WMG / Black Lagoon

Feng is going to join the Lagoon crew at the end of her arc.

• She's being portrayed as almost a Distaff Counterpart to Rock in a way, but she's a strong and independent character who's won both Rock's and Revy's respect already. More importantly, she's already resolved herself to dying in Roanapur and is more concerned with the way she goes out. Having her actually die at the end of the arc would be as predictable as tossing a coin and betting on whether or not it comes down. The arc will really only be interesting if she survives. Besides, there haven't been any new major characters (that is, who get to exist outside of their own self-contained arc like Roberta or Yukio) added to the series since we first met Chang way back when. The cast could do with a bit of a shakeup and don't you think adding another woman to the Lagoon team would REALLY shake up the character dynamics? Feng's smart, ruthless, daring, and at least knows how to use a gun, but she's also uptight and bitter. She's almost a middle ground between Rock and Revy. She'd be an ideal addition to the main cast, especially considering how she'd shake up things between the two of them.
• She joins the Black Lagoon crew after Benny gets killed in the line of business. In story telling terms, Benny is tuning out to be a null character with his only real contributions being his hacking skills. Feng is his equal or better in that line and brings much more in the way of interaction within the crew.
  • Alternately, if she doesn't join the Lagoon crew, it's also quite possible she could just take up a new life in Roanapur and become a recurring supporting character like Shenhua, Sawyer and Lotton.

Black Lagoon and Roanapur shares its verse with Metal Gear.

• A badassverse that shares it's many super human gunslingers and soliders with over the top personalties has got to be one of the foundations for Big Boss's Outer Heaven. Some how After Big Boss died, he gave birth to a daughter named Rebecca but got the short end of the stick and ended up a orphan in New York where she became a ruthless psychopath instead of the next legendary solider.

Rock gives off a pheromone that induces a feeling of protectiveness and well-being, especially among the violence-prone.

It doesn't matter how cold-blooded and hardcore one is, one whiff of Rock and the assassins, mobsters, and killing machines of South Asia just want to be his friend. It is possible to overcome it if you're pure evil.

• In many ways, this is similar to Shiki Tohno's gland, but with less sex. Which is for the best, because the last thing Rock the planet needs is the stupidly powerful women in Rock's life fighting over him.

The reason Rock never gets hit, and the reason after a while he's not a serious target...is his former job in the company.

Tetragrammaton Cleric. From the movie Equilibrium, the Clerics of the Tetragrammaton studied the statistically probable displacement of bullets and assailants over the greater mass of firefights on record to perfect a fighting style that allows them to predict the flow of battle in a firefight. Eg, he can tell where someone is most likely to shoot and not be there.

• The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents while keeping the defender clear of the statistically traditional trajectories of return fire... maximally.
• This explains why he was handed these important documents in face of the fact somebody could try to steal them.
• This could be considered almost confirmed in a way, as of chapter 73. Where Rock essentially claims to have predicted the actions of pretty much every single damned person in his grand plan... and we really can't help but believe him, all things considered. Oh, man.

Rock and Balalaika have a deeply personal relationship in the second season.

• Balalaika could have hired anyone as a translator for the Yakuza arc, but instead brought along Rock, even though he technically doesn't add anything in a professional capacity apart from Japanese.
• She lets him get away with asking her about the Washimine clan, then later confronting her about the Kosa clan. Even Revy can't understand how Rock got out of the latter alive.

Revy: (Shouting) The only reason we are still alive is because that crazy war maniac bitch somehow put her gun away!

• Making excuses for Rock to Hotel Moscow when Boris remarks Rock hasn't returned to his room (since he's going after Yukio)
• Balalaika has expressed attraction to younger men, like the bellhop at the Japanese hotel she remarked was "at the peak of his adorableness."
• Every other moment in their conversation before offing the Kosa clan.
  • Balalaika does the hand-on-wall thing.
  • Standing really close to Rock.
  • "You'll make a good villain." in the sub
  • And immediately afterwards, Balalaika apologises for being late. How much longer did that scene last?

The Church Of Violence is a CIA cover

Well ok, semi-canon theory, but still. We are almost explicitly told the young nun works for the CIA, but what about the rest of the church? Seeing CIA's documented Real Life involvement with drug trade in South America (see also Roberta), maybe they're branching out, perhaps to cause unrest in Indochina.

• Confirmed in Chapter 43, page 23.
  • The OFFICIAL translation (per Volume 6) states that while Sister Eda is an official CIA agent, the Church of Violence is an independent operation which is allowing her to work from within their organization in return for certain considerations. Sister Yolanda knows Eda's boss by reputation only, and seems knowledgeable about intelligence matters in general. They sell information, but aren't working for the Agency any more than Mr. Chang was back during the "Goats, Jihad, & Rock'n Roll" arc.

Black Lagoon takes place in the Shadowrun Universe

In the modern day, but Revy, Roberta, et al are Adepts, with Revy, Roberta and others being Gunslinger Adepts. Thus explaining their supernatural skills.

Black Lagoon takes place in the same universe as Gunslinger Girl.

• Hansel and Gretel are both at least as lethal as any of the girls in Gunslinger Girl, and their ability to handle a Browning Automatic Rifle, which weighs twenty pounds and is a considerable load for a grown man, could be explained by them both having gone through the same modifications as the Gunslinger Girls. The Romanian (or Soviet) government might have started a program to counter the Italians, and the "origin story" we're given for the twins might well be mistaken or severely incomplete.

All/most nations have a few superhuman soldiers like Revy, Roberta and Balalaika

The only good explanation why the northern parts of South America isn't called the Peoples Democratic Republic of Roberta at the moment. The super-soldier types are never actually sent to war, and the general population is kept ignorant of their existance. Balalaika was the Soviet Union's one, and was never meant to be sent to war until WWIII would break out. However, Afganistan escalated so far, the higher ups got scared, especially with India and Pakistan next door sitting on nuclear arsenals.

• Ginji was Japan's, but had to be developed in secret in cooperation with the Yakuza due to Japan's constitutional ban on having a millitary. Japan goes out of his way to have an army in Real Life despite the Article Nine (through using the fine art of Loophole Abuse), so having superhumans is their way around having to think about repealing Article Nine.
  • Revy isn't one of said super soldiers but was merely trained by one, Mr. Chan of the United Kingdom. (Since he's from Hong Kong and all.)
  • The United States' super soldier is Jason Bourne

Black Lagoon takes place in the same universe as Law & Order

At the end of the Philippines arc, one of the CIA agents mentions that Revy is still wanted by the NYPD 27th Precinct. This does not exist in Real Life, but does in Law & Order.

Black Lagoon takes place in the same universe as Army of Two

It is a world that functions on the basis of how badass you are. If you have a scary slasher smile, cool guns, and an unflappable personality you can kill literally hundreds of people without breaking stride. After the events of SSC's downfall, Rios and Salem took on some jobs in Roanapur. They eventually moved on to Singapore because so many ultra-trained killers in one geographical location WOULD have eventually started World War III.

The Boondock Saints and Gunsmith Cats both take place in the same universe as Black Lagoon.

All of the series are filled with Charles Atlas Superpower and Guns Akimbo assassins, as well as oddly megolomaniacal criminals (except for the Saints, but this is WMG, just go with it.) Putting together these pieces of evidence, I predict that the McManus brothers will soon land in Roanapur to go to work on the world's largest hive of scum and villainy, with Rally after whatever giant bounty they could have on their heads.

Hansel and Gretel are both girls

Identical twins are not always the same gender, but Male–female monozygotic twins are very rare, only few cases known. So either the author made a mistake or both of them are the same gender. Considering that they both switch identities during their arc, it would be the latter. Why? To deal with the trauma of their early lives, they dissociated and formed personalities based on their view of the perfect siblings, taken from the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. The fact that "Gretel" appears to have (small) breasts both before and after they are shown changing clothes may support this theory.

Hansel and Gretel are hermaphrodites.

Their ability to easily swap roles hints at this greatly and the fact, that Rock darted out of the cabin where Gretel revealed their privates to him, also supports this. Rock wasn't just emabrassed, he was visibly disgusted, which suggests, that he saw something far naughier than a regular vulva. Do remember that we are talking about a pair of kids forced to perform at atrocious snuff films and other perverted shit which already screwed them in the head. This kind of "entertainment" pulls no stops. Perhaps the slavers surgically modified the kids' genitals for extra perversity and mentally conditioned them to consider themseves both genders.

Hansel and Gretel aren't related.

• All we have are a pair of stage names and outfits that are, for all intents and purposes, interchangable. Factor in the massive trauma the pair have gone through, and it's entirely possible that the two were never even related, but two kids thrown together because the "filmakers" thought it worked.

There will be more members of Hotel Moscow popping up soon.

In the Fujiyama Gangster Paradise Arc, we see an outline of the members of Hotel Moscow. Balalika is clearly visable, and the other outlines are quite distinctive. So, who are they? Other HM leaders who will be encountered later.

The entire "El Baile de La Muerte" arc is nothing but a Revenge plan concocted by the head of the NSA, who lost friends/family in one of the many terrorist acts Roberta was responsible for.

He spent years looking for the "Bloodhound of Florencia" before finding out where she was, and decided to take from her what she supposedly took from him. He convinced the NSA that Diego Lovelace was a threat to US National Security, and ordered his assassination, triggering Roberta's Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and, in effect, destroying any chance of herself and Garcia continuing a normal life together (if not also triggering Garcia's cold-blooded transformation into another Roberta). In the end, she loses everything she ever held dear, as he had.

• Revolver Ocelot set the whole thing up to help him take down the patriots... somehow. Or he did it for the lulz.

Balalaika really killed Gretel, while Hansel was killed by Elroy.

We never do see them switch back after the first time, after all.

• Which explain the wild reaction that Rock had when "Gretel" dropped "her" panties.

Black Lagoon is the future of One Piece.

Unfortunately, the Golden Age of Piracy doesn't last, and the New Era is born. The World Government manages to abolish Devil Fruits, but they have a new danger, a man who believes in freedom and adventure becomes a pirate, and the world government goes :O.

Toguro didn't go to hell, he was reborn as Genji.

They're both honorable criminals that have odd relationships with smaller women. They're both enormous badasses who deride cowards and cheats, and they look almost exactly the same.

Black Lagoon is an AU of Metal Gear.

Namely one were the Boss actually sided with the Reds and had a second child, a daughter whose father was disgraced and decided to enter the military. Balalaika looks similar to the Boss, acting like a more cynical version of her, the have similar levels of badassitude, and both inspired great respect from their troops. Oh, and Vamp wasn't an only child, he had two younger ones.

Revy is sleeping with Rock.

There is mutual attraction, Rock is oddly at home when Revy is (more) half naked, she jumped from insulting him to calling him partner pretty suddenly, and Revy never denied Eda's claim that the two are a couple. Rock is too much of a nice guy/scared for his life to push them to be more open, and Revy doesn't want her enemies to have an easy way to manipulate her or she doesn't want to appear weak for dating a Nice Guy like Rock. Their relationship will be outed soon, and there will be a flash back to when they decided to, <Ahem> "Get closer".

• It's been going on for a while:
  • Rock gives her a dressing down for the way she was acting after the early Nazi arc. Rock is probably the only person who has ever stood up to her like that and gotten away with it without major bodily injuries, and let's face it, Revy is exactly the kind of personality that would get turned on by someone getting in her face and pushing her right back. The UST in the back of that police car was thick enough to cut. After they got out of the police station, Revy jumped him.
  • It was only a couple of episodes later when Rock walks into her bunk in the morning to bring her coffee and a) Rock is not uncomfortable with the fact that she's not wearing anything but a t-shirt and very skimpy panties and b) she doesn't immediately bust him in the face when he puts his hand on her and gently shakes her to wake her up. They are completely comfortable with being so physically close to each other already. When he comes in with coffee isn't the first time he's seen her this morning. He woke up there and brought coffee back after he got up and got dressed. That's why the sheets she's laying on are still all messed up.
  • Dutch and Benny are aware of what's going on (how could they not) — they think it's good for the both of them. Rock knows this but Revy doesn't. Rock, Dutch and Benny don't talk about it so Revy doesn't find out her secret is out and flip out about her tough-girl image, Revy doesn't talk about it because she thinks it's a secret, Rock doesn't say anything because Revy asked him not to and everyone keeps it quiet outside of Lagoon because it's nobody else's goddamn business.
  • In the Japan arc she raised a gun against both Balalaika and Boris when the former threatened to shoot Rock. She had never shown anything but respect to Balalaika before; you just know that Rock must mean a lot to her if she's prepared to shoot her "big sis" to protect him. She's also calling Rock "babe" or "baby" an awful lot in Japan. Hmmm...
  • In the Baile De Muerte Arc of the Manga, Revy strip to shower herself in front of Rock. Neither comment on this. Later in the same sequence she remarks to Rock "We're out of water" after drinking the bottle in the refrigerator. Not "I'm out of water."
• She loves him for real but won't admit it:
  • She won't admit it to herself because she thinks it'll make her weak.
  • She's afraid to follow through because she thinks it means she'll either be going back to Rock's "twilight" world instead of "the walking dead" where she is now, or she will pull him in with her, and she cares too much about him to do that to him. (Final episode of the Second Barrage season: "Don't look at her Rock, look at me!!!" - she can't bear to see him fall the rest of the way into her world) (but she really wants to.)
• In chapter 81 she flipped out on Greenback Jane, Janet Bhai, after she talked about trying to hire Rock for a threesome. Maybe Revy is also turning into a Clingy Jealous Girl? Knowing this series though she would skip that and go straight into yandere territory. Won't that be fun!
• Revy never answered when Eda ask if they had sex. It's not for certain, but if they did not have that kind of relationship, Revy probably would have simply said "no" as she is certainly not the type of person to mince words around.
• At the end of chapter 100, Feng calls Revy Rock’s "girlfriend" twice. And Rock does NOT contradict her.

Chaka is a grown-up Natsuhiko Taki.

Chaka has the same hair as Taki (blond with a stubbly goatee) and both of them are arrogant. Obviously, Taki wasn't smart enough to get into college, so he decided to join the yakuza instead.

Rock is an alternate-universe Light Yagami who never found the Death Note in his teens.

Thus, he continued to go to school and eventually took a relatively unimportant job as a salaryman at a company, purely as a cover for his sideline of helping his father hunt down criminals. Winding up in Roanapur couldn't have gone better for him, since it allows him to be The Heart to a bunch of criminals and gives him the opportunity to effect things for the better.Essentially, he's Light Yagami without Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.

• Alternatively, Rock is Light's ''younger brother. He mentions that his older brother is academically gifted and went to a top rated university and then got a job in the government while Rock didn't get into university out of high school and struggled to get into a good one at all. However the master planning runs in the family.

Roberta is a Draculina

In the El Baile De La Muerte arc, she starts acting more and more like post-vampire Seras Victoria. For example, shooting a giant rifle one-handed and blowing dudes to pieces and adopting some of her mannerisms.

• The next stage will be biting her master Garcia and taking his virginity afterwards.

Building on the above theory, Black Lagoon definitely shares a universe with Alucard

Revy is possibly Alucard's daughter seeing how she shares his bloodlust, love for akimbo pistols, and has rather vampire-like canines. This could mean that the Nazis the Black Lagoon crew encounters are part of Millennium and the Church of Violence a front for Iscariot.

Broken Bird Sawyer the Cleaner is becoming more sane with each appearance.

Well, for someone who makes a living chainsawing bodies, at least.

Black Lagoon takes place in the same universe as Modern Warfare.

Considering the former takes place in the 90's (about twenty years prior to the events of Modern Warfare 2), this would fit perfectly. Both feature Crapsack Worlds where WWIII seems like it could break out at any minute, with Russia seeming rather nasty in particular. Balalaika used to do business with Zakhaev, but lost contact with him after witnessing his assassination attempt at the hands of Captain Price in Pripyat. Also, Pvt. Ramirez, the hero from Modern Warfare 2, is a distant relative of Roberta, explaining his unstoppable badassery.

• It's also the same universe as Black Ops a few decades into the future, and we never do find out if the CIA was able to find Mason and friends...

Lotton the Wizard is a Lethal Joke Character

Having the common sense to wear body armor, and groin protection, and surviving against odds that have killed seemingly smarter and more capable characters is way too much of a coincidence. That kind of foresight can only come from experience. Something is going to happen to make him stop caring about looking cool, and then this seemingly useless character is going to show that he is not nearly as nice as he seems. Unfortunately, this being Black Lagoon, that's likely going to finally make him worth killing.

• Or the reason he is a Joke Character is because he knows it allows him to get out unscathed. Pretend to be an idiot, get shot in the body armour, play dead, leave when all the havoc is over and since he acted so stupid with his speeches no-one checks to make sure he's dead. It's worked twice against some of the most dangerous people in the world, so what's to say he's not dangerously genre savvy?
  • Maybe he has enough Medium Awareness to realise that the only way for him to get enough Plot Armor to survive Roanapur without becoming a main character is to become the Plucky Comic Relief? If you think about it, Lotton manages to wangle a regular merc's pay for wandering onto the scene, getting shot and playing dead - no additional expenses for ammo, minimal risk to life and limb, and so on. You'd think someone would wise up and try to just hire the other two.

Revy is bi.

See Chapter 81.

• It's stated in Chapter 9 that Revy's done some sex tapes (and implied to have been fairly hard core ones).
  • When she was in jail (see Chapter 81) some things were going on.
  • She's been shown reading porno magazines with nude women in them... that could be just because that was what was lying around the office, but why would she be checking out the photo spreads if she wasn't at least somewhat interested? She may be mainly interested in men, but that doesn't preclude an interest in women as well. She insists that she reads them for the articles.

Rock will become the first Mentat

The reason that Rock is still alive is because he is able to successfully calculate the outcome of nearly every situation. Once he has honed his terrifying analytical powers further, he well go on to found the Order of Mentats.

• Balalaika would be a natural for the Bene Gesserit, wouldn't she? Put her up against Jessica Atreides and see who walks away alive...

Sawyer the Cleaner is left-handed, or, at most, ambidextrous.

In Chapter 78, when she's communicating by writing on Rock's back so he can tell the others what she's saying, she's using her left hand to do the writing. Later on, she draws a picture, this time using her right hand.

Claude "Torch" Weaver is really Hank Hill.

He sold propane and propane accessories. He also killed his wife. In his defense, she was kind of a bitch.

Rock's brother will factor into one of the more serious arcs of the manga

His brother is mentioned to be part of the Japanese Government. Considering the antagonists of Black Lagoon have ranged from minor thugs, to Yakuza, to international terror groups. It may be only a matter of time before they have to take on a whole government. The theory doesn't have much backing, but thats whats best about WMG. The question is whether Rock will be the Cain or Abel and his brother as the Abel or Cain.

Mr. Chang's real identity when he was still a detective

He is Tequila Yuen. I have played Stranglehold before (Xbox 360, starring Chow Yun Fat) and I noticed, The Mafiya is here, Tequila uses Mr. Chang's skills, and we know that Mr. Chang used to be a detective. His daughter probably died from that happened after he saved her in Stranglehold, maybe something involving the police, prompting his switch from detective to triad boss. Plus, even though they were enemies, Yuen's father-in-law is a triad boss. He may have inherited that title after he switched sides.

Sister Eda is Sarah in an earlier mission.

It's been established that the series occurs in the nineties. Eda is blonde and it was established that she's a CIA mole in the Church of Violence. It would make sense that before the Intersect nuttiness she would be placed in Roanapur. She acts brash because this works better for her cover.

Rotton's reason for saving Shenhua and Sawyer weren't completely...chivalrous.

Sure Rotton is a nice guy, but surely a reason for his chivalry is to get women. After repeated failure he gets his reward, two attractive and badass lady friends. It's Roanapur. That risk is probably inherent with more women than not.

Rotton's real defining trait is Obfuscating Stupidity.

By placing himself in a clearly dangerous position at the start of a gunfight, he gets his opponents to underestimate him and fire off a hasty or poorly-aimed shot, then pretends to get hit and fall down. Even if he actually does get hit, the bulletproof vest (etc) means he's likely to survive. He plays dead for the rest of the fight, thus earning his paycheck with minimal danger and ammunition expenditure.

Rock is Koiwai in the past. Yotsuba is an orphan from Roanapur, and Ginji becomes Jumbo.

One day, Rock finds orphan Yotsuba on the streets of Roanapur. He takes her in but is eventually forced to choose between giving her away to a better home or leaving the city for some place significantly safer, which he chooses to do. Yotsuba states that she's from "way left," which Thailand is in comparison to Japan. She thought Roanapur was an island as a very small child because of the water and all the boats. Rock, adopting a new identity as innocent translator Koiwai, takes her back to Japan, where he runs into Ginji, who survived his injuries but lost all of his memories except for Revy calling him "Jumbo." Out of sympathy, Rock/Koiwai creates a fictional past for them to share and finds a childless florist to pose as Jumbo's father so he doesn't go poking about trying to find his real past. A sign of his complete transformation into Jumbo is his nervousness around Asagi. Like Yukio, she's in college, and he's subconsciously afraid that if he gets close to her, she'll die on him like Yukio did. Because of this, Rock/Koiwai tries to be as vague as possible about his past so Ginji/Jumbo doesn't accidentally overhear something that will trigger his negative memories.

• Rotton the Wizard becomes Yanda.
  • Or, alternatively, Yotsuba is Rock's biological child with Revy. Revy died on him either because of complications during childbirth or was killed in the line of work, so Rock left Roanapur to give his child a normal life and now translates stuff from Thai and English into Japanese. To mask his and her identity, he tells the people, that Yotsuba is his adoptive child.

Rock eventually returns to Japan by using a forged passport... giving him the name of Gendo Rokobungi.

It fits, you know. The personalities, the seemingly effortless manipulation, the tendency to magnetically attract powerful psycho females, that insane capability to survive and thrive in places known for killing off the most dangerous badasses in the known universe... without ever using a gun.

Rock could just be Gendo in training, his time in Roanapour teaching him how to use his skills to his best advantage. Hell, the old SS officer would fit Kiehl to a tee, not to mention that Revy being Yui would explain a lot about why Gendo burned any picture of her he could find (hint: police files) and where Unit 01 learned how to fight.

Dutch's last name is Wallace, and is the twin brother of Marcellus Wallace.

Dutch and Marcellus are identical, in both looks and personality. Both are quiet, soft-spoken, slow-to-anger bald big scary black men who lead a moderately-sized organization. Black Lagoon and Pulp Fiction take place only a few years apart, therefore making sense that they'd still look the same.

• Dutch IS Marecllus. At some point, he was forced to flee the US (either rival mafias or the US gov't were on his tail) and went to Roanapour.

Feng Yifel is going to go through the same events Rock did at the start of the series.

There was a mess up, in order to avoid embarrassment her superiors have written her off and she even got a phone call from her immediate superior promising to posthumously reward her. As a result she'll go on the run and force the Lagoon Company to protect her. However this time it will end with Feng getting killed.

• Rock being as smart as he is, he WILL notice Feng's situation. I'm not as sure that Feng will die (though it would be very fitting and be a good symbol of Rock's dying innocence), but before the arc ends, Feng will force Revy to R some of the UST between our main couple.

Rock will end up as the undisputed ruler of the Roanapur underworld.

He started out as a mild-mannered salaryman, a Fish out of Water, and as of the end of the "Baile de la Muerte" arc, he's effortlessly manipulating everybody to get the results he wants. Balalaika and Chang aren't going to be around forever, and when they're gone, Rock (with Revy as The Dragon) will move on up to the top slot. Revy will then become Rock's Morality Chain when he becomes the ruler of the Roanapur underworld

Gretel survived Elroy's bullet.

No one seemed to make sure she was definitely dead, only presumed that she was. If Gretel is a Magnificent Bitch or maybe even Obfuscating Insanity, the wig she wore could have hidden some form of protection, not enough to protect from all damage, but enough to make the shot not lethal. Plus with the series running on Rule of Cool there's a chance she's still alive. God help Roanapur if she is.

Fabiola might return to finish Rock.

She might catch wind of what's happening between the Chinese govt. and Roanapur, and she would immediately assume Rock is behind it all. Considering how he managed to manipulate things during the Roberta Arc, Fabiola would feel that such a feat is not beyond his means. And, being the closeted Knight Templar she is, she would feel responsible for leaving such a dangerous man alive and take it upon herself to kill him. After all, she already wrote him off as a monster.

In the Black Lagoon universe, your ability to get hit by bullets is inversely proportional to how awesome you are.

If this theory is true, it could provide an explanation for some of the more bizarre things in the series. There is one point during the boat-hopping sequence when a goon fires at Revy from two feet away, and the bullets aren't even shown coming anywhere near her. The only explanation is that they were deflected by the invisible aura of awesome that surrounds her at all times. And during the fight between Revy and Roberta, they both had a ridiculously hard time hitting each other even though they'd been killing mooks by the dozens beforehand. How else do you explain them missing every shot that they fired while running straight at each other? And when Revy was fighting Ginji, the reason that she couldn't touch him with her bullets is because he has a stronger aura of awesome than she does. Face it; it makes perfect sense.

• This aura is called "Spiral Energy" and Rock and Revy will sire the ancestor of Shimon.

Sawyer the Cleaner is from an infamous family from Texas.

Basically, she is a member (perhaps cousin) of the Sawyer family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Hansel and Gretel truly are eternal

This is more or less a fan-fic idea, but it's crazy and over the top, so it's suitable as a theory. If one wishes to write this as a fic, be my guest. At some point in their lives, the twins were subjected to drug testing. The drug in question being a drug for immortality. It would repair tissues and cells as long as the user still has blood. However, the creators of the drug would shoot their testers to see if they would come back to life. After taking the drug, Hansel and Gretel killed the creators before they could 'test it'. The only NOTICEABLE effects of the drug were abnormal growing of the teeth, which resulted in them getting fangs.

After their deaths, Gretel would soon recover and retrieve Hansel (who needed his blood refilled). Gretel would then bring Hansel with her to enjoy the beach...

Revy never really wanted to ransom Rock

Think about it. She kidnaps him without any way to contact his employer or a bank account to receive funds. When the attempt falls through, she doesn't get upset even though she's not the type who deals with frustration well. You'd think she would shoot Rock in frustration if nothing else. Instead she lets him live. It seems more likely that she was attracted to Rock. The ransom was just a justification to abduct a guy she was into because she's a Stalker with a Crush. We know that she's got yandere or at least Clingy Jealous Girl streaks to go with her tsundere exterior. She probably got info on who'd be on the boat, and who'd have the disk... and she saw this cute guy who she'd like to either see break or love to keep from breaking.

Ginji is an Expy of Kenshin Himura.

He's a former killer who has settled down into normal civilian life, mainly to protect a girl for whom he has developed feelings (who also happens to be an heiress of some sort), and vice versa. He is also distinct for continuing to wield a sword in Japan when most of the weaponry around him has become modernized. And, of course, the quickest way to get him to snap back to his 'old self' is to kidnap or harm the one he loves.

"Roanapur" is an almost-transliteration of "Rotten Apple".

Just check how similar in sounds in Japanese pronunciation.

Rock will break bad.

It appears to be the direction the story is taking plus it would make an interesting point of view as he starts to get used to all of this violence and starts accepting it.

Roanapur is really a UN-mandated proving ground

With all the criminals and mercenaries piling up there to test out their weaponry and skills, it seems that the UN would register the place as a proving ground, where anyone, let it be a soldier or criminal, test out their skills, and in the end, the UN will hand-pick the best into a special military.

Benny is the brother of Egon Spengler from The Real Ghostbusters.

Both of them serve as the brains of their respective teams. Both of them look physically similar, complete with blond hair in an improbable hair style. Also, Egon is often thought of as Ambiguously Jewish. As a bonus, Egon sports a ponytail in Extreme Ghostbusters. A tribute to his brother perhaps? Also, Stanz mentions that the company is using "unlicensed nuclear accelerators". Where do you think he got them if not Egon's familial connections to the criminal underground?

The ending credit animation in the anime is Revy taking revenge on everyone who will have turned Rock evil

In the end, Rock will go to the dark side and in an ironic turn, Revy will be the one to stop him, but by then he will be such a bad-ass that the only way she can do that is to kill him. Revy will snap and take her revenge on everyone who she blames for turning her love to evil.

Ginji was trained by Goemon Ishikawa XIII

Both Ginji and Goemon can slice bullets in the air. Obviously Goemon was Ginji's swordsmanship teacher.

In the Black Lagoon unniverse, the Buddhas of Bamiyan were saved

One of the arms dealers in Roanapur was not only extremely rich, but also a devout Buddhist and absolutely horrified, how the Taliban wanted to blow up the Buddha-statues of Bamiyan. He negotiated a weapons deal with the Taliban where they would get an assload of weapons being paid for not with money, but with Buddha-statues. The Taliban are reluctant, but needed the weapons and agree to the deal. He puts one the Buddhas on an island in the bay of Roanapur, the other one he gives as a loan to his country of birth (Japan).

Benny's family motto

Benny's family not only had the motto, but practiced it. His father wasn't a victim of the Nazis, but came as a soldier to Europe. He was even a member of the units that liberated a concentration camp and heard about the Nazi atrocities from the survivors themselves. After the war, he joined a unit of Jewish vigilantes who hunted down Nazi war criminals and sent them to a personal visit to their "Führer" in hell. "Fuck the Nazi" was their Battle Cry.

About Revy "smelling" gunpowder and stuff all the time

It's actually a danger sense!

Rock was falling in love with Yukio.

He foresees exactly what's about to happen to his new love and that's why he tries so hard to free her from her the yakuza life. Even though he manages to keep it bottled up a little while longer, this is what really messes him up.

After knocking the traitor into the pool and cutting his hands off, Genji made a bet with Revi of whether he would drown or bleed to death.

Just because it would be an epic Kick the Dog.

The "Balalaika raises the Twins" Omake is canon

It takes place after Balalaika dies sometime in the future. She's cursed to suffer her own personal Hell; namely, being Hansel and Gretel's mother, for all eternity.

This is their own personal Hell too. The Twins not only have to be raised by their murderer, but she's allowed to punish them if they misbehave, and they're not allowed to retaliate.

Takenaka will return

Black Lagoon, as a series, has done an excellent job of mixing Tarantino-style action with philosophical questions that strike deeply. Takenaka's first appearance showed why some extremists do what they do and why they keep going when their causes died, and that kind of philosophical weight just seems too good to pass up for Black Lagoon, especially since, in-universe, 9/11 hasn't happened yet.

The series will end with everyone dead, dying, mad, or in jail.

Black Lagoon, at best, might end bittersweet with Rock and Revy finally admitting they love each other, but there's no way a series this dark can end with sunshine and flowers. Balalaika and Chang want war, the Cartel and Mafia are practically guppies compared to them, and Lagoon crew have gone and stepped on a lot of toes since Rock joined the crew. Finally, there's the matter of the US and Chinese governments noticing Roanapur and it's goings on. No one will walk out of the final battle alive, not in a city like Roanapur.

Hansel and Gretel's death was faked by Hotel Moscow.

The bullet to Gretel's head did not penetrate her forehead, not to mention that a bullet to the brains would not give her time to think of the sky as it is an instant death. As for Hansel, the bullet that penetrated his leg did explode his entire wrist which shows a great difference of power of the same size of bullets, making it possible for his hand to be prosthetic limb or a fake hand. It is possible that select few of Hotel Moscow got to the kids before their final assault and negotiated the plan with them, then Hotel Moscow faked their death, partially for communist's honor (as the kids were suggested to be Nicolae Ceausescu's kids) and mostly because they wanted to get more information on the sicilian Mafia as they are the ones who hired them to do this mission. And they kept it a secret from everyone so that they can launch a surprise attack later. They used some tricks to show Hansel's hand to be exploding.

• But why put up the act with Hansel's death? Balalaika and her snipers were the only ones there, and it would have been easy to get the snipers to keep quiet, if she would even bring them at all, instead of "doing it herself".

Revy and Chang are close blood relatives.

In the Greenback Jane arc, when Chang and Revy are shooting their way out of the Black Lagoon offices, they cooperate smoothly and effectively. Chang is giving her advice and counseling on how to play situations like this. Revy was polite, respectful and took the advice to heart. That's completely out of character unless she was talking to a blood relative who was also her mentor. She also admits that she has a long way to go before she reaches Chang's standards. Normally, when she meets an expert in her line of business, her reaction is to stage a terminal confrontation. Not admit she is the inferior of the two. Now, Chang is his mid-thirties, Revy about ten years younger so he can't be her real father. But was Chang's elder sister Revy's mother? If he was her uncle, that would explain the relationship between them and why Revy was in Roanapur at all. It's also worth noting that Chang and Rock have a cordial relationship that seems unusual. But, Chang will know that Revy and Rock are a couple even if neither of them have admitted it yet and will see that Rock is the anchor that's keeping Revy sane and attached to normality. So he smiles on Rock and envisages him as a potential family member.

• In the first part of Baille de Muerte, Revy starts to light a cigarette in Garcia's hotel room. Chang gives her a sharply-worded lesson in good manners - and Revy backs down. The whole sequence is full of a "wise uncle rebuking wayward niece" vibe. Chang publicly tells Revy off - and lives. They've got to be close (in both senses of the word) blood relatives.
• This trooper always thought that Revy was Chang's gun/apprentice somewhere before working for the Lagoon.

The Lagoon Company is the Evil Counterpart (or at the very least, Shadow Archetype) to the Bebop crew.

This can be supported by a bunch of reasons.

• Both the Lagoon Company and the Bebop crew have the exact same temperamental and philosophical ensemble arrangements. The only differences are that Revy has Spike's personality and Rock has Faye's personality, and Benny isn't a Cloud Cuckoolander.
  • Rock and Spike - Melancholic, Idealist.
  • Revy and Faye - Choleric, Cynic.
  • Dutch and Jet - Phlegmatic, Realist. They even have similar personalities.
  • Benny and Ed - Apathetic, Sanguine.
  • Further supporting the comparison are their color arrangements: whereas the Bebop's crew's color arrangements in the People-Oriented/Task-Oriented spectrum is inverted (i.e. yellow for Sanguine, but Ed is red; red for choleric but Faye is yellow; blue for Melancholic, but Spike is green; green for Phlegmatic, but Jet is blue), the Lagoon Company's color arrangements perfectly fit their temperaments (Benny is Sanguine and has blonde hair; Revy is Choleric and has burgundy hair (which is a shade of red); Rock is Melancholic and his primary color is blue; and Dutch is Phlegmatic and wears green).
• Both are naval companies (Lagoon Company is water whereas the Bebop crew is space).
• Both perform and collect bounties and operate in crapsack worlds.
• Jet and Dutch have similar backgrounds but contrasting motives (Jet was a former cop who left the police force in pursuit of, in his own way, law and justice; whereas Dutch was a former US Marine during the Vietnam War who went AWOL to become a mercenary).

Revy is an escaped Death Row inmate.

If you pay close attention to the opening (namely the part with the newspaper articles), there are two headlines that support this. "Revy was arrested for murder and attempted murder" and "The Judge ruled death by electrocution." Assuming that that is the case, I think the opening may have been dropping more hints about Revy's backstory before they become prevalent in the manga. In fact, I think this could be something that could play into the final arc. Working off of this idea, I've come up with a theory.

• It's pretty obvious Revy has killed people both inside and outside Roanapour, but there's still the mention of the attempted kill from before hiding out in Roanapour. I believe that the one she didn't kill was somebody important. I think it was possibly the son of a politician who was running for either mayor or governor. The son himself being an absolute asshole who thinks that because of who his Dad is, he's above the law. I'd say the altercation would've been that said son tried to rape Revy which would be a big mistake on his end. After the incident, the politician uses his son's incident as a way to win the election. He portrayed Revy as being an extremist supporter for his opponent. To further his chances of victory, he drums up this BS story that portrays the son as being this upstanding young citizen. Charitable donations, Varsity player, regular church goer, all of this to make sure the truth of him being a morally reprehensible human being never comes out. These tactics and the promise of putting Revy to death for the murders she committed and the son's current status are what guarantee his victory. On the day of the trial, it was the definition of a Kangaroo Court. Paid off jurors, a paid off judge and false witnesses that all say that she started the whole thing and anyone who tries to say otherwise ended up being silenced. All of this culminating in Revy receiving the death sentence. Knowing that her execution was coming, Revy put together a plan that led to her escape. Knowing what would happen if she would go back to America, she leaves for Roanapour as a member of the Lagoon Company.

Dutch's Past

What if Dutch's is actually one that requires him to make people think otherwise about him? What if his duty during Vietnam was so vital and important, or so dirty and despicable, that it's classified to a degree that the crew can't fathom right now?

• If Dutch served in any capacity during the Vietnam War at all, it was most likely with Air America. For those who don't know, Air America was a CIA sponsored company established to covertly ferry weapons and funding to paramilitary allies in South-East Asia, including "neutral" countries like Laos and Cambodia. The company's activities reached its' apex during the Vietnam War and they were also involved in narcotics trafficking to help fund their operation. It is entirely possible that Dutch worked for them. As for why he keeps silent about it, I can think of two explanations: he's either still working for the CIA in some kind of capacity and is still not willing to reveal classified information; Black Lagoon is set in the 1990s and Air America would still be top secret at the time. The second one I can think of is something happened that Dutch is so ashamed of that he tells people he served as a grunt because its' easier to explain and from a technical perspective, he did serve in the Vietnam War.

Black Lagoon takes place in the same universe as Max Payne

Max's most recent game took place in 2013 in Brazil, prior to that the games take place in the early 2000s. By now in Max's universe Revy would likely be in her 30s and Balalaika would be elderly, if not dead already, and since Max seems to gravitate towards the worst places on earth, after his time in Brazil he'd end up in Roanapur. The city representing to Max, like it did for Revy and the others 'the last stop before Hell'. If a crossover ever happens, however unlikely, the story will deal with Max accidentally crossing, and taking on the remains of Hotel Moscow in 2017 or later. Discovering along the way the fates, or implied fates, of all the principal characters, apart from Rock, who'll turn out to be the standard 'manipulating Max from behind the scenes' character. It'll be left ambiguous whether he had something to do with his friend's deaths or disappearances when he chose to embrace the darkness of Roanapur, and rather than kill Rock, Max will join him, the two having become what they feared they would.

By the end of the series, Revy will do a complete Face Turn while Rock will have a Hell Turn

It's pretty clear that Revy cares A LOT for Rock, even though it didn't start that way, to the point where she actually becomes (somewhat) heroic when working around him. In counterpart, it's pretty clear that Revy, or rather Roanapur itself, is not doing good for Rock's mental and moral health, and he's slowly slipping into villany (Or at least, anti-heroism). If it keeps going like this, by the end of the series Revy will have an actual Face turn by becoming a moral anti-hero who actually starts caring for those near her besides the booze and money, while Rock will turn into a Anti-Villain who only does his good actions "For fun" and isn't above killing innocents if it amuses him either. Even better if it ends with an inverted speech where instead of Rock being on the receiving end of a speech on nihilism and hate, it will be instead Revy who will call out Rock on his apathy for others and everything else.

Several Characters have Parahuman Powers.

It would explain some of the mere ridiculous feats they manage to pull off and it does fit in the timeline as happening before the emergence of Leviathan.