★★★½
“Black to basics.”
Thanks to Dieter for pointing me in the direction of this series, whose 24 episodes feel like a bit of a throwback to the days when watching anime felt hard-edged and dangerous, almost a subversive act. Mind you, this actually came out in 2006, so I guess it’s actually something of a throwback, full stop. [Random aside of no relevance to anything much: startled to realize today it’s more than eight years since Salt came out. Would have sworn it was only about three, tops] It’s hyper-violent, clearly for mature viewers only, and its multiple action heroines possess generally poor attitudes. Clearly up my street!
It takes place in what I’m going to assume is a somewhat alternate reality, where the Thai city of Roanapur has become a modern-day equivalent to Tortuga, the 17th-century pirate haven in the Caribbean. It’s a free-fire zone where organized crime operates with impunity, including Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Colombian and Italian groups, along with all the necessary “support services,” from gun-runners to brothels. Lagoon Company are one such, mostly specializing in smuggling goods, people or whatever needs to be moved quietly around. Into this setting falls the unfortunate Rock (Namikawa), a Japanese salaryman on business, whose ship is boarded by Lagoon, and he is taken hostage. After his company abandons him, to conceal the shady business they were doing, he joins Lagoon as an accountant-interpreter-negotiator-factotum. He’s in for a culture shock.
Leading the parade of counter-heroines is the Chinese-American Revy (Toyoguchi), who is Lagoon’s main enforcer, and loves her job, which she carries out enthusiastically, with the slightest provocation. She’s a fascinating character: Revy has absolutely no scruples about blowing away anybody who gets in her way, and in “normal” society would be far beyond the pale. However, in Roanapur, she’s just one among a myriad of similar types – there, scruples are likely to get you killed – and her unswerving loyalty to the rest of Lagoon, and Rock in particular, are a redeeming quality. She prefers to wield, with extreme prejudice and skill, a pair of modified Beretta 92FS’s, and Revy’s ambidextrous skill has earned her the nickname “Two Hand” around town.
If she were the only candidate, this might end up being a bit of a borderline entry, but over the 24 episodes in the two series (there’s another five-episode arc I haven’t seen, Roberta’s Blood Trail, which came out in 2010), Revy is joined by a number of other, morally ambiguous women, all of whom are more than comfortable with firearms:
- “Balalaika” – the pseudonymous head of Hotel Moscow, the Russian crime group under whom Lagoon frequently operate. She’s a veteran of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which left her with serious burns. She got her name from the sniper rifle which was her weapon of choice, and often calls upon her ex-Army colleagues when reinforcements are needed.
- Eda – a drinking buddy of Revy, she’s a nun in the Church of Violence a.k.a. the Rip-off Church. They are perhaps the premier gun-running outfit in Roanapur, who count Lagoon among their customers, and you interfere with the Church or its leader Yolanda, at your own peril.
- Roberta – the maid of the Lovelace family, one of the leading South American cartels. When its scion, Garcia, is kidnapped, Roberta goes on the hunt. Turns out she’s actually a former FARC guerrilla, who had been trained as an assassin in Cuba, and proves capable of fighting Revy to a time-limit draw.
- Gretel – one of two Romanian orphans, who may be the most screwed-up characters in the whole show, due to their background in child porn and worse. [‘Snuff said, shall we say…] While life is generally cheap in this series, she and her brother Gretel take sadistic and visceral pleasure in torturing their victims, extreme even for this show.
- Yukio Washimine – daughter of a yakuza boss. She takes over the group after the incumbent is killed by Balalaika, despite Rock’s efforts to prevent this.
There are all, in their own way, interesting (if largely damaged, in some cases severely) characters, who have enough potential that they could each merit their own series. Add them to Revy, and its an impressive line-up, even if some only appear for a couple of parts. The structure of the series generally has each arc occupying two episodes, though the Washimine storyline occupies the final six. It’s a good approach, allowing for a bit more expansion than the 25-minute format usually permits. My main gripe is the near-total lack of character development over the two seasons. Revy, Dutch and just about everyone else are the same at the end of the show as at the beginning. There’s no sense they’ve learned anything from their experiences, and even Rock has simply settled into his new life with barely a ripple. The show seems more interested in their past, than their future.
It is still a lot of fun to watch – admittedly, you need to suspend your disbelief in the way gun battles work. But if, like me, you’re a fan of John Woo films like A Better Tomorrow (an obvious and admitted influence), then the remarkable invulnerability to bullets shown by Revy, etc. will not be an issue. Having cut my anime fandom teeth on the likes of Wicked City and Vampire Hunter D, this plays like the organized crime equivalent, and provides an enjoyable blast from the past.
Dir: Sunao Katabuchi
Star (voice): Megumi Toyoguchi, Daisuke Namikawa, Tsutomu Isobe, Mami Koyama
