hontou ni sou omou?

Revy, Eda, Rock and Jane manage to hold out long enough to be evacuated but some of their enemies manage to jump abroad. With some fancy manoeuvres, the raiders are repelled. Benny’s l33t h4xx0r1ng wins him t3h ch1xx0r as he retrieves Jane’s precious data. We learn something surprising about Eda.

Well, no one really expected the series to kill off such an interesting and well-designed character like Shen Hua without some kind of major plot development, right? It was really funny Eda engaged in clichéd “Never mind me! You get away!” heroic talk to which Revy replies, “Of course!”

Benny, man of many talents. His response to Dutch’s “F*cking Wonderful!” is to ask if Roanapur has been hit by a nuclear attack [核攻撃 (かくこうげき)].

Despite being ambushed from behind by Revy, Shen Hua still manages to win the initiative roll. Revy succeeds in her saving throw - still getting hit but at least not in the neck. Now that Shen Hua is distracted, Eda fires almost point blank into her side. Shen Hua knocked out! Revy and Eda win!

Shen Hua’s attack did give Sawyer to the chance to reach the roof and she’s cut off the ladder [梯子 (はしご)]. Rock tries to lure her into stepping onto the weakend part of the roof but she avoids that. But when the roof starts to give way, she loses her vocalizer and loses it; she throws a tantrum, hurling her chainsaw away and finally just sits down in a sort of upright fetal position.

The roof collapses and things come a fallin’ down. LOL at how Sawyer rolled down guru guru style. Rotten the Wizard finally shows up but is such a poser. His debut doesn’t last very long. Much impressed by Rock’s prevention of Jane Meeting Steel Beam.

Dutch is pretty upset about the collapse of his dock / warehouse / office though I couldn’t make out what he said. [Had a component of ignore? 度外視 (どがいし)]. The four run for the jetty [桟橋 (さんばし)] but they also pick up stragglers. A gun battle breaks out on board the torpedo boat.

Shen Hua, Rotten and Sawyer have all survived - our native Taiwanese killer talks about how Roanapur still has good prospects for business [商売 (しょうばい)]. Meanwhile Mr Elvis wants to bring in fighters from Florida but Lobos is horrified, fearing that it will spark a war with the Triad and Hotel Moscow. Elvis pays him no heed but after Lobos exits and closes the door, he snorts in derision and we get an omnious sign (for Elvis) of Lobos’ firearm being revealed.

Dutch and Revy showing how well they emphathise with each other.

Jane has a good first impression of Benny.

A high speed turn to dislodge the boarders! I thought it was so funny how Revy asked if Eda enjoyed the wild ride and the latter tells her to stop talking rubbish.

The manoeuvre hasn’t cleared out everyone though. Revy runs out of ammo (something that she didn’t have a problem with in the previous episode) but Dutch sends her the Hammer of Justice circa Akane Tendou.

Revy goes after Torch while Eda goes after Cowboy. Quite interesting how Eda now acknowledges Revy as a bosom buddy [相棒 (あいぼう)]. Absolutely lovely how Revy tapped the base of her pistol grip against the windscreen of the PT boat, paralleling her gesture with Eda in the previous episode. Except here we can see her expression and it’s almost wistful.

Jane has lost her bag with her computer and it contained the data for the counterfeit - there’s no printing plate, everything is stored online. She tries to blame Rock but then the guys point out that she’ll be in real trouble with the Church of Violence because that was her promised payment to Eda for her getaway. Benny refuses to let her use his computer to retrieve the data but offers to do it himself, just for the challenge.

Bye bye Mr Torch. Flame-thrower type units must always explode when they are defeated. Plus his blubber probably added to the size of the explosion. Not sure if he was hitting on Revy though.

Buffer overflow 4tw. Benny takes his gohobi like a man. Given the Florida connection, I was a tad disappointed that there wasn’t any link to Benny’s back story, like the kind of trouble he was in before he got picked up by Dutch and Revy.

Eda gets the advantage over Russell. Eda states that Lobos will tidy up [片付け (かたづけ)] Mr Elvis. The cowboy scoffs but then seems to recognize her now that he realises that she’s not related to Harima. She tells him not to go there but he, being an idiot, can’t help himself and says he’s seen her before in Washington D.C. Eda provides accurate details of the lady he saw in a French restaurant Fountainebleau where the lady (very elegant) was with a Senator [上院議員 (じょういんぎいん)] and an admiral [海将 (かいしょう)]. When he asks why she was with a Senator, she replies that the lady and the other girls were talking about the internal reasons for the existence of the EAEC [EAEC内に存在する], the administration with noncooperation posture to North American Free Trade Agreement [北米型自由貿易(ほくべいがたじゆうぼうえき)に非協力姿勢（ひきょうりょくしせい）を持つ行政府], the intervention to take charge of the administration of the Arctic region in the name of assisting the defence of freedom [北極方 (ほっきょくがた)自由防壁(じゆうぼうへき)に協力性 (きょうりょくせい) お持つ(おもつ)行政府 (ぎょうせいふ)の干渉 (かんしょ)] as well as [及び (および)] instability operations [不安定工作 (ふあんていこうさく)].

Eda says that while now she is the dirty nun of the Church of Violence, she’ll tell Russell one true thing - she’s not simply on a rampage [暴れまわる]; her home state [literally borders 国境 (こっきょう)] are those of Virginia state [州 (しゅう)], Langley - meaning that she’s a CIA agent - and then she kills him. She seems melancholy as she emerges from the engine room but soon reverts to normal when she shows off the cowboy hat with the bullet hole in it to Revy.

There’s been a fair bit of discussion, in my previous Black Lagoon post, of whether Rock should try to get a threesome with Revy and Eda. On the other hand, I sometimes think to myself that Revy x Eda would make a fine couple. Except, of course, Revy doesn’t seem to have any yuri potential even when the yuri goggles are turned on to maximum power. :(

The Eda-CIA connection really surprised me but it makes complete sense in the context of the Greenback Jane arc. Her desire to get the printing plates wasn’t just down to greed but part of her mission to safeguard US interests (which states like the DPRK and IRI try to undermine by printing fake USD). The CIA seem to have a fairly strong presence in the Black Lagoon universe - they appeared directly in the Guerillas in the Jungle arc when Chan sold them the terrorist documents. Later one of the agents let slip that they knew about Revy’s criminal record from NYC and Buffalo Hill; a reminder for when the next time they ask her to do a job for them. Next week, the Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise!