So it turns out that manga can actually be really good. You just have to get out of the realm of shounen and you can get plots that aren't canned and terrible and women that aren't useless. and fights that aren't and endless series of transformations.

Recently, Polaris introduced me to a manga called Black Lagoon. And goddamn, it's pretty fucking great.

At the start, it's about a Japaneses business man that ends up joining a mercenary company, but it quickly turns into a story about The Russian and Chinese mafia, the Yakuza, counterfeiters, maids that curtsy grenades, nuns with guns, neo-Nazis and a whole bunch of crazy shit.

But if that's not enough (which I can't imagine why it wouldn't be), you should seriously just read it for Revy.

This isn't a manga for the faint hearted though. It's extremely and graphically violent, hyper-profane and there is a fair bit of (female) nudity. A lot of messed up up stuff happens to, with the Bloodsport Fairy Tale arc standing out as particularly perverse in the truest sense of that word.

The action moves at a good clip, the plots are excellent, the dialogue is spot on and peppered with random and sometimes obscure references ala-Tarantion, and the characters (except Fabiola) are superb. It's a great piece of work and you should definitely give it a look.

Seriously, read it for Revy.

Oh man, I love this series. All its content, themes and characters are awesome. I look forward to each new volume that comes out. I also love the anime and OVAs.

The third Season of the anime is starting to come out now. Looks like it's going to be dedicated to the El Baile De La Muerte arc. I'm not really a huge fan of that arc, but I am interested to see what Madhouse does with it. This is a rare instance where I generally think what gets added to the anime is well done and interesting.

I'm actually going to wait for the dub though. I just recently finished watching the dub and I'm all on board. It's actually shockingly good. The thing that stands out to me is there are only a handful of instances of unfortunate translation.

I told you that the dub was awesome! It's oneof those rare instances where they got it so very right, and is better than the original Japanese version.

The only bit I felt they messed up was when Revy was in Japan and playing with those kids. They shouldn't have dubbed over the kids since Revy can't understand what they're saying. I think the scene lost a lot of it's impact and humour there.

Yeah, the "Give" scene in the Bowling Alley didn't play as well in the dub as in the sub (Revy's VA switches to phonetic English) or the manga either. Also, they made Shenhua and atheist, which took some of the fun out of that scene between her and Eda.

I'm really curious to see what they do with Roberta's arc. Even though it's over twice as long as Fujiyama Ganster Paradise, it's a episode shorter (granted, the last episode of FGP completely changed the ending in a way I wasn't entirely sure of). I also hear there's been a bit of an outcry from Roberta fans over the way the ending got changed. I'm particularly fond of her or the arc, so I'm mostly just curious.

Also; when the fuck is the manga going to update?