Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail

Crime never sleeps in Roanapur, and neither does Roberta—a devoted maid and skilled guerilla soldier in service to the Venezuelan Lovelace family. After the assassination of her superior by the US Secret Service, Roberta returns to the city of debauchery in search of vengeance and his killer's head.

Meanwhile, young Fernando Garcia Lovelace, the new heir to his father's estate, tails Roberta to Thailand alongside his bodyguard, Fabiola Iglesias. He enlists the help of the Lagoon Company, with the objective of deterring Roberta's warpath and bringing her back to the family. However, with the continued bloodshed and mounting tensions between Roberta, island crime factions, and the US military, it will take a significant amount of strategy—and weaponry—to stop her relentless quest for revenge.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Revy Main

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Okajima, Rokurou Main

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Roberta Main

Tomizawa, Michie Japanese

Dutch Main

Isobe, Tsutomu Japanese

Benny Main

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Iglesias, Fabiola Main

Yukino, Satsuki Japanese

Fernando Lovelace, Garcia Main

Ikura, Kazue Japanese

Balalaika Supporting

Koyama, Mami Japanese

Eda Supporting

Karasawa, Jun Japanese

Chang, Bai Ji-Shin Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Ogura, Mitsutoshi Producer

Okamoto, Junya Producer

Katabuchi, Sunao Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Series Composition

Reviews

Aug 24, 2023

Bensonas

Recommended

God damn I forgot how badass Black Lagoon is. The first two seasons were thoroughly enjoyable, and Roberta's Blood Trail doesn't disappoint.

First of all let's talk about the music. It is excellent. Properly scene accompanying music, in particular, the solo drums that pounds through the action sequences that are as perfect as ever. The music throughout is well balanced against the action, doesn't over stay it's welcome and doesn't invade the moment. Even the intro and outro music is good. We all know this is a rarity.

The animation is great. It's grimey, it's dirty and continues to convey the darkness that surrounds ... the script of this show perfectly. I also feel it's a little gorier than the first 2 seasons which was very welcomed. This miniseries didn't pull any punches when it comes to action. It has great gun play, great hand to hand and great choreography. The animation is spot on, maybe even a little better than the first two.

The only place where it falter slightly is the story. Don't get me wrong, Roberta IS AN ABSOLUTE BADASS, and on that point, I'm not sure there is a show that portray women as absolute basses as well as this show does. The issue is that the actually story and its associated revenge, is a little weak. Despite it being a little weak, Black Lagoon does it's thing and still makes it a very enjoyable watch. This is a first for me as well, I actually thought that a 5 episode season was in fact long enough to convey everything that needed to be conveyed in this arc. Now, I'm very doubtful it will return, I'm sure there is no intention to be honest, yet it ends with nothing to have closure with or return from. It's kind of written to end with nothing. I would have preferred better closure. All in all, it does a great job and it's a great series all in all, Black Lagoon 1 and 2 are a 100% MUST watch in my opinion. This is more of a SHOULD watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 28, 2023

ThatAnimeSnobRE

Mixed Feelings

Notice: This review covers all three installments of the franchise. No reason to make different reviews about the same thing.

In a nutshell: A distillation of every bad or semi-competent Hollywood action flick cranked up to eleven, interspersed with some light philosophy, homage to other media (war films, Yakuza films) and some mature subjects like terrorism and child abuse. It got a cast like a Tarantino film, actually strong and competent female characters who don’t break down and need the male shoulder to cry on, and its tone and content is both over-the-top hilarious and at the same time features moments more mature than ten dozen ... Claymores and Narutos… That, AND boobs and guns.

Black Lagoon can be a highly entertaining anime if you go all myopic on it; meaning to watch only specific aspects of it and have a blind eye to all the rest. To put it bluntly, it is a guilty pleasure series and you are going to watch it for the violence and the profanity. One should see it as a fun ride and not a profound deep show. Here is a list of the things it does right:
- Very good production values, detailed backgrounds, exciting battle choreographies, good use of lighting effects, the BGM has its way of making your blood boil or making you feel the drama of the moment.
- Extremity in violence, character personalities, battles, profanity, death toll, explosions, smoking, drinking, usually all of the above at the same time.
- Gar fighters and butchy women. Uncommon at an era of moe girls and pitiful male protagonists.
- Hints of seriousness thrown at intervals. Despite being a guilty pleasure series aiming at entertainment and not at realism, it was constantly throwing at you info about the harsh reality and how the cruel world really works behind the scenes. That was making it seem a bit intelligent and with some substance.
- Making a parody of it all. It’s poking fun at the clichés of its own genre, thus becoming self-aware satire.
- Best “chicks with guns” anime ever made thus far.

You should not try to make sense out of it or you will hate it right away. The action scenes lack realism and a critical viewer will most likely bitch at how bullets never hit important characters while mooks die with instant headshots, or how the villains constantly freeze and stare like idiots or how useless they are at aiming at something standing half a meter away from them, or how the heroine can do some really impossible acrobatics to kill 10 men with a six-shooter.

Besides the badass attitude of the characters at shooting bullets left and right, cursing, and laughing maniacally, they also have a softer side to them. Meaning they are not just hollow FPS caricatures; they get some fleshing out by revealing their backgrounds and things which affected them and turned them to what they are today. There isn’t much character development though, outside the main duo and even then it only appears in the last part of the franchise almost for playing against the stereotype.

The story is mostly stand-alone arcs, but they don’t overstay their welcome and differ enough from each other in situations and gimmicks. Rock will be usually bitching about immorality, Revy will be shooting at everything that moves, and the discussions they will have with secondary characters during the intervals (while Revy is reloading guns, lol) provides a simple yet satisfying immersion to the story, leaving the viewer to ponder a bit about values… before Revy starts shooting again and all that matters is who remains standing up in the end of the battle. Since bullets change trajectory when they come near her and villains are complete idiots, well, there is little worry regarding if she wins or not.

A point of notice is the gradual swift from mostly action to mostly social drama. Later arcs are longer with less action and better fleshed out situations and adversaries. It’s as if the creators of the show got bored with animating elaborate action scenes and went for characters that got fed up with their line of work. The badasses wanted to be pitied, while Rock had no more tears to shed and suddenly turned to a Machiavellian anti-hero. This reversing of personalities didn’t sit well with most, since nobody expected or wanted characters to develop in this sort of show.

But anyways, if you manage to be half blind to the farfetched situations and don’t mind the emo-ness that slowly crawls in along the way, it is a great action show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 5, 2022

SmoothlyF

Not Recommended

"Spoiler" alert including allusions to sexually graphic content

What a hugely disappointing finale to what was a very enjoyable series on a generally downward trajectory throughout the second series.

The story does little of note, spinning its wheels in a desperate attempt to build some kind of intrigue but fails to do that through janky pacing and character arcs that in no way dovetail into anything with a working structure.

The art and sound are the strongest points of "Roberta's Blood Trail" in large part because they are mostly in keeping with what came before: crisp, often dark and brooding but not overbearingly so, interspersed with colourful wide-angle ... shots that contrast the often hectic and sometimes claustrophobic darker scenes; generally well delivered.

As others have stated this OVA totally mangles numerous characters culminating in IMO the laziest of them all: *Spoiler* Revy's just a badass because she got raped; ahuh, like every half-assed "Bad-ass woman" churned out by lazy media Revy too is only motivated to do anything because a man made her do it. Give me a mater-loving break! I simply couldn't enjoy the ending beyond that and considered turning it off and not even seeing how it ends.

The first series was explosive, shocking and invigorating; the second seemed to lose its way as if it began running out of ideas and this... well I recommend straight giving this a miss honestly.

Though I went into the OVA still pretty high on the show and hoping there'd be more down the line I honestly wish I'd never watched this, I'm done with this series; i seriously hate that THIS is the ending of what started out as a show with so much promise.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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North American Anime & Manga Releases for June

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for June Week 1: June 4 - 10 Anime Releases Black Lagoon (incl. The Second Barrage & Roberta's Blood ...read more

Jun 3, 2019 6:11 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (6 comments)

	Poll: Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) zimno - Jun 23, 2011	221 replies	by Devonnius »» Nov 25, 1:57 PM
	Poll: Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) yakisobapan - Jun 26, 2010	176 replies	by Julyking59 »» Sep 9, 1:56 AM
	Poll: Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Banshee-IV - Mar 11, 2011	109 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Jul 15, 5:31 AM
	Poll: Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Banshee-IV - Jan 9, 2011	139 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Jul 15, 3:56 AM
	Poll: Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) zimno - Oct 1, 2010	103 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Jul 14, 6:45 AM