Black Lagoon 001 Manga
To get the rundown on the story, head over to the review I did of the Black Lagoon anime. The basics are pretty much the same. Boats, guns, and lots of action.
My Opinion
Overall, I think anime is a better way to tell these stories. Since they’re mostly gunfights and explosions, which are helped by movement, anime has an edge. What I’m hoping for is a bit more insight into the characters and their back stories. That is where manga can really pull ahead of anime.
Did Black Lagoon offer these insights?
Not really. I don’t know about later volumes but the first one followed the anime pretty darn closely. Sometimes a bit too closely. As I may have mentioned, there are several fast paced shoot outs and lots of things blowing up in Black Lagoon. In a few places that can get kind of confusing when you’re trying to keep straight what’s going on. Other times, it just lacks the impact that the anime has. An explosion, complete with fiery smoking shrapnel, in the anime is reduced to a few panels of wavy lines.
So, what’s good about Black Lagoon 001? A lot actually. The characters’ personalities come across very well, and Black Lagoon is filled with cool characters.
The art, though somewhat stifling to the action portion of the stories, is very well done. There is a certain cinematic quality to the art that really helps to overcome the lack of movement a lot of the time.
Is it worth it?
Black Lagoon 001 is worth it. Even if I prefer the anime version a little better so far, I still think this is a manga worth checking out.
Manga, Reviews, Action, Adventure, Pirates, Guns, Explosions, Viz Media, Rei Hiroe
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:23 am
COOL
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