Deceptively plain.

One look at the box art for this DVD and you might think, “What’s so great about this?” Yeah, there’s a pin-up of Rock supporting a wounded Revy on the cover, and even the screenshots on the back aren’t much indication of the action found in the series. The DVD menu is even extremely simple, with only a faded background of bullets and the series logo. There’s no sound save for gunshots when you go from menu to menu. All this vagueness in the packaging belies the heavy action-oriented anime presented beyond. The animation quality is solid—on par with that of TV shows like Ghost in the Shell. The English voice cast is on par with the original Japanese in terms of quality, however, nitpickers will notice that the Russian mafia members seems to only have accents at random intervals. Other than that, it’s a pretty solid dubbing.

An empty clip.

There’s not a whole lot one can say about this volume of Black Lagoon in terms of extras. As per the standard, Geneon gives you three cinematic trailers of available DVD titles for Appleseed, Fafner, and Samurai Champloo. But there’s nothing else to see in this portion of the DVD, so after five minutes of checking out the trailers, you’re free to move on.

The spent shells on the ground.

Overall, Black Lagoon is a series that doesn’t disappoint as long you go in with no illusions about it—it’s the quintessential action series. Expect lots of gunfights, explosions, blood, and foul language and an intriguing plot as you’re taken through the seedy Asian underworld of mobsters and killers. Rather than being an adaptation of the manga Second Barrage is a continuation of the comic’s storyline, and it’s every bit as thrilling to watch as the original. This series will appeal heavily to action lovers and fans of mafia stories. However, it should be made note that Black Lagoon is definitely not appropriate for younger age brackets and its seedy storylines might not appeal to general audiences. But for what it is, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage is at the top of the pile for its genre.