In the former, Balalaika hired Rock as a translator for her trip to Japan and Revy went with him as a bodyguard. In the latter, Rock and Revy stay behind in Roanapur while the other two take the boat on an easy courier run, because Benny decided to bring his girlfriend Jane along for the ride and Rock and Revy don't want to have to listen to them.

Dutch

Voiced by: Tsutomu Isobe (JP), Dean Redman (EN)

"A gunman is a professional. A shooter is someone who kills 'cause they got issues. I do not remember hiring Charles fucking Whitman."

A stoic black American veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and Vietnam War (at least, that's what he said). He is the owner and founder of The Lagoon Company, and the captain of the "Black Lagoon".

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• Adapted Out: The Roberta's Blood Trail OVA omits the scene where Caxton tells Benny that Dutch is lying about his service in the Vietnam War, and with it the foreshadowing to the L'homme Sombre arc.
• Affably Evil: He's the leader of a group of pirates who'll get the job done no matter what it'll take. He's also one of the most sane people of the cast. See Benevolent Boss and Cool Old Guy.
• Ambiguous Situation: Shane Caxton privately told Benny that he believes that Dutch made up his Vietnam career, as he claimed to have been part of an offensive while serving in a unit that never participated, as well as not knowing basic jargon that anyone who had served would know. Later chapters suggest that Dutch did, however, play some sort of role in former French colonies in Africa, particularly Lingani and Zongo's 1989 coup attempt in Burkina Faso. At this point, it's unclear whether Caxton was correct and Dutch is lying (either because he never served in Vietnam, or if he did but was involved in something there that he has good reason to hide), Caxton is mistaken, or if the truth sits somewhere in the middle.
• Badass Driver: At one point he drives the Lagoon at full speed at a wrecked freighter to use it as a ramp in order to get airborne and shoot a torpedo at a helicopter. Granted, it was Rock's idea, but Dutch deserves kudos for actually pulling it off.
• Bald of Authority: The CEO of Lagoon Company is a tall black man without a hair on his crown.
• Beard of Evil: He sports a goatee and is the leader of the Lagoon company.
• Benevolent Boss: In spite of whatever other flaws he has, he's got good HR skills, and looks after his employees well.
• Berserk Button: He's largely The Stoic, but he does have at least two:
  • Burning down his dock. Considering what sort of city Roanapur is, and the fact that he owns a really nice dock, it couldn't have been cheap. Dutch for the first (and so far only) time gets genuinely pissed off when Claude Weaver reduces it down a bonfire.
  • Going against his orders. He values his independence, and as a result encourages his own crew to do the same. However, when he puts his foot down and draws a line in the sand, you do not cross that line. Rock almost learned this the hard way when he disregarded Dutch and went ahead to help Garcia anyway. Unlike the dock incident, this was still a case of Tranquil Fury, but the fact remains that Dutch was seriously ready to fire Rock. He was far more overt about it with Revy when he caught her getting ready to slaughter a room full of noncombatants, and he admitted that he wasn't entirely sure that he didn't intend to kill her if she tried to continue on that course of action. To paraphrase Dutch, he was irate because he employed professionals, not unhinged spree killers.
• The Big Guy: He's the tallest and strongest member of the Lagoon company.
• The Captain: Of the Lagoon Company's ship.
• The Comically Serious: "Amen, Hallelujah, and Peanut Butter..."
• Cool Shades: Wears one of these all the time, even inside, befitting his cool and composed personality.
• Cool Old Guy: Dutch is a stoic and badass pirate who is, if judging from the fact that he was involved in the Vietnam War, at the very least, in his fifties. Except maybe not...
• Cultured Badass: He appears to have a deep interest in philosophical literature. He has quoted La Rochefoucauld and Karl Marx, and he has a big bookshelf in his room, including a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung and works by Deleuze, Rousseau, Hegel and Hume. He also claims (to Rock) that he knows about "everything from making rain to hunting elephants".
• Deadpan Snarker: Dutch is known for his dry quips.
  Dutch: [in response to Revy opening fire on an unarmed child hostage] Rock, could you take over babysitting? As you can see, not a lot of maternal instinct there.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Dutch calls out Elroy (who arranges getaways and fake papers) for killing a client, saying that he just threw away decades of trust and no one would hire him now.
  • He also is seriously put off and deeply uncomfortable with Rock's growing cynicism and manipulative tendencies as he becomes more of a Fallen Hero as the series goes along, becoming concerned with having him under his employ with how much of a Wild Card he's becoming.
• Expy: He was modeled after Marsellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction, with both having a very similar calm manner and mentor-like personality.
• A Father to His Men: Downplayed, as he's not overly attached, but he still ends up doing a lot of things for the members of his crew and hightly values their lives, such as when he rushed back to help Revy, Rock and Eda to help Jane escape.
• Gangsta Style: He does this with a shotgun in episode 6, but only for his first shot.
• Hand Cannon: His .44 Magnum.
• Lack of Empathy: When one of his clients was shot by the supposed get-away man, all he did was tell the shooter that he sucks as a get-away man. On the other hand, he didn't care that said client was a mass murderer.
• Large and in Charge: Around 6'4 and is The Leader of the Lagoon Company.
• The Leader: Of the Lagoon Company and overlaps in the types. He's the Levelheaded type because even in desperate situations he stays calm. He's the Charismatic type because even a psycho like Revy will look to him for orders. He's the Mastermind type because he plans Lagoon Company's jobs.
• The Mentor: He sometimes acts as a mentor figure towards Rock, having far more patience with him than Revy.
• Mysterious Past: Major Caxton says to Benny in a private moment that he suspects Dutch's story about being a Vietnam vet of being a lie because he claims to be have been part of an offensive while in a unit that didn't take part in it, and he didn't understand basic military lingo that a 'Nam vet would have known. His real past (or if Caxton was right) is still unknown, and Caxton also made it clear that whatever the case, people like Dutch don't lie about their pasts without having a compelling reason for doing so. Later chapters hint that rather than Vietnam, Dutch was involved in former French colonies in Africa, in particular the the alleged military coup d'état attempt in Burkina Faso.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: He is based on Ving Rhames, particularly his role as Marsellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction.
• No Last Name Given: Dutch and Benny have Only One Name, unlike Rock and Revy.
• Not So Stoic:
  • When he catches Revy getting ready to murder an entire room full of noncombatants, he is furious and tears into her at gunpoint about how she has no right to go off against orders and kill everyone she sees.
  • When his dock was burned to the ground:
    "Look at this shit! Some Godamn idiot started a bonfire on my dock! Motherfucker!"'
  • Rock's increasing darkness and cynicism seriously messes with his cool - in conversations with him during the El Baile de la Muerte arc he alternates between being very angry at him and very freaked out by him.
  • His Big "WHAT?!" along with the rest of the company when meeting Roberta for the first time.
• Out of Focus: Spends the second half of the last arcs of both seasons in the back.
• Phony Veteran: Major Caxton privately shares with Benny that he suspects that Dutch might not be a Vietnam veteran as he claims, as Caxton has noticed several holes in Dutch's service story, as well as the fact that Dutch appears to be ignorant of G.I. lingo. Later events suggest Dutch does have military experience, he's just lying about where and for whom.
• Pet the Dog: The crew are feeling low at the end of the third episode after a job they took turned out to be an ambush and they'd wasted an entire days worth of resources and time. After Dutch gets some good news from Balalaika he lifts everyone's spirits by taking them all out to the bar.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He does not like his employees (read: Revy) running off Ax-Crazy and shooting Innocent Bystanders instead of sticking to The Plan, and he also avoids taking high-paying but dangerous jobs because those kinds of jobs are a great way to get someone killed.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Sure, he deals in slaves and drugs and illegal firearms that are used for gods-know-what, but it's just business.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Dutch is a calm, cool, and collected mercenary boss who is committed to his accomplishing his missions as cleanly as possible.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: He carries a .44 Magnum revolver as his sidearm,
• Scary Black Man: Averted. As seen at Benevolent Boss and Pragmatic Villainy, he's just business. Unless you're a Nazi; in that case, he's terrifying.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: In episode 3. Although we literally never see him without his glasses. In fact, the only time his eyes are visible is when he has a bit of a crazed look in them.
• Skewed Priorities: After pulling off the chopper-torpedoing stunt Dutch's first concern is about his shades remaining intact. Well actually just second after his head not being torn off.
• Slasher Smile: His capacity for this shows that he's has something in common with Revy. It's rare but it's there.
• The Spock: The most stoic and business-minded member of the group, he considers the company's long-term survival and picks their jobs, often preferring the safer ones over the high-paying ones. As such he forms a logical-minded counterweight to the impulse-driven Revy.
• The Stoic: Even when Roberta grabs his arm and effortlessly starts to pull him out through the window of a moving car, he doesn't panic.
• Sunglasses at Night: He hasn't been seen once without them. Every time he takes them off, his face is always out of frame.
• Supporting Leader: Dutch is the authority figure within Lagoon Company, but the series follows the P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl dynamic of Rock and Revy.
• Unreliable Expositor: When it comes to his past in Vietnam, there's a good chance he's making it up.
• The Vietnam Vet: He claims to be a Vietnam veteran. As it turns out, that may not be entirely true, if at all.
• What the Hell, Hero?: When he berates Revy at gunpoint about shooting noncombatants. Rock also gets a healthy dose of this during the Blood Trail arc — to the point where Dutch seriously considers getting rid of him.
• Written-In Absence: He and Benny are absent for "Fujiyama Gangster Paradise" and all but the first quarter of "The Wired Red Wild Card". In the former, Balalaika hired Rock as a translator for her trip to Japan and Revy went with him as a bodyguard. In the latter, Rock and Revy stay behind in Roanapur while the other two take the boat on an easy courier run, because Benny decided to bring his girlfriend Jane along for the ride and Rock and Revy don't want to have to listen to them.

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