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They swear. They’re violent. They’re the cast of Black Lagoon, and in this second barrage, they hold nothing back.

Revy is a hot babe, aliased Two-Hands for her double fisted two gun shooting style. Rock is a geek who managed to fall into the underworld. Eda is a member of The Church of Violence, and she lives up to her organization’s name. They aren’t the full cast, but on this first disc of the second barrage, they’re the main crew.

The Lagoon company is a group who specializes in helping people on the run – for a nice price. They operate out of Roanapur, Thailand – a city overrun with mafia of every kind.  The second Barrage opens with a three episode arc centered around two child assassins brought to Roanapur to kill the boss of the Russian family (Hotel Moscow), a woman called the “Capitan”, Balalaika. Though it isn’t clear at first who brought the children in, what is known is that they are killing machines, creepy as all get out and seemingly invincible.

“The Vampire Twins Comen” is episode one, which, as the title suggests, features their arrival. With the carnage they cause everywhere, all the mob families are involved, and every bounty hunter around shows up for the hunt. Revy and Eda team up, despite their superficial dislike of each other which hides something resembling friendship.

In “Bloodsport Fairytale,” the back story for the twins comes to light. It’s a dark, twisted tale that has produced the increasingly unpredictable and bloodthirsty duo who quickly slide out of control. As the hunt for the pair grows, so does the body count. The story wraps up in “Swan Song at Dawn.” The ending of this arc is as graphically violent as the story itself. There is blood, torture and child abuse. Even Rock, who is touted by one of the twins as ‘a nice guy’, is “rewarded” with a view of the little girl’s genitals. 

The arc pulls no punches. Cursing abounds and graphic violence is everywhere. The world of Roanapur is dark and the creators do everything they can to showcase it. There is sexual content everywhere – the twins appear to have a sexual relationship, despite their young age, and one of them molests an adult. There is even a shot of the pair naked, playing in a pool of blood. And just when you think that’s enough to earn a rating of 16 and up (for extreme violence and strong language, or so says the box), they throw in a little bit of gender bending, just for the hell of it. 

The fourth episode, “Greenback Jane,” begins a new arc. Jane is a counterfeiter who is hired by a mobster from Florida, but things go wrong. In her confusion, she turns to The Church of Violence (mistaking it for a real church), while Revy is there paying a visit to Eda. The gunplay is funny here, in stark contrast to the darkness of the previous episodes. Alas, I cannot tell you if the end is satisfying (as it was in the twin arc) – we’ll have to wait for the next disc to see.

The show is great. Rock’s voice might be familiar to you anime fans as the voice of Light from Death Note, and if you’re fond of big breasted women with guns, Black Lagoon has plentiful amounts. The twin arc is highly engrossing and if you start the first episode, I’m betting you won’t stop watching until the arc ends. The DVD only has one bonus feature – three previews for other Geneon titles (including Le Portrait de Petite Cosette). But the show itself is well worth the buy.

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