< Black Lagoon

Black Lagoon/Characters


The Lagoon Company

Rock

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

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, and not only get out of such negotiations alive, but even convince them to see things his way.

  • 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.
  • All Guys Want Bad Girls: A rare case where a kind, decent guy is after a violent and really dangerous female criminal, though Rock gets fed up with her attitude soon enough to make her think a bit.
  • Anti-Hero: Type I-> Type III
  • 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.
  • Badass
  • 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: With Revy.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Easily the most decent and sympathetic human being in the series Roanapur, and usually very polite and even-keeled... but just as dangerous as his crewmates, albeit in a different way.
  • Brown Eyes
  • 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.
  • The Chessmaster: Shown in full flux during the end of the "Baile de la Muerte" arc.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Particularly in the Yakuza arc. And no, it doesn't end well.
  • Corrupt the Cutie: Rock seems to be headed in this direction
  • The Cynic: What he has irrefutably become by the recent chapters. 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 Hansel/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.
  • Dude in Distress: 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 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. He probably did it because she reminded him of himself, though.
  • 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, and proceed to match her shot-for-shot in Bacardi (the challenge is then interrupted by grenades). The second time is when he shows us how to kill an attack helicopter with an obsolete torpedo boat.
  • Even Evil 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.
  • 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 Is Not Nice
  • Guile Hero: Has to relay on his wits and negotiation abilities to survive. The result? He becomes a good guy who has nonetheless managed to successfully make Balalaika and Sister Yolanda back down. He's a serious candidate for magnificent bastard, should he become even more embittered.
  • Heel Realization: Not quite, but the events in Tokyo forced him to realize what kind of life he's chosen.
    • Fabiola gives him another, more serious one of these by shooting him in the gut with a blank and calling him out.
  • 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.
  • Improvised Weapon: Although not usually a physical fighter, he did defend himself from a chainsaw-wielding goth girl using a metal shelf the one time, and then there's the above example where he trips Chaka up using spilled cleaning fluid and knocks the obnoxious prick 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?.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: 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."
  • The Messiah: Rock is about the closest thing the Black Lagoon universe has to The Messiah, but given the Crapsack World that he lives in, anything heroic or idealistic that he tries to do tends to go badly for him.
    • As El Baile de la Muerte shows, he CAN save lives, but it almost seemed like the world only let him get away with it because he acted like a prick to do it.
  • Morality Chain: To Revy. Starts more as a Morality Pet but, as their relationship thickens, he becomes this. Especially when 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.
    • To the point that when he goes Laughing Mad, gloating to himself over how Chang was wrong about the Gray Fox situation being unsalvagable, she seems to be given pause.
  • Never Gets Drunk
  • No Guy Wants an Amazon: Sure!
  • Naive Newcomer: Initially.
  • Non-Action Guy: Most of the time, anyway.
  • Papa Wolf: He really doesn't like children being mistreated/put in danger, as seen with Garcia, Gretel, and Yukio. Notably, when Yukio was abducted, he mounted a rescue, and seeing what her captors had done brought out his foulest language and drove him to actually assault the ringleader. And later, he risks his life by trying to persuade Balalaika to spare her.
  • 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 bowling pin) Fuck you!"
    • During the climax of episode 2: "YOU GOT FUCKED!" Along with Flipping the Bird.
  • Protagonist Journey to Villain
  • Psychotic Smirk: Has been using 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.
  • Stranger in a Familiar Land: In the Yakuza arc.
  • Sympathy for the Devil: For Hansel, and especially Gretel.
  • Tall, Dark and Handsome
  • Talking the Monster to Death: Does this several times, most notably with Balalaika at the end of the final arc.
    • Though she made it clear that she was still calling the shots.
  • Technical 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. He's still very dangerous in his own right, as he comes up with plans that almost always succeed at the cost of racking up huge body counts. After all, he's the one who came up with the idea to attach several blocks of Semtex to a speargun, fire it at a container ship blocking their way, and then detonate the explosives to both disable the ship and throw off their pursuers as well.
  • Token Good Teammate: Of the Lagoon Company.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Goes from a meek white collar to a badass Chessmaster as the series continues.
  • 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.
  • Villain Protagonist
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: At least initially.
  • Will They or Won't They?: He and Revy.
    • Unless they already did. Eda thinks this may have happened while they were in Japan.
  • Xanatos Gambit: formed one to stop Roberta's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.


Revy

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

A nihilistic Chinese-American gunwoman and the Lagoon Company's primary muscle. Known as "Two Hand," 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.

  • Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: Subverted. She does hit and abuse Rock, even almost shoots him at one point, 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.
  • All Amazons Want Hercules: Averted; this particular Amazon prefers Odysseus.
  • Chinese American Girl
  • Anti-Hero: Type V
  • Ax Crazy: 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."
  • Badass: She's the poster girl woman and one of the two primary characters for a series full of 'em.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Her default attire.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Rock
  • Berserk Button: Revy has a Hair-Trigger Temper and gets pissed off at pretty much everything but later on, she develops one of these about Rock. Do NOT mess with him around her if you value your life.
  • Boobs of Steel
  • Blood Knight
  • Break the Cutie: You just know that Revy went through something like this during her childhood.
  • Broken Bird
  • Brooklyn Rage
  • Brown Eyes
  • Byronic Hero
  • Character Development: Or "watching a monster-like Dark Action Girl learning to care by spending time with a decent human being".
  • Charles Atlas Superpower
  • Celibate Villain Protagonist: Despite being Ms. Fanservice, so far, she hasn't been shown to have any sex life to speak of. At one point Eda lampshades this by teasing her about it, "When it comes to you and men..." Makes more sense once we find out in the OVA that she was raped by a police officer when she was a teenager. Of course, another more present reason is her growing relationship with Rock. Him aside, the only other men she shows any real interest in are all for non-sexual/non-romantic reasons; usually ones whom she hopes to fight aside/kill with, or ones whom she hopes to fight/kill.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl/Green-Eyed Monster: Although she'd more than likely 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 at the time when Jane taunted her about thinking of ringing 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... why she was so good with that they could never go back to anyone else.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Revy is the primary contributor to the high volume of F-bombs dropped in the series proper.
  • Cute and Psycho: At her most Ax Crazy, she has some shades of this.
  • The Cynic
  • Dark Action Girl: To the extreme. 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.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Apparently killed her first man while underage, and was raped by a corrupt cop once. 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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."


Benny

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

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

  • Affably Evil: Though definitely less evil than most in the series.
  • Anti-Villain
  • Badass Creed: "Fuck the Nazis" is a family motto, apparently.
    • He is Jewish, after all, even though there is probably not much Kosher left in him seeing his line of work.
    • He could be of the Reform sect.
  • Badass Long Hair
  • Blond Guys Are Evil <-> Hair of Gold: Swings between the two. He is a pirate and has no moral compunctions about it but he is among the least actively malevolent of the lot, seeing that even his girlfriend is more active than him in that matter.
  • 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.

"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."


Dutch

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

A laconic African-American swiftboat veteran; the leader of the Lagoon Company and the captain of the Black Lagoon.


And of course for all four, Smoking Is Cool.


Hotel Moscow

Balalaika

Voiced by: Mami Koyama (JP), Patricia Drake (EN)

A former Soviet VDV special forces commander turned mafia queen; member (along with Mr. Chang and two others) of the four-person commission that regulates crime in Roanapur. Her real name is Sofiya Irininskaya Pavlovena.

  • Affably Evil
  • All Women Are Lustful: Averted hard.
  • A Mother To Her Men
  • Asexuality: Even though she can get flirtatious with guys like Rock or, more seriously, Mr. Chang, she finds sex boring and uninteresting, and has no real sex life to speak of. There's also her completely bored-to-death look when she edits porn videos.[1]
  • Authority Equals Asskicking
  • Badass
  • The Baroness: Do NOT get on her bad side if you value your life. Trust us on this one.
  • Beauty Mark
  • Berserk Button: One of the surest ways to get on Balalaika's bad side is to torture or kill any of her men.
  • Blondes Are Evil
  • Blood Knight: According to Revy she'd rather give up sex than pass up a chance to wage war.
    • In the light novel, she welcomed an old subordinate who'd found himself on the opposite side refusing the olive branch because it meant that he, like herself, meant to continue fighting to the bitter end.
  • Blue Eyes
  • Break the Cutie: In the anime, we see her as an innocent young girl who wanted to join the Olympic sniping team. Until the Afghan War happened and she got completely trashed.
  • Broken Bird
  • The Chessmaster
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Fujiama Gangsta Paradise. Full stop. The head of Washimine clan attempted to do this at first because Balalaika was obviously going overboard, providing a very undesirable sort of help.
  • Cool Big Sis: To Revy, anyway, who even refers to her as "Anego" which means "Sister". Though Revy isn't above calling Balalaika a bitch when she pulls a gun on Rock or has her men shoot Revy and Shenhua in the arms.
  • Dark Action Girl
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Death Seeker: Balalaika confesses to Chang that her driving motivation is to "meet that one fated person in that one fated battle" and die remembering who she once was.
  • Dissonant Serenity
  • Evil Laugh / Laughing Mad: Her reaction to Rock trying to talk her down near the end of the Yakuza arc. If she ever seemed sane and reasonable before, here you find out the opposite...
  • Eviler Than Thou: Her confrontation with Hansel.
    • And later the Yakuza, especially Yukio.
    • In the light novel, she out-eviled Mr. Chang of all people, laughing in his face when he offered to take out her rebellious subordinate so she wouldn't have to kill one of her own.
  • Femme Fatalons
  • Former Regime Personnel
  • Good Looking Kapitan
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Balalaika has a large part of one side of her face scarred, a result of the war. She's sometimes called "Fry Face" because of it.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Mami Koyama aka Kei aka Ophicus Shaina aka Esmeraude aka Princess Kycilia Zabi aka Captain Talia Gladys aka Arale Norimaki aka Lunch.
  • Hot Chick in a Badass Suit
  • Lady of War
  • Lzherusskie: the name "Sofiya Irininskaya Pavlovena" is a typical case of klukva. The order of names is totally wrong (should be "Sofiya Pavlovna Irininskaya"), and the last name sounds really fake to this Russian troper.
  • The Mafiya: Unlike most other women pertaining to a Mafia-like organization, she's in charge instead of being just a regular Mafia Princess. As said above, if anything, she's more of a Mafia Queen. She's too experienced and too powerful to be a "princess".
  • Mama Bear: You hurt her subordinates, you will be dead soon. And. VERY. Messily. Hansel and Gretel didn't pay attention to this, so...
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: A balalaika is a type of stringed instrument, but it's also Russian military slang for a Dragunov sniper rifle (which Balalaika used during the Soviet-Afghan War).
  • Nietzsche Wannabe
  • Pet the Dog: Many, mostly concerning her relation with both her henchmen and Lagoon Company.
    • Particularly, the smile she gives to Rock at the end of the Yakuza arc, which is one of the few times she gives an actual, honest smile instead of Technically a Smile.
    • The revelation of why she was discharged, mainly, due to an international incident when she was photographed by media somewhere her unit shouldn't have officially been, is a pet the dog moment for her since the reason she got photographed was because she went out of her way to save a child.
  • Power Hair: Subverted. She is powerful, Badass, feared and a decent strategist but she has the long, flowing, slightly wavy tresses usually worn by weak and fragile Distressed Damsels.
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liners: Nice commie ones like "Comrades, raise your fists!" or "Cock your hammers!"
  • Psychotic Smirk
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Mr. Chang's Blue.
  • Scars Are Forever: Justified, given their severity.
  • Shut UP, Hannibal: Done to Hansel, with a sniper rifle.
  • Slasher Smile: When she's enjoying herself
  • Smoking Is Cool: Usually has a nice big cigar on hand. Also smokes Parliaments from time to time.
  • The Stoic: Keeps her cool even as Hansel tells her how one of her men died an agonizing death, screaming out to her.
  • The Strategist: She's the brains of her personal army.
  • Technically a Smile: (Provides the page picture). If Balalaika ever smiles at you, it's recommended that you make sure your last will and testament is up to date.
  • Tranquil Fury: Even when she's in the depths of teeth-gnashing, blood-boiling rage, Balalaika tends to speak like a patient mother scolding her children. She raises her voice in anger exactly twice. Both times are among the tensest points in the series.
  • Ubermensch
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: This is Balalaika at age 9.
  • Villain Protagonist
  • Warrior Poet
  • Would Hurt a Child: Zig-zagged. Like Mr. Chang, under certain circumstances she no compunctions about hurting children physically and very violently. Even though she did not do it directly, Hansel and Gretel got no special treatment for being children, and the fact that they killed some of her men no doubt helped, and it's heavily implied that she would have done it herself if given a chance. And in the anime, a flashback to the Afghan War shows her shifting her sniper fire away from a child running towards its mother, but presumably she'd have no qualms about killing a Child Soldier, and does mention that her men had to fight some in Afghanistan.
  • Why We're Bummed Communism Fell


Boris

Voiced by: Taiten Kusunoki (JP), Mark Acheson (EN)

Balalaika's former platoon sergeant during the Soviet-Afghan war, Boris is utterly loyal and devoted to her and is almost always at his Kapitan's side.

  • Bishounen: According to one of the omakes, he used to be an incredibly scrawny, girlish-looking boy (the Shout-Out to Rose of Versailles was very obvious), so to fix this, he joined the Army and took 20 levels in badass.
    • Even more hilarious is that everyone, even Balalaika, told him he was an idiot for doing such a thing.
  • The Dragon: We can safely assume he is this to Balalaika, despite not having seen him do much so far.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Admits to Balalaika that taking out Hansel's leg and hand with a sniper rifle and letting him slowly bleed to death gave him the chills. Though he may have been talking about how he was letting one of the only people to kill a member of the Vysotniki in-series within twenty feet of her.
  • Former Regime Personnel
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: The large scar across his face is his most distinguishing feature.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Mark Acheson AKA Unicron.
  • Mauve Shirt
  • Sergeant Rock: The fact that she addresses him as "sergeant" rather than by name suggests that he's her former platoon sergeant.
  • The Stoic: Very much so.
  • The Mafiya


Meshov

Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (JP), Richard Newman (EN)

Member of the Vysotniki

  • Friendly Target: Pretty much the reason he was introduced. Although his death doesn't seem like it was intended to make the audience sad, just horrified.
  • Human Pincushion: Remember that mention of horrifying? The other reason he was introduced was part of being a demonstration on how insane Hansel and Gretel are.


Sakharov

He is a corporal and member of the Vysotniki.

  • Friendly Target: Pretty much the reason he was introduced. Seriously, he didn't even survive the episode he was introduced in. Although his death doesn't seem like it was intended to make the audience sad.


Kan Yi Fan Triad

Mr. Chang

Voiced by: Toshiyuki Morikawa (JP), Trevor Devall (EN)

A former police officer with the Royal Hong Kong Police turned Triad leader; currently engaged in an friendly competition with Balalaika over control of the Roanapur underworld.

  • Affably Evil: Starts out as this, but reveals himself as Faux Affably Evil later on.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking
  • Badass: Revy calls him "sir" which should instantly tell you he's the most baddest guy in a town full of them. (It's obvious that Revy wants to be a cool, rich and powerful Triad boss just like Chang when she grows up.)
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Apathetically and matter-of-factually talks about his absolute lack of compassion for the sexually-abused Ax Crazy children Hansel and Gretel because he is a black-hearted cynical scumbag and is completely comfortable with that fact, not to mention that they killed some of his men. This is the defining difference from the kind-and-honorable Papa Wolf gangsters played by Chow Yun-Fat that he is based upon.
  • The Chessmaster: The one who commissioned Rock to see through to ending Roberta's rampage.
  • Comic Book Fantasy Casting: Chang looks suspiciously like Chow Yun-Fat.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Evil Laugh: Gives one after Rock calls him out for what he is.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Without his glasses, he is very handsome.
  • Guns Akimbo: So does this (See Cool Shades). Unlike Chow Yun-Fat's characters, Chang's Weapons Of Choice are two Beretta 76s. He also uses a pair of AMT Hardballer Longslides borrowed from his subordinates.
  • Identical Stranger: The light novel mentions offhand that when he visited Beijing, he was mistaken for a celebrity. Wonder who that could have been?
  • Nerves of Steel: Normally cheerful and emotive, this guy is also capable of being completely calm during a massive shootout. The only time he lost his cool was when Eda told him he was an insect compared to the might of the United States.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: The already mentioned Chow Yun-Fat.
  • Only Sane Man: Generally acts as a voice of reason towards the other local crimelords, particularly Balalaika.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Balalaika's Red.
  • Slasher Smile: Rarely done, but has one or two of these on occasion, usually accompanied by a cigarette between his teeth.
  • Tall, Dark and Snarky
  • The Triads and the Tongs: Mr. Chang is a Pak Tsz Sin (a high ranking officer) of the Kan Yi Fan, a fictional Triad based in Hong Kong.


Shenhua

Voiced by: Yuko Sasaki (JP), Saffron Henderson (EN)

A Taiwanese assassin in the employ of Mr. Chang. She prefers to use various edged weapons in close combat, in particular a pair of kukri knives linked together with a length of leather rope at the handles, thus using them as modified rope darts. She is also skilled in the use of throwing knives.

"My English not good because I am pure Taiwanese. Maybe you like me to skin your ass, bitch?"


Ripoff Church / Church of Violence

Eda

Voiced by: Jun Karasawa (JP), Lisa Ann Beley (EN)

An easy-going, sunglasses-wearing nun with the so-called Church Of Violence. Revy's confidante and only friend. Also an undercover agent for the CIA.

  • Badass
  • Berserk Button: Anyone who puts a bullet in the church had better damn well be prepared to go to war. She doesn't appreciate apprentice priest Rico calling her "sis," either.

"That's SISTER to you, jackass!"


Ricardo aka Rico.

Voiced by: Tetsuya Kakihara (JP), Simon Hill (EN)

Eda's assistant and a newcomer in the Church Of Violence, who makes his debut in the "Greenback Jane" arc.


Sister Yolanda

Voiced by: Akiko Takeguchi (JP), Shirley Millner (EN)

Leader of the Church of Violence. Very likely has a background in intelligence herself, as she is fully aware of Eda's status, and acts as an informant/confidante to her.

The Lovelace Household

Roberta

Voiced by: Michie Tomizawa (JP), Tabitha St. Germain (EN)

A maid who worked for four years at the Lovelace household in Venezuela. Although her domestic skills such as cleaning and cooking were somewhat lacking, she developed a close friendship with the young son of the Lovelace family, Garcia. Roberta was once known as Rosarita Cisneros, a former FARC guerrilla trained as an assassin in Cuba and an internationally wanted criminal. She was taken in by the Lovelaces to clear a debt of honor between Roberta's father and the head of the family, who then became her master.


Garcia Fernando Lovelace

Voiced by: Kazue Ikura (JP), Cathy Weseluck (EN)

The young son of Roberta's master Diego, heir to the Lovelace family. When he's kidnapped and later the Lagoon company gets the work of "transporting" him, Roberta goes against our "heroes" to get her Morality Pet back. And that's just the beginning...


Diego Jose San Fernando Lovelace

Garcia's father, Roberta's boss and leader of the Lovelace family. Whose tragic death kicks off the El Baile de la Muerte arc.


Fabiola Iglesias

Voiced by: Satsuki Yukino (JP)

Another maid in the Lovelace household, and the only one who's trained in hand-to-hand combat and weaponry like her. After Roberta leaves in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, she becomes Garcia's caretaker.

  • Awesomeness By Analysis: She learned Capoeira from watching people practice. No formal training involved.
  • Badass Adorable: Basically Roberta Lite.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Late in El Baile de la Muerte, she ditches her maid outfit for bike shorts, a sports bra, and an unzipped hoodie. Averted in the Roberta's Blood Trail OVA when the hoodie remained zipped.
  • Celibate Heroine

"There is no need for you to be concerned about my breasts. Even if they grew as big as melons I have no intention of anybody fondling them."


The Washimine Clan

Ginji Matsuzaki

Voiced by: Kiyoyuki Yanada (JP), Michael Adamtwaite (EN)

Legendary enforcer for the Washimine clan and protector of Yukio Washimine, his skill with a sword is equal to Revy's gunfighting ability.


Yukio Washimine

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (JP), Lalainia Lindbjerg (EN)

A high school girl and heir to the Washimine Clan, who takes over leadership of the group when it's at war with Balalaika and the old one, Tsugio Bandou, loses his life.

  • Anti-Villain: One of the few honorable and ethical people in the series. Just happens to be antagonistic to the viewpoint characters. And chooses to become a Yakuza boss when Balalaika kills the previous one, since she's next in line.
  • Big Bad Wannabe: The underworld has a really steep learning curve and Balalaika had a few decades of experience on her.
  • Batman Gambit: Just one against Hotel Moscow.
  • Better to Die Than Be Killed: She chose to die by her own hand rather than being at the mercy of rival clans or Hotel Moscow, to preserve her honor, or to be with Ginji.
  • Break the Cutie
  • Broken Bird
  • Brown Eyes
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Rock rescues Yukio from capture, humiliation and imminent rape, then begs her to leave the underworld. She thanks him politely and then unleashs a brutal Hannibal Lecture deconstructing his own motives.
  • Doomed Moral Victor: Pretty much. She lives her life without compromising her principles, which is why she turns to evil despite Rock's advice.
  • Good Counterpart: To Rock, he thinks.
  • Go Out with a Smile (in the manga, she's smiling sadly at Rock and Revy as she pierces her throat with Ginjis' katana and neck and falls on his lifeless body.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: In the anime, we don't see her actually pierce her throat with Ginji's katana, and instead just hear the sound, which might actually be worse. Subverted in the manga.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Completely deconstructs Rock when he tries to convince her that the path she has chosen is wrong.
    • He is later able to, politely, tell her to shut up, stating that his path is not only a perfectly valid way to live, but also one that allows him to see that she is simply not cut out for the life of a gangster.
  • Hime Cut
  • Honor Before Reason: The entire reason she took over her Family was because she felt obligated to her subordinates, despite the fact that none of them wanted her to sacrifice her normal life for them and that there was absolutely no chance of victory. Arguably, her refusal to leave Balalaika's forces alone is something of a subversion, on the grounds that she made that decision on the very reasonable grounds that she had no reason to trust Balalaika to keep her word after having broken it to wage war on her Family in the first place.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Willingly takes leadership of a Yakuza gang, and laughs at Rock's suggestion that she leave the underworld. It doesn't end well for her.
  • Improbable Age: Horribly deconstructed. A teenager has no business trying to fight Balalaika and her ex-special forces henchmen, even with the help of Ginji and the rest of the Washimine Clan. And made even worse by the intervention of Chaka and his group.
  • Meganekko
  • Nietzsche Wannabe: Not Nietzsche specifically, but Yukio is well read on philosophy, genuinely tries to apply it to her life decisions and has a fatalistic worldview.
  • Out-Gambitted: At almost every turn. Her trick with the van worked nicely, but as for the rest...
  • The Philosopher
  • Samurai: She commits suicide in the traditional manner of a Japanese noblewoman.
  • See You in Hell: The message that she asks Rock to relay to Balalaika before commiting suicide in the manga.
  • Too Clever by Half: Her relentless philosophizing is just a front for her uncertainty and desire to be with Ginji, but it lets her delude herself for long enough for her whole life to wind up in ruin.
  • Warrior Poet
  • The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask
  • Yakuza Princess
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: Thoroughly deconstructed, as the "young Samurai girl who takes up the family business" ends up in Hell because of that.
  • You Are in Command Now: Becomes head of the Washimine clan after the leader kicks it. She did well with what she had at hand, being able to figure out what was going on a lot faster than her more experienced subordinates, and she made a decent showing against the head of the rival Family. But even her skills at leading couldn't compensate for the fact that she started off with a very small gang (a portion of whom were Ax Crazy traitors) who had been targeted for annihilation by both a much larger gang headed by freakin' Balalalaika. Really, the only factor she had in her favor was the Revy-level Badass enforcer/love interest Ginji, and that's not even close to enough to dig her out of the pit she started in.


Chaka

Voiced by: Wataru Takagi (JP), Jonathan Holmes (EN)

One of the Washimine family's enforcers who attempted to take control of the family.

  • All Guys Want Bad Girls: Revy being dangerous and violent is a huge turn-on for him.
  • Affably Evil: Subverted. When he first appears, he seems like a dimwitted yet likeable mook who harbors an almost childlike enthusiasm for guns and shootouts. However, this facade quickly dissipates after he "snaps" and reveals himself for the murderous psychopath he truly is.
  • Bad Boss: Shoots his own for no good reason. That was the thing that made Revy pissed with him. That, and beating up Rock.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil
  • Blood Knight: He wanted to duel against Revy, cowboy style. Instead, he got to duel Ginji and that didn't end up well for him.
  • Bodyguard Betrayal
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: What Ginji does to him is ...unpleasant, but he seriously had it coming.
  • Dirty Coward
  • Dumb Blonde
  • Dumb Muscle
  • Expy: Of Kakihara from Ichi the Killer, apparently.
  • The Gunslinger: Fancies himself one. Revy outright states that he's nothing more than a barely-competent poser with serious delusions of grandeur. He doesn't take her advice.
  • Humiliation Conga: After seeing his entourage of thugs get wiped out, he makes a run for it while taking Yukio as a hostage. Rock makes him slip with spilled cleaning fluid, bashes him in the head with a bowling pin, and liberates his hostage. Then Revy drop-kicks him in the face and grinds his balls under her heel whilst delivering a Reason You Suck Speech. Then he goes one-on-one using a revolver against Yukio's protector, who can cut bullets in mid-air with a sword. Predictably, he loses badly, gets cut up, and is finally finished off by drowning. From what we've seen of him, he deserved every single thing that came to him.
  • Kick the Dog: All the Goddamn time. Beats up poor Rock savagely for cutting in on his "conversation" with Revy, hoping to provoke her into a quickdraw duel. Kidnaps Yukio, lets his buddies beat her up and strip her nearly naked, and plans to sell her into sexual slavery to "a real sicko" (and he gleefully describes in detail some of the horrible things she's going to be forced into). Criticises his guys for being "pussies" during the fight in the bowling alley, whilst making his way to the exit using Yukio as a human shield, and later shoots the last surviving gang members just because he's annoyed. He's one hell of a guy.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Uhhh... yeah!
  • Psycho for Hire: Oh yeah. An idiot, but psycho nonetheless.
  • Revolvers Are Just Better: He fancies himself a Wild West-style gunman. Revy sees this as evidence that he's a poser and a show-off.
  • Smug Snake: Very, very much so.
  • The Starscream: If Starscream had been a psychopath. Attempted to become the boss of the family by beating up Yukio and then wanted to rape her and sell her out to the Russians. Rock and Ginji were rather demonstrative in response.
  • Stupid Evil: He acts needlessly sadistic towards Rock, Yukio and his subordinates, and he winds up paying dearly for this later on.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Seriously overestimates his abilities, as shown by his trying to take on Revy one-on-one even after seeing her and Ginji tear through his entire gang like hay reapers. She drop-kicked his sorry ass rather than waste the bullet, before letting Ginji slice him to pieces and drown him to death.
  • Would Hit a Girl: And does. As can be gleaned from the above, he's the abusive asshole version of this trope.


Tsugio Bandou

Voiced by: Tomomichi Nishimura (JP), John Novak (EN)

Yukio's immediate predecessor as the leader of the Washimine clan, and a friend of her late father Ryuzou. By the time he took charge, the clan was already in danger of being absorbed by a larger and more powerful rival. He resorts to contacting the Russian mafia for help, leading to the events of the story arc.

  • Even Evil Has Standards: For him, the final straw came when Balalaika proposed kidnapping the rival clan leader's family members.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: In the end, he is left with two equally undesirable choices: either continue cooperating with Hotel Moscow and have every other yakuza clan in Japan turn against the Washimine clan, or cut ties with their erstwhile ally and incur the wrath of the mafia.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Resorts to increasingly drastic measures in order to keep the clan going, including human trafficking.
  • Neck Snap: How Balalaika responds to him breaking their deal.
  • Number Two: What he was to Ryuzou, before the latter died.
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge: Part of him was sent back to the yakuza in a briefcase.
  • The Obi-Wan: To Yoshida
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist


Yoshida

Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (JP), Trevor Devall (EN)

Tsugio's bodyguard, and later one of Yukio's supporters in the Yakuza.


Others

Abrego

Voiced by: Hisao Egawa (JP), Eli Gabay (EN)

The leader of Roanapur's branch of the Colombian Manisarela Cartel.

  • Cluster F-Bomb (Rivals Revy in terms of swearing-to-nonswearing dialogue ratio.)
  • Defeat Means Friendship
  • No One Could Survive That: He's at ground zero of the Yellow Flag bar being grenaded by Roberta, but is seen alive (albeit beaten and bloody) in the hands of Hotel Moscow in the next episodes. He's seen later, very much alive, which is actually pretty impressive, considering this is Hotel Moscow we're talking about.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Despite being Colombian, he is named after the Mexican drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego, one of the founders of the Mexican Gulf Cartel.


Leigharch

Voiced by: Akimasa Ohmori (JP), Trevor Devall (EN)

An Irish driver who worked with Shenhua at one time. A compulsive coke fiend, he has a distressingly frequent tendency to hallucinate at inopportune times, such as in the middle of a car chase.

Shenhua: Even when his head off to Mars, he never mess up driving.

  • Bedlam House: According to Shenhua, he's currently in an asylum due to having taken so much coke that "he never came back from Mars".
  • Don't Try This At Home: Remember kids, drugs are bad, and you should certainly never take them before driving.
  • Drives Like Crazy
  • Drunken Song: Does this with cocaine, belting out a soulful rendition of The Minstrel Boy while high in the light novel.
  • Oireland
  • Non Sequitur Thud: Delivers one when Revy kicks him for getting high. And then just keeps spewing them.
    • "I forgot! We have to go to Liverpool! Jimi Hendrix is calling for me! To defeat the Klingons-ASAP! Oh Captain Picard here I come!!"
    • "Where're you ladies takin' me? Could it be? Could it? The legendary nude beach?!"
    • (When the car gets shot up) "Barbarella is holding an anti-war sign in the nude!"
    • "Playmates! There are exactly one hundred Playmates! Starting from the nineties! It's the attack of the Playmate Army!" *with accompanying hallucination, no less*
    • "What? My application for the Black Panthers was denied again?!?"
  • Perma-Stubble
  • Put on a Bus: It's implied that his liberal drug use resulted in his brain being permanently fried.
  • The Stoner: And how!


Hansel and Gretel

Voiced by: Omi Minami (JP, Hansel), Tomoko Kaneda (JP, Gretel), Ashleigh Ball (EN, Hansel), Jocelyne Loewen (EN, Gretel)

"My mother has killed me... my father is eating me... my brothers and sisters sit under the table, picking up my bones! They will bury them under the cold marble stones..."

A pair of incestuous, prepubescent porn star assassins with shared multiple personality disorders. Creepy as Hell. And just as horribly broken due to their horrendous common backstory.

Gretel: But that's a boy's job. It's not very ladylike to carry heavy things. (opens fire with her BAR rifle)


Janet "Greenback Jane" Bhai

Voiced by: Miki Nagasawa (JP), Kelly Sheridan (EN)

An Indian counterfeiter whose goal is to create perfect counterfeit money. After members of the Floridian cartel that hired her lose patience with her due to continued schedule slips and shoot one of her co-workers to death before giving her a 48-hours deadline to finish her job, she flees from the members of the cartel and eventually seeks sanctuary with the Church of Violence, unleasing a mad pursuit.


Rotton the Wizard

Voiced by: Tomokazu Sugita (JP), Samuel Vincent (EN)

A handsome, long-coated adventurer introduced during the Greenback Jane arc, he is one of the few survivors of the band of mercenaries hunting for Jane. He now lives with the other two, Shenhua and Sawyer the Cleaner.

  • Adult Child: Has watched one Power Rangers episode too many, most likely, to do all those poses in mid battle.
  • Anti-Villain
  • Badass Longcoat: Subverted, as while he looks the type, he's not all that badass.
  • Bishonen: Pretty much the only adult one in the series.
  • Cool Shades
  • Crazy Prepared: He might not be all that bright, but he has a Bulletproof Vest unlike the rest of the Carnival of Killers and metal armor for his groin, which helped save his balls when Roberta kicked them.
  • Drink Order: Milk, since he Can't Hold His Liquor.
  • The Dulcinea Effect: "There's no way I can just ignore an injured girl and let her die."
  • The Fool
  • Genre Savvy: Oddly plays this straight in regards to the fact he's smart enough to wear a bulletproof vest and codpiece most of the time. See Wrong Genre Savvy for what he gets wrong.
    • He also gains the trust of two of the most dangerous people in town. Seriously, no one screws with Shenhua or Sawyer and gets away with it.
  • Guns Akimbo: With two Broomhandle Mausers, except he didn´t get to use them onscreen yet.
  • Horrible Judge of Character: Sort of. He saves both Shenhua and Sawyer, but given the Crapsack World setting of this series, both seem pretty nice they then became semi-loyal allies instead of killing him immediately thereafter. Yes, they'll kill anyone in the price is right, but if that's the worst thing about you in Roanapur, you can't be that bad, so he may have actually been on point with this one.
  • In the Name of the Moon: Is very fond of this. Black Lagoon being the kind of show that it is, it doesn't do him much good.
  • Joke Character
  • Made of Iron: Played with. Even when he's shot, falling down from a building or being kicked in the balls (by Roberta of all people!), he just rises up again and continues on. Luckily, he's Genre Savvy enough to wear a bulletproof vest and a metal codpiece, though he got kicked so hard that the codpiece dented, and still fell from a rooftop onto solid asphalt. In general he takes far more punishment than most people could handle.
  • Nice Guy: Now that Rock no longer qualifies for this trope, he is the sole possessor of it in this franchise.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Rotton? Lotton? The North American translation says its Lotton while most of the scanlations says its Rotton...
  • Token Good Teammate: Compared to his fellow bounty hunters, who are either complete psychopaths at worst and a bunch of backstabbing cutthroats at best.
    • Also of the Power Trio he's formed with Shenhua and Sawyer.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: The prettiest, whitest haired, and nicest character in the series.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: And judging by how disconnected from the harsh realities of life he is, it's going to take a lot more to break him than it did to break Rock.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Rotton acts like he came from a more idealistic series. Even Rock has become more savvy to the way the world works than he has.


Sawyer the Cleaner

Voiced by: Asami Yaguchi (JP), Venus Terzo (EN)

A feared presence in the Roanapur underworld, who helps the various crime organizations dispose of corpses (and soon to be corpses) with her trusty chainsaw. Actually a rather pretty young goth girl.

  • Ax Crazy
  • Badass Adorable
  • Blue Eyes
  • The Butcher: It's even her legitimate career to hide her bounty hunting.
  • Chainsaw Good: So good in fact that she can use it to deflect bullets.
  • Cleanup Crew
  • Creepy Monotone: She has one of these whenever she uses her artificial voice box to communicate.
  • Cute Bruiser: A rather dark take on this trope
  • Cute Mute: A subversion; while she is cute in a goth-punk sort of way and does appear to be missing her vocal cords, she can be quite mouthy when she has her electrolarynx device. Without it, not so much.
  • Dissonant Serenity: She's quite cheerful; at one point when she's explaining that the bad odor in a hotel room results from the ooze from rotted corpses she had to clean up there earlier she smiles happily while all around her, people are losing their lunch, and may in fact be giggling because the others are losing their lunch.
  • Earn Your Title: Sawyer "The Cleaner", she cleans up messes, specializing in body disposal, alive or dead doesn't matter to her.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: Her fellow mercenaries have this reaction during the Greenback Jane arc, as most of them have never seen her in person, and those who have, only saw her swathed in surgical dress which obscured her features.
  • Girl with Psycho Weapon
  • Goth
  • Implausible Fencing Powers: Blocks bullets... with a chainsaw.
  • Last-Name Basis: Everyone refers to her by her last name Sawyer, her real name is Frederica Sawyer.
  • Meaningful Name: Sawyer - Saw-er, one who saws. Not to mention the Shout-Out below.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: She loves playing violent video games and discussing the clean-up jobs she does.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: It appears that nobody knows her first name, only Sawyer the Cleaner. Revy also calls her by the nickname Goth Girl
  • Only in It For the Money: Subverted, She enjoys the money, but she does enjoy the work too.
  • Psycho for Hire: She really loves both her jobs; her job disposing of bodies after torturing that person, and her job as a bounty hunter.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Several characters react this way In-Universe when they discover that she's female, since most people deal with her when she's covered head to toe in scrubs that obscure her face.
  • Shout-Out: Her name and weapon of choice are one to the family in the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise.
  • Villainous BSOD: Whenever she loses her communication device, an Ultravoice. She later upgrades to a choker-mounted version to prevent such incidents.
    • Heroic BSOD: She's seen shaking in terror after the team confronts a crazed Roberta.


Claude "Torch" Weaver

Voiced by: Youichi Nishijima (JP), Jason Simpson (EN)

One of the Carnival of Killers hired to hunt down Jane in the Greenback Jane arc.


Guy Russel

Voiced by: Masaki Terasoma (JP), Brian Dobson (EN)

A cowboy themed Bounty Hunter who leads the group hired to go after Jane.


Verrocchio

Voiced by: Banjo Ginga (JP), Scott McNeil (EN)

Head of an Italian mafia operating in Roanapur. He hired Hansel and Gretel to assassinate Balalaika and Chang so that he could take control over Roanapur's underworld, but quickly found that the Creepy Twins didn't enjoy being told to kill.


Maki

Voiced by: Shiho Kawaragi (JP), Ashleigh Ball (EN)

Maki is a high-school junior who goes to the same school as Yukio. She's very much your average Japanese high school girl and looks up to Yukio as a sempai.

  1. ↑ although anyone who edits for a living can tell ya that after the first 30 minutes even porn gets boring when you're editing them
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