Nutty Nuti submitted:

From Black Lagoon manga, end of Chapter 42, there was a conversation about flak jackets between bounty hunters Lotton (guy) and Shenhua (girl), after a violent fight that injured Shenhua badly. The girl didn’t take a lesson in the later chapters.

(In the Finnish translation of the manga, Shenhua states more directly that she doesn’t want to use a flak jacket because it weighs her down, and therefore it doesn’t fit her acrobatic fighting style.)

Worth a rhetoric bingo card, this time its fodder comes from the mouth of the wearer herself. Circles for what she says here, diamonds for what is implied elsewhere in the manga. (I haven’t read the artist’s comments about those.) I didn’t fill an actual bingo card, since I didn’t really think that her outfit is not even vaguely intended to be an armor.

Shenhua, if the weight of your outift is your major concern, you should re-think your priorities a bit. What about for example that long hem? Or grabbable crazy-long ponytail? Or blinding half-bangs? THROWING KNIVES WITHOUT SHEATHS AGAINST BARE THIGHS?! You live in a world of gunfire and explosions, girl!

(Before you ask, btw, Shenhua is the only person who speaks broken English in the series (there are other non-native speakers too), mostly messing up the “to be” verbs.)

Overall I don’t see Black Lagoon as THE worst offenders of female designs, albeit… yeah, the ride gets silly very often. Also, to the date, flashback!Rosarita is the only female person who wears similar combat equipment to her male comrades (fellow soldiers). Thankfully, we have at least her. But otherwise… yeah, very skewed gender portrayal.

Interestingly Black Lagoon is one of the franchises that Bikini Warriors headhunted an artist from in order to create a creatively generic character.

I’m thinking this may have factored into their decision.

– wincenworks