Rock is to be Balalaika's interpretor in which he has to speak Japanese for the Yakuza and here is probably the big spoiler that everyone in Roanapur was speaking English the entire time. You see, the main problem lies in the last arc of the show where Rock and Revy head over to Japan for business. The first season was a great watch and I loved it, but the second season is really where the test is for both dubs and I focused more on that because it proved to be quite brutal in for me in both languages. Drake delivers the memorable line "Someone shoot me." Right before the cut, you see Balalaika clearly bored out of her mind and Ms. Her greatest moment has got to be when Revy is running chores with Rock and they head over to Balalaika who is filtering and editing porn. To be honest, I forgot how Balalaika sounded in Japanese. This is definitely one of the best matches to date. Her voice fit the character and emotions worked well together.
She has a few roles overall but gave Balalaika exactly what the show needed. She speaks no Russian (which is a bit that I was particularly fond of in the Japanese dub) bu makes up for it in tone. Patricia Drake gives more life to Balalaika than Mami Koyama. Then we have the supporting cast of characters who all give flavor to Black Lagoon. There weren't any accents on any particular word (maybe "TOW?" I mean, it's not something you expect. When he called over to Dutch to drive because the boat was being targeted by TOWs, it seemed very flat. Regardless, Brian Drummond seems to suffer from the same problem that Redman has in that his voice lacks a sense of urgency. He has history and his character shows, but with only about one to two episodes where he's a major role, it's hard to judge the actors. I've always felt that Benny was the weakest character of the series. He needs to work a bit more, but he's definitely potential and he's got a great starting point. He's skilled at witty lines and dry humor and so I'm interested to see what other roles he will cover. Redman comes up with a line that sounds fairly tame.
There's a moment in the Second Barrage where Dutch swears profusely and angrily. At one point, I remember him "yelling" "Get down!" only to be quite disappointed that the line was delivered with such mediocre emotion. His inexperience does often show up as he sounds too flat during tense moments. Good range of emotions and solid work overall. This would be Dean Redman's only anime role so far and he does a pretty good job.
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Regardless, they both show off their skill and both pull through as one of the (if not, THE) strongest actors throughout the entire series. Toyoguchi has a more flat, jaded tone that gives Revy that almost constant feeling of a cold distant character whereas Hendrikse gives us a character that's also cold but has openings that pierce harder than the Japanese counterparts. She's more raspy and the range of Revy's emotions are somewhat wider. Her style is vastly different than Megumi Toyoguchi's. Maryke Hendrikse as Revy will be a big change for everyone. He's good at his job but there will be some bias if you've heard his voice already. Brad Swaile puts a different spin to Rock and it will take some time to get used to. Not that I'm saying that Rock's voice should be different but that the tone used by the voice actors is different). Rock particularly sounds vastly different (and honestly, he should be. Otherwise, you'll get an odd feeling when you hear the voices. In general, you have to get used to the characters again. I would say that it would actually be quite comfortable.
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That said the transition from Japanese to English isn't much of a stretch here. The main giveaways being that the characters speak with English figures of speech (particularly American) and that most of the main characters have backgrounds from America. The entire anime was meant to be spoken in English. Although I'll attempt to refrain from any serious spoilers, in general, this review will be mainly for those who have already seen the anime.Īs I have mentioned before in my earlier review of Black Lagoon as a whole. I've recently watched the entirety of Black Lagoon in English.