Black Lagoon - Production

Production

In an interview with Otaku USA, Rei Hiroe stated that Black Lagoon was inspired by James Ellroy, John Woo, Quentin Tarantino and Stephen King, as well as hearing about actual piracy cases in the East China Sea in the 1990s.

Black Lagoon includes a considerable amount of graphic violence, often involving violent gun fights and spectacular physical feats in battle. Many of the characters who are most skilled with weapons (mainly guns) are women, thereby bearing a similarity with "girls-with-guns" genre with the six strongest women in the series adhering to some type of stereotype (dragon lady, referring to Revy, maids, referring to Roberta and Fabiola, nuns, referring to Eda, etc.). Some of the scenes and dialogue are within the realm of dark comedy, as humorous moments occur or are mentioned during and after many violent battles.

The character concept, gritty atmosphere and violence blending with black comedy depicted in Black Lagoon pays a homage to the films by Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers. The Yellow Flag bar and Mexican standoff scenes in the series pays a tribute to spaghetti westerns; Tarantino is known for making references to spaghetti westerns in his films. It also make references to Tarantino's favorite films, such as The Wild Bunch poster (titled The Wild Punch) seen in Revy's bedroom in episode 11 of the anime and Revy mentioning My Bloody Valentine in episode 24.

The "Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise" arc showed that most of the characters throughout the series actually speak English, with the Japanese simply being done for the audience. While the English voice acting in the anime is heavy in Japanese pronunciation, nearly all occurrences of English lines in the manga are accurate. However, the instances of Cyrillic script tend to be less so.