Revy awakens and takes on Roberta in the container yard - resulting in a Mexican standoff until Balalaika intervenes. Hotel Moscow has also defeated the Manisera cartel. Much sentimental blah blah between Garcia and Roberta. To placate Revy, Balalaika oversees a fistfight between pirate girl and meido. It results in another draw but both are finally flat on their backs. The episode ends with Rock becoming seriously worried by Balalaika and Hotel Moscow. Eighty screencaps (as usual, mostly Revy and/or Balalaika) and scene comments follow.
Insert Higurashi joke here.
Revy’s childhood memories. Her first murder? And what’s with the feathers?
Deus ex recycled footage.
As hinted at in two episodes ago when Dutch radioed in to ask for information, Balalaika mentioned that Hotel Moscow was involved with the Manisera mafia. It turns out that the “business” was a war and the Russians have brought the Colombians to heel. As a result, the Lagoon Company has been discharged of its obligation to deliver Garcia to them and Roberta no longer has to fight the Lagoon company for her young master.
The only reason why there is a screencap of Dutch and Benny here is their great lines. The latter notes that the three most dangerous women are in the same place and the former calls it Ground Zero.
Revy and Roberta are still intent on killing each other and Balalaika has her snipers disarm them. She then makes it clear that she is not requesting them to not kill each other but she’s ordering them. 命令ã FTW.
Sooo cool, anego.
Balalaika also reveals Roberta’s real name and background to Garcia. She was previously a Cuban-trained “hunting hound” and fought for the FARC, a terrorist with the blood of women and children on her hands. Earlier in the episode, Garcia had gotten over the shock that Mahoro killed Dad his maid is a gun and knife wielding killing machine and had emerged from the car to cheer for her against “that kind of woman” (Revy). He quickly accepts (or is prepared to ignore) Roberta’s past and calls her part of his family.
Many salutions of “anego” (older sis but usually only in the context of yakuza or ninja clans) by Revy to Balalaika. I was just giddy with happiness the way Kurumi Momose was drooling when M25 Matango-controlled Himeko Katagiri was spouting "boku".
Gorgeous, gorgeous shoulders.
Round Two. Fighto! For gals’ pride!
Another great line from Balalaika, praising Revy and Roberta’s energy: “It’s good to be young!”
Rock tries to stop them but shows how thoroughly out of his depth he is.
The way Hotel Moscow intervened cued Rock to the fact that they aren’t just ordinary mafia. Benny fills him on how on Balalaika and her men were special forces - killing machines who went to hell and back in Afghanistan (during the Third World War?). As hinted in the previous episode when the Comrade Sergeant said something about ‘playing mafia’ Rock is worried that there is more to Balalaika and her men than it seems. What is their real agenda and who are they really working for?
Well, at least someone’s happy.
“…killing machines who went to hell and back in Afghanistan (during the Third World War?).”
More like when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan during the 1980s. It pretty much ended up being a Vietnam situation for the Soviets, partially due to the extensive support the CIA gave to the Afghans.
BTW, what was happening with Roberta near the end when she was getting into on of Balalaika’s cars?
I concur it seems that Hotel Moscow had its orgins in the 1979-1988 Invasion of Afghanistan. Her cap badge has the distinctive hammer and sickle and the USSR did use special forces in trying to fight the war.
So they WERE Spetsnaz? In that case, I have to second Rock’s concern - while it’s possible the whole unit deserted to become criminals… I wonder if this isn’t just a huge black op that’s going on.
Mind you, I rather like Balailaika because she’s just so… calm… half the time, and bored for much of the remaining half.
nooneofconsequence, Roberta asked Garcia to get her spectacles back. He asks why as they were broken. She replies that they are what she needs to be the Roberta that lives for the sake of Garcia. It’s supposed to be an “aaaawww” moment but I thought it was cheesy and probably nekomimi like Moon Phase’s Hazuki would have worked better. :P
and Crusader, I’ve had another listen to the part about Afghanistan and Benny clearly says: “daiSANji sekaidaisen (第三次世界大戦)” which means “World War Three” - I haven’t seen the manga so I’m not sure but this episode seems to indicate that Black Lagoon occurs in an alternative world which is post WW3 and possibly where the Soviet Union continues to exist.
Haesslich, absolutely - Balalaika exudes what William Gibson has termed the “evil boredom” that only the rich and powerful can exude. I think she would pass all the criteria of Rudyard Kipling’s If with flying colours - what a commander to have!
Some pictures I picked up along the way,
Some weird cosplay thingy
The Ladies of Black Lagoon
Looks like we can look forward to an Oriental foe in the future. :)
Thanks a bunch, Skane! The pics are luurvely! :)
Technically we are in World War III since the war on terror can be traced dierectly back to the war in Afghanistan when the whole “War on Islam” was coined. Under the USSR arms sales on heavy weaopn systems was more tightly regulated meaning it had to have been crumbling in order for that mercenary group to obtain an Mi-8 Hip in working condition. Hotel Moscow are still using AK-47s while had the Kremlin remained in tact it would have been logical to give them AK-74s in stead. Still I can’t wait for the sub.
They use AK-47s because that’s what everyone and his grandmother knows even if they never used any kind of gun. An AK-47 - also Kalashnikov - is supposed to be a cool gun. For the USA every war is a World War by definition because for them the USA is “the World”. That said the whole “terrorism threat” is utter bullshit. The US Army has murdered more civilists than any terrorism ever. Politicans murder much more innocent than any terrorists ever will. Stalin and Hitler murdered millions. Putin and Bush murdered tens maybe hundreds thousands of people. This is not a flame, these are all well-known facts you can check daily on TV or your newspaper. However, there’s no world war. This is a single-sided power hunt.
Chris, the AK-74 that Crusader is referring to the upgraded version of the AK-47.
Could we please not talk the real life politicks? I just want to enjoy my anime… T_T
In respect to the wishes of the blogger, I will refrain from discussing the current geo-political situation.
The AK-74 has a distinctive muzzle brake that is the most distinguishing feature of the weapon. When Hotel Moscow was gathering the troops the only distinctive barrel was clearly and AK-47. The AK-74 has a smaller round 5.45mm vs the 7.62mm, and can cause more prolific damage to soft tissue though it lacks the penetration power of the larger round. For a mafia that faces oppostion that usually lacks body armor and vehicles AK-74s would be the best choice for anti-personnel fire power. It retains the best qualities of the AK-47 but is decidedly more lethal and allows it to be lighter and the individual to carry more rounds.
As a conscript weapon the AK-47 is unmatched due to unparralled reliablity especailly considering the M-16 can collect sand and dust fairly easily while the AK-47 has ample room for most of it s major moving parts. It’s “coolness” comes form the fact that is the most prolific assualt rifle and has seen more conflict than any preceeding gun. Hollywood has also pushed its popularity as well as pop-culture as a whole as the iconic bad guy weapon. It relies mostly on volume of fire rather than accuracy, which is good for poorly trained users who don’t have the time to take up marksmanship and weapon cleaning drills (I can tell you from experience it sucks especailly on weapons that are fully automatic as you can get carbon cakes).
It’s not ‘upgraded’ so much as it uses 5.56, which the rest of the world uses, versus the 7.62 short which the AK-47 used to use… and the folding stock, along with a few changes to the interior mechanism, are the defining characteristics of the AK-74. And I was thinking of Sargeant Whats-His-Name for Balalaika myself, since the ending of ‘If’ doesn’t QUITE fit her…
“… you’ll be a man, my son!”
I’m just surprised that she edits ‘home movies’ in her spare time, myself - I’d have thought the drug-running was enough for her.
I stand corrected - it is the 5.45 Soviet round, rather than the more ’standard’ NATO 5.62 - I keep forgetting that. The 5.45, as pointed out by Crusader, is supposed to have better performance against personnel than the 7.62, because it tumbles more as it hits the target, creating a larger wound cavity and doing more trauma (and allowing them to bleed out faster) than the 7.62, which would be more liable to blow through a target. Although, from what I recall, the 7.62 rounds, at least the 7.62 NATO rounds, were better at knocking a target down due to the fact that 5.56 and similar-caliber rounds often have proven ineffective against unarmored opponents at medium to long range, or who were unusually dedicated or in altered states of mind - remembering the lessons of Somalia, and more recently Afghanistan and Iraq.
But since that’ll veer towards the ‘kinda dangerous’ political territory, I think I’ll skip discussing that any further, except to note that given recent experiences by various forces throughout the world, the 7.62mm’s looking like it has a new lease on life, based on negative experiences with the 5.56 throughout the mid-to-late 1990’s in real-life combat situations. While military logisticians want to move everyone down to the 5.56mm rounds… well, the guys on the front seem to be wanting the 7.62mm ones instead… causing further headaches on the supply chain. Plus, as Crusader noted, the AK-47’s more of an icon than anything, which would explain the Hotel Mafiya guys carrying them; it’s as much a statement as a wepaon, both for the artists, and perhaps for the actual Mafiya members.
I stand corrected - it’s not the tumbling which does the damage, or did it in Vietnam, as much as the round fragmentation… which has been an issue in recent years, from what I have read. Still, that’s another story…
End result: The Hotel Mafiya members are all apparently trained special-operations soldiers,and the fact that they apparently left as a unit bodes ill for the people around them… since I have to wonder what they ARE doing there.
The problem with using the current inventory of 7.62 NATO is that it causes too muck recoil for an assault rifle, a shorter 7.62 round like the one in the AK-47 would also lack penetrating power at range. The advantage of using 5.56 is that it reduces the chance of the round being lethal to nearby civilians and reduces the problems of a two pronged entry as 7.62 would go through walls. The same quality of blowing through walls is a double edged sword ont he one hand you can blast though cinder blocks, on the other if your making a multi pronged entry you don’t want rounds going though walls to hit your buddies. Urban entry should ideally come from more than one direction and from top to bottom. When the 5.56 was adopted it was largely found that most fire fights would occur at short to medium ranges, hence why assult rifles over took battle rifles in the post war years. to get range you have to increase the barrel length to get that range, which makes the weapon cumbersome when going house to house.
In the end though there is no round that can blend the best qualities of 5.56 and 7.62, both sides have thier supporters.
Crusader: True - assault rifles have taken over from battle rifles in the post-WW2 period, mostly due to studies which suggested that most battles happened at the medium-to-short ranges versus the longer-ranged affairs which were more common pre-WW1, but as I noted above… the 5.56 NATO’s problem has been that it doesn’t have enough muzzle velocity in most of the current rifle-based systems to do enough damage to stop some combatants, as there have been reports from both the 1993 Somalia landings and the more recent fights in Iraq which have recorded enemy combatants sustaining multiple wounds without being disabled. Yes, the 5.56’s main draw was that it was lighter, thus allowing soldiers to carry more of them, and that it would WOUND the person it hit, thus drawing off more resources than a burial of a dead soldier would require… but at the same time, there have been issues due to this ’slightly less lethal’ feature. The 5.56×45 will STILL go through walls, at least the thinner walls in some of the arenas of combat that the 5.56 has seen to date, but the main purpose was to a) let the logistics corps of modern-day armies move more rounds per load, and b) because it was adequate for use at these shorter ranges. Although, if we’re talking urban combat, then you’ll probably want a shotgun, carbine or SMG-type weapon at most - rifles were primarily designed for ranged combat beyond 200 meters, IIRC, which would require a round effective up to that distance… which precludes the pistol rounds most SMGs use.
In the end, the Mafiya here will use whatever weapons it can get its hands on - which are probably going to be AK-variants, for the most part, since practically everyone in the Eastern Bloc has made them at one point in time or another, and the AK-74 may be more accurate than the 7.62 Soviet AK-47… but the AK-47’s probably still more commonly found, and it would have been the one weapon that all of Balalaika’s soldiers would have been trained on, if they did fight in Afghanistan during the 1980’s.
The Soviets did have AK-74s during the Afghan war, the rebels reported that the round may even violate the Geneva convention and they had respect for the round tha seemed laughably small but created big wounds. The reason why 5.56 NATO is not as lethal (if what is said about the 5.45 is true) is beause the West largely adheres to the Geneva convention on inhumane wounds. This is one of the reasons why you’re not supposed to intentionally use .50 cal MGs against infantry. There is also the issue of which is worse a a dead trooper or dead bystander, PR wise the latter would win (callous, I know). Even if a single 5.56 NATO is not enough to incapacitate the target, volume of fire should compensate, besides ideally when taking a building the objective it to flush them out into the open. Once the enemy is in the open you let your machine guns take over if they still opt to resist. Ideally you don’t rely on just one weapon but rather an entire weapons system. Let’s not forget that not even the Longbow was not the end all of weapons of the Medevil Ages, the English also placed something(s) between their archers and those French Knights when the won at Crecy, Agincourt, and Poitiers.
Hotel Moscow only had one visible AK-74 and it was scoped, though the fact that they don’t have a Dragonov sniper rifle or the older more venerable scoped Mosin Nagant would logically cast a shadow of doubt over continued Kremlin support of Hotel Moscow.
I’m wondering if they’re not operating behind the Kremlin’s back myself, as part of some non-Kremlin operation, if they’re still working for the USSR/CIS/Russia/whatever. If they’re completely cut off from support, and have turned into a ‘real’ criminal syndicate, then they’re probably just picking up anything they can get off the global arms market - and as you’ve noted, the AK-series rifles are about as common as borscht, due to the factors which both of us have already mentioned (Soviet manufacture of these weapons continued for decades, other countries were licensed to make them, they’re durable and ended up becoming a major seller due to their value both as weapons which could take some rougher handling and their volume of fire). If they’re acting as a covert force for some third party (think a small military conspiracy, assuming one could survive and elude the GRU (should it still exist), KGB/SVR, etc… then equipping them with the relatively common AK-47’s would be good cover for them, since those weapons wouldn’t have to vanish from some specific stockpile, or have to be assigned to a unit and then ‘lost’. Again, we can’t be certain either way, since we don’t know if what they had out there was all they had… or if they’d just chosen to equip themselves appropriately; and I don’t recall them being in a situation to date where they’d need a real sniper rifle, or anything heavier than an assault rifle, else we might’ve seen some RPK’s or a PKM, if not some real antitank weapons.
Still - the 5.56 NATO may be more ‘humane’ as a weapon… but that was a bit of a problem in certain areas, which is why some soldiers right now are carrying 7.62-caliber weapons in several warzones. I don’t recall them caring much about collateral damage when the 5.56 was selected, as the weight savings were a bigger factor than the ‘more humane’ wounding potential… along with the fact that an injured soldier soaks up more resources than a dead one does.
But, in the end, the Hotel Moscow Mafia’s carrying AK-47’s… and we get to obsess over why they do that, when it ultimately doesn’t matter to the storyline or plot why they do. On top of that, there’s only two episodes left… more’s the pity.
Finally watched the fansub for this. :) Woooo, gogo Roberta.
The WW3 statement is finally cleared up. Thanks to their participation in the Afgan War, they were trained killing machines ready for WW3.
Loved the comedy gold provided by Dutch and Benny.
“Let’s get out of here.”
*cue lots of explosions and machinery getting timbered*
“It’s impossible.”
“We wouldn’t have enough lives to survive.”
The visual imagery of the container yard getting wrecked was hilarious, because Revy and Roberta were only using pistols, and yet were causing devastation as though they were mass-whoring RPGs.
As for the feather, I suppose it is to signify a loss of innocence. White, because the symbol of peace is a dove, and the colour of purity and innocence. A dropped feather signals a fall from grace( grace being the bird here, as a metaphor). The scene of Revy seeing the white feather and talking to Roberta was to show how Revy realises that Roberta has sinned as well.
The metaphor is taken further by Rock’s closing line in how everybody around him has gutter mud on their shoes/feet. A line that was first mentioned by Revy in describing herself and Roberta.
Oh, and Roberta is far cuter without those fugly spectacles. Lady, if you really need to wear a pair, get a better looking one. :)
Cheers.
Crusader, what do you think of the 6.8×43 SPC? It was supposed to be the latest effort to combine the advantages of 5.56×45 and 7.62×51, and all the feedback I’ve read about was very positive. (Doesn’t look like it’ll see widespread use anytime soon, though - if nothing else, wholesale replacement of the existing NATO standards would be a logistical and financial nightmare.)