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jazzcatteSo I just finished watching Black Lagoon, and while there's a lot there that I found compelling, the show ultimately fails to live up to what I felt it promised, and what I wanted.
This post is analysis-by-way-of-rewrite. It's not really a fanfiction or a script doctor or anything like that, but my intention is to talk through the show, arc-by-arc, to briefly discuss some of the issues I had with it, and how it might have been done better. As a disclaimer, I've not read any of the manga, and so this is going to be based solely on the anime itself. I recognize that there is an element of arrogance to this concept, and I'm ok with that.
Introduction
The first three episodes introduce us to our "protagonist" Rock, and establish the tone of the show and the setting. I really liked this part of the show, as I felt it struck a good balance between a campy and a gritty tone. Furthermore, the dynamic of the Lagoon crew is one of the strongest elements of the show, as well as one of its most subtle. A lot is implied but little is said, for example, about Dutch's backstory (a Vietnam veteran, likely conscripted, who got radicalized, stole a torpedo boat, and went AWOL). Similarly, little details like Revy's affection for colorful shirts (and Rock and Benny's differing reaction to that imposition) are fun and add a lot to the characterization.
Nazi Submarine Arc
This is another one of the show's strongest parts, there's very little that I would even consider changing here. The sequence where Dutch and Revy board the neo-nazi ship is particularly good, and does a lot to establish their relationship specifically (which is good, as it doesn't get a lot of other screen time). I might shorten the conversation with the old SS man at the end (especially since he doesn't recur as a villain). Instead of the weird testing/double-cross scenario, it might be good to take this opportunity to introduce or develop a character or faction that will become more prominent later, for example Mr. Chang or the Washimine clan, as the Lagoon company's client for this job.
Killer Maid Arc
The premise leans towards campy, but that's not a bad thing (this is a show that set its tone with a torpedo boat ramping off a shipwreck to shoot a point-blank torpedo into a helicopter). This arc also mark's Balalaika's transition from an interesting side character to the primary agent of the show. By stepping in to unilaterally end the conflict at the end, she takes center stage in determining the action for the first time. This is minor in this episode, but will become more important as we progress.
Revolutionaries
Now that Balalaika is moving into the "protagonist" space, the show begins establishing the other players who are of concern to her (since our viewpoint characters in the Lagoon crew are effectively her subordinates). This arc introduces Mr. Chang, and is also the site of the first major change that I'd want to make. In order to talk about that though, we first need to talk about how Black Lagoon thinks about the American special forces/intelligence agencies/three-letter goons.
In Black Lagoon, the CIA/NSA/FBI/etc are fundamentally virtuous, and their motivation is primarily nationalist. They don't care if you're a criminal or anything else, but they will act with overwhelming force to protect the USA's interests. To anyone who has studied the long bloody history of American intervention (in both East Asia and Latin America, the two regions that this show primarily concerns itself with), this is of course ridiculous. Nevertheless, their presence and power can't be ignored, and so as we re-write the motivations for this arc, we need to think about how it makes sense for our various factions and characters to relate to them.
Balalaika and Chang, as de-factor rulers of the city, both are incentivized to want the Americans out. Balalaika, who's still obsessed with relitigating the cold war (or at least with being red army) might feel sympathetic towards the revolutionaries, so in our re-write she'll turn a blind eye towards them, or perhaps even help them acquire weapons or some such (for a price, of course). Chang, on the other hand, will want the Americans simply to overlook the city, which is a lot less likely if there are active terrorist/revolutionary cells making the region their home base. Lagoon still has to deliver some sorta suitcase to someone, and the rest of the action can proceed as normal (with the removal of the extremely cringey cool guy cia helicopter bit at the end).
Vampire Twins Arc
Oof. This arc is bad y'all. While the first of the three big problems I have with the show is its opinion about the CIA and NSA, the second is its gratuitous use of sexual violence without purpose, and this arc is full of it. However, the action is still important for the characterization work it does for Balalaika and company. But, it works just as well if instead of an incestuous pair of gender-bending abuse victims, we instead just have, idk, some assassins or something. They don't show up again after this so their origin and identity aren't important, but if we want to tie it in to the building meta-plot, they could be CIA goons or Yakuza goons or really anyone who has reason to have a grudge against Balalaika and a willingness to work with the Italian mob as part of that.
But please let's keep the scene where Balalaika pins down a dude between a bunch of snipers in the park and cold-bloodedly watches him die as revenge for one of her footsoldiers getting killed. That part ruled.
Greenback Jane
This is the last gasp of the show's strength, which is the episodic storytelling we've had up to this point. Again very little needs to change, except for let's have fewer panty shots, and get rid of the "oh i can't not fuck him" moment at the end (nobody in the 90s thought hackers were hot, its just facts).
Oh also let's get rid of the part where Eda is CIA, because, again, this show's opinion of the CIA sucks and they don't really go anywhere with that reveal anyway, except giving her a motivation to want to help Rock later on, which she doesn't need because she already likes Rock and Revy and that dynamic's already established.
Yakuza Arc
Thus far I've mentioned two major issues I have, and now it's time for the third. This arc starts out very promising and does a lot of cool things, and then throws them all away at the end because it has to (stop me if you've heard this before) kill off a woman so that the male main character can have emotions. The emotions aren't even particularly interesting or novel at this point, they're the same emotions that Rock has been having throughout the show.
It also suffers because Balalaika is the protagonist of this arc, but the show still wants to be about Rock, despite everything.
So let's talk about how tragically they wasted Yukio's character. She's excellent as a foil to Rock: she's a person who straddles the "light" and "dark" worlds, but chooses to embrace darkness and suffers for it. This ultimately leads to Rock's conclusion at the end of the original series that he'll continue to "watch from the twilight". That's all well and good if Roberta's Blood Trail didn't step all over it (and boy does it, we'll get there). However, Yukio's untimely and uninteresting death prevents this contrast from being fully developed, and the story continues to go nowhere with Rock. He doesn't see his parents, but it doesn't mean anything that he didn't see them.
More interestingly, Yukio is also a foil to the real protagonist of this part of the show: Balalaika. Balalaika is military precision, overwhelming force, and a complete disregard for tradition and diplomacy. Yukio, by contrast, is "traditional" Yakuza to the core. She inherits her position by blood lineage, she has a terrifyingly strong personal bodyguard who refuses guns and fights with a sword. Balalaika was promoted to military command, and has a paratrooper unit. Yukio wants to build alliances, to invoke the Peacekeeper's council and the various (relatively unexplained) relationships and dependencies of the Yakuza clans. Balalaika is there to burn everything down so that Hotel Moscow can move in to the power vacuum she leaves behind (and if she can off an ex-KGB rival in the process, all the better).
The show as it was does do some things with this. Yukio is smart enough to realize what Balalaika is doing, and the only effective tactics against it (go to ground, employ the protection of the civil authorities, which Balalaika is not used to having to deal with, force Balalaika to split her forces by going to Balalaika's home base and causing trouble there as a guerilla force). However, all of that excellent planning turns out to be a ruse: Yukio's real intent is a suicide mission decapitation strike, and even that is cut short so that Gin and Revy can have a pointless duel and Yukio can die a pointless death for Rock to feel bad about.
But imagine if that potential was realized. Imagine if Yukio keeps popping up for the rest of the series to be a thorn in Balalaika's side, to turn criminal alliances and civil authorities against her. This even works better for Rock's foil, since then Rock will have to confront the "innocent girl" he though he could save and have to grapple with the realization that she chose something that he didn't want for her. Also maybe that girl who obviously has a crush on Yukio could be involved in some way. Just saying.
Roberta's Blood Trail
Ok so it's an ova made years later but let's be honest: RBT sucks. Roberta isn't a strong enough character to carry this much plot, and the attempt to rush to the finish of a character arc for Rock without actually doing the work to get him there doesn't work at all. The most interesting thing here again is the power struggle between the criminal factions of the city, and the ever-looming threat of American intervention. The show nods to this with an attempt to make Chang some sort of villain, and with Balalaika's nonsensical sendoff.
However, since we didn't fuck the ending of the Washimine clan story in order to make Rock feel sad momentarily, we don't need Roberta to carry this all on her own, since we have Yukio there now. So we'll keep the CIA incursion, and Roberta's vengeance quest against them, but instead of having her be a lone wolf supersoldier, we can pick back up the dynamic that we established earlier on between Balalaika, Chang, and the CIA, but now with Yukio hanging around looking to destabilize the balance of power, and, if possible, get the Americans to wipe out Balalaika, Chang, or both.
So now we can have an alliance where Balalaika and Roberta want to wipe out the Americans, Yukio (along with other criminal elements of the city, maybe the remnants of the other mobs that Balalaika's walked all over) wants to provoke the Americans and reveal Balalaika's plans to them, and Chang wants to protect his own supply lines and, if possible, get the Americans to overlook his town. This way, we don't have to force Rock to clumsily play mastermind, and we can focus on the actual players in the scene. Balalaika can have her troops actually open fire on the Americans, instead of on Roberta (why? that scene was awful and the idea that the thing a Soviet Afghanistan vet would want from American Vietnam vets is respect is ludicrous in the extreme), and an alliance of convenience of Yukio, Chang, and the Lagoon company could have to work to get the Americans out. Then we'd go to the jungle, like the show did, but instead of the weird Roberta showdown we can actually have Balalaika's crew and the CIA goons relitigate their respective hopeless lost causes by finally actually fighting each other. At some point Balalaika shoots the American commander or something but finds that it doesn't actually change anything meaningful, and by doing so she's lost out on her actual objectives as a criminal (since while she was gone Yukio or Chang could make a move on some of her assets or something, who knows). All of this is just a rambly suggestion for a possibility, with the setup work done in this reconception, there's a lot of ways that this could go.
Also we cut that scene where there's a gratuitous flashback to Revy getting raped by a cop in jail. We don't need that shit, we know she has trauma.
In conclusion I don't know if this would ultimately be a better show but I think it would do a better job at following through on some of the unkept promises, and cut back on the eXtrEmeLy eDgY use of sexual violence without purpose.
This post is analysis-by-way-of-rewrite. It's not really a fanfiction or a script doctor or anything like that, but my intention is to talk through the show, arc-by-arc, to briefly discuss some of the issues I had with it, and how it might have been done better. As a disclaimer, I've not read any of the manga, and so this is going to be based solely on the anime itself. I recognize that there is an element of arrogance to this concept, and I'm ok with that.
Introduction
The first three episodes introduce us to our "protagonist" Rock, and establish the tone of the show and the setting. I really liked this part of the show, as I felt it struck a good balance between a campy and a gritty tone. Furthermore, the dynamic of the Lagoon crew is one of the strongest elements of the show, as well as one of its most subtle. A lot is implied but little is said, for example, about Dutch's backstory (a Vietnam veteran, likely conscripted, who got radicalized, stole a torpedo boat, and went AWOL). Similarly, little details like Revy's affection for colorful shirts (and Rock and Benny's differing reaction to that imposition) are fun and add a lot to the characterization.
Nazi Submarine Arc
This is another one of the show's strongest parts, there's very little that I would even consider changing here. The sequence where Dutch and Revy board the neo-nazi ship is particularly good, and does a lot to establish their relationship specifically (which is good, as it doesn't get a lot of other screen time). I might shorten the conversation with the old SS man at the end (especially since he doesn't recur as a villain). Instead of the weird testing/double-cross scenario, it might be good to take this opportunity to introduce or develop a character or faction that will become more prominent later, for example Mr. Chang or the Washimine clan, as the Lagoon company's client for this job.
Killer Maid Arc
The premise leans towards campy, but that's not a bad thing (this is a show that set its tone with a torpedo boat ramping off a shipwreck to shoot a point-blank torpedo into a helicopter). This arc also mark's Balalaika's transition from an interesting side character to the primary agent of the show. By stepping in to unilaterally end the conflict at the end, she takes center stage in determining the action for the first time. This is minor in this episode, but will become more important as we progress.
Revolutionaries
Now that Balalaika is moving into the "protagonist" space, the show begins establishing the other players who are of concern to her (since our viewpoint characters in the Lagoon crew are effectively her subordinates). This arc introduces Mr. Chang, and is also the site of the first major change that I'd want to make. In order to talk about that though, we first need to talk about how Black Lagoon thinks about the American special forces/intelligence agencies/three-letter goons.
In Black Lagoon, the CIA/NSA/FBI/etc are fundamentally virtuous, and their motivation is primarily nationalist. They don't care if you're a criminal or anything else, but they will act with overwhelming force to protect the USA's interests. To anyone who has studied the long bloody history of American intervention (in both East Asia and Latin America, the two regions that this show primarily concerns itself with), this is of course ridiculous. Nevertheless, their presence and power can't be ignored, and so as we re-write the motivations for this arc, we need to think about how it makes sense for our various factions and characters to relate to them.
Balalaika and Chang, as de-factor rulers of the city, both are incentivized to want the Americans out. Balalaika, who's still obsessed with relitigating the cold war (or at least with being red army) might feel sympathetic towards the revolutionaries, so in our re-write she'll turn a blind eye towards them, or perhaps even help them acquire weapons or some such (for a price, of course). Chang, on the other hand, will want the Americans simply to overlook the city, which is a lot less likely if there are active terrorist/revolutionary cells making the region their home base. Lagoon still has to deliver some sorta suitcase to someone, and the rest of the action can proceed as normal (with the removal of the extremely cringey cool guy cia helicopter bit at the end).
Vampire Twins Arc
Oof. This arc is bad y'all. While the first of the three big problems I have with the show is its opinion about the CIA and NSA, the second is its gratuitous use of sexual violence without purpose, and this arc is full of it. However, the action is still important for the characterization work it does for Balalaika and company. But, it works just as well if instead of an incestuous pair of gender-bending abuse victims, we instead just have, idk, some assassins or something. They don't show up again after this so their origin and identity aren't important, but if we want to tie it in to the building meta-plot, they could be CIA goons or Yakuza goons or really anyone who has reason to have a grudge against Balalaika and a willingness to work with the Italian mob as part of that.
But please let's keep the scene where Balalaika pins down a dude between a bunch of snipers in the park and cold-bloodedly watches him die as revenge for one of her footsoldiers getting killed. That part ruled.
Greenback Jane
This is the last gasp of the show's strength, which is the episodic storytelling we've had up to this point. Again very little needs to change, except for let's have fewer panty shots, and get rid of the "oh i can't not fuck him" moment at the end (nobody in the 90s thought hackers were hot, its just facts).
Oh also let's get rid of the part where Eda is CIA, because, again, this show's opinion of the CIA sucks and they don't really go anywhere with that reveal anyway, except giving her a motivation to want to help Rock later on, which she doesn't need because she already likes Rock and Revy and that dynamic's already established.
Yakuza Arc
Thus far I've mentioned two major issues I have, and now it's time for the third. This arc starts out very promising and does a lot of cool things, and then throws them all away at the end because it has to (stop me if you've heard this before) kill off a woman so that the male main character can have emotions. The emotions aren't even particularly interesting or novel at this point, they're the same emotions that Rock has been having throughout the show.
It also suffers because Balalaika is the protagonist of this arc, but the show still wants to be about Rock, despite everything.
So let's talk about how tragically they wasted Yukio's character. She's excellent as a foil to Rock: she's a person who straddles the "light" and "dark" worlds, but chooses to embrace darkness and suffers for it. This ultimately leads to Rock's conclusion at the end of the original series that he'll continue to "watch from the twilight". That's all well and good if Roberta's Blood Trail didn't step all over it (and boy does it, we'll get there). However, Yukio's untimely and uninteresting death prevents this contrast from being fully developed, and the story continues to go nowhere with Rock. He doesn't see his parents, but it doesn't mean anything that he didn't see them.
More interestingly, Yukio is also a foil to the real protagonist of this part of the show: Balalaika. Balalaika is military precision, overwhelming force, and a complete disregard for tradition and diplomacy. Yukio, by contrast, is "traditional" Yakuza to the core. She inherits her position by blood lineage, she has a terrifyingly strong personal bodyguard who refuses guns and fights with a sword. Balalaika was promoted to military command, and has a paratrooper unit. Yukio wants to build alliances, to invoke the Peacekeeper's council and the various (relatively unexplained) relationships and dependencies of the Yakuza clans. Balalaika is there to burn everything down so that Hotel Moscow can move in to the power vacuum she leaves behind (and if she can off an ex-KGB rival in the process, all the better).
The show as it was does do some things with this. Yukio is smart enough to realize what Balalaika is doing, and the only effective tactics against it (go to ground, employ the protection of the civil authorities, which Balalaika is not used to having to deal with, force Balalaika to split her forces by going to Balalaika's home base and causing trouble there as a guerilla force). However, all of that excellent planning turns out to be a ruse: Yukio's real intent is a suicide mission decapitation strike, and even that is cut short so that Gin and Revy can have a pointless duel and Yukio can die a pointless death for Rock to feel bad about.
But imagine if that potential was realized. Imagine if Yukio keeps popping up for the rest of the series to be a thorn in Balalaika's side, to turn criminal alliances and civil authorities against her. This even works better for Rock's foil, since then Rock will have to confront the "innocent girl" he though he could save and have to grapple with the realization that she chose something that he didn't want for her. Also maybe that girl who obviously has a crush on Yukio could be involved in some way. Just saying.
Roberta's Blood Trail
Ok so it's an ova made years later but let's be honest: RBT sucks. Roberta isn't a strong enough character to carry this much plot, and the attempt to rush to the finish of a character arc for Rock without actually doing the work to get him there doesn't work at all. The most interesting thing here again is the power struggle between the criminal factions of the city, and the ever-looming threat of American intervention. The show nods to this with an attempt to make Chang some sort of villain, and with Balalaika's nonsensical sendoff.
However, since we didn't fuck the ending of the Washimine clan story in order to make Rock feel sad momentarily, we don't need Roberta to carry this all on her own, since we have Yukio there now. So we'll keep the CIA incursion, and Roberta's vengeance quest against them, but instead of having her be a lone wolf supersoldier, we can pick back up the dynamic that we established earlier on between Balalaika, Chang, and the CIA, but now with Yukio hanging around looking to destabilize the balance of power, and, if possible, get the Americans to wipe out Balalaika, Chang, or both.
So now we can have an alliance where Balalaika and Roberta want to wipe out the Americans, Yukio (along with other criminal elements of the city, maybe the remnants of the other mobs that Balalaika's walked all over) wants to provoke the Americans and reveal Balalaika's plans to them, and Chang wants to protect his own supply lines and, if possible, get the Americans to overlook his town. This way, we don't have to force Rock to clumsily play mastermind, and we can focus on the actual players in the scene. Balalaika can have her troops actually open fire on the Americans, instead of on Roberta (why? that scene was awful and the idea that the thing a Soviet Afghanistan vet would want from American Vietnam vets is respect is ludicrous in the extreme), and an alliance of convenience of Yukio, Chang, and the Lagoon company could have to work to get the Americans out. Then we'd go to the jungle, like the show did, but instead of the weird Roberta showdown we can actually have Balalaika's crew and the CIA goons relitigate their respective hopeless lost causes by finally actually fighting each other. At some point Balalaika shoots the American commander or something but finds that it doesn't actually change anything meaningful, and by doing so she's lost out on her actual objectives as a criminal (since while she was gone Yukio or Chang could make a move on some of her assets or something, who knows). All of this is just a rambly suggestion for a possibility, with the setup work done in this reconception, there's a lot of ways that this could go.
Also we cut that scene where there's a gratuitous flashback to Revy getting raped by a cop in jail. We don't need that shit, we know she has trauma.
In conclusion I don't know if this would ultimately be a better show but I think it would do a better job at following through on some of the unkept promises, and cut back on the eXtrEmeLy eDgY use of sexual violence without purpose.