Revy

"Rock, if you think about it, other than this, what do we really value in life? God? Love? Don't make me laugh. When I was a brat, crawling around in that shithole city, it seemed God and Love were always sold out when I went looking. Before I knew better, I clung to God and prayed to Him every single night — yeah, I believed in God right up until that night the cops beat the hell out of me for no reason at all. All they saw when they looked at me was another little ghetto rat. With no power and no God, what's left for a poor little Chinese bitch to rely on? It's money, of course, and guns. F*ckin' A. With these two things, the world's a great place."

- Revy Revy, sometimes referred by her original name Rebecca, and commonly known as Two Hands due to her skill with dual-wielding, is the main female protagonist of the manga/anime series Black Lagoon. She is the main gunfighter of the Lagoon Company and has been in the business the second longest after Dutch.

She is voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi in the Japanese version of the anime and Maryke Hendrikse in the English version, the former of whom also voices Winry Rockbell, Yukari Takeba and Miranda Lotto.

Background
"A guy like you who's spent his life in a safe little bubble has no idea what I've been through!"

- Revy to Rock Revy was born in New York City in February 1968. Few details are known about Revy's past as what is gathered is from brief flashbacks from both the manga and the show. Revy was born as Rebecca Lee, a Chinese-American, in the poverty-stricken Chinatown district of New York City and raised by an abusive, alcoholic father. One day, after fleeing from one of her father's rampages, she was arrested, beaten, and raped by a corrupt police officer. Upon being returned home following this ordeal, Revy shot and killed her father after he callously asked her for another drink.

There were apparently similar incidents between Revy and the police, particularly at the 27th Precinct. Eventually the assaults resulted in Revy losing her faith in God, leading her to believe that the police abused her because to them she was "just another little ghetto rat, with no power and no God." Revy has alluded to doing time in prison, but it is unknown how she ended up in Roanapur.

Appearance
Revy is a fairly tall Chinese-American woman who appears to be in her early to mid twenties. She has a slightly tan skin complexion, amber-eyes, and plum colored hair. Her hair is upperback-length, usually kept in a ponytail, with short bangs that part at the middle and shoulder-length locks framing the sides of her face. Slender in frame with a slim waist, flared hips, and round buttocks, Revy also sports a well-toned and lightly muscular build. At the same time, she has a curvaceous and developed figure with well-endowed breasts. She wears black fingerless and knuckle less gloves with a black tank-top shirt that is relatively cut off at her waist revealing her abdomen and bellybutton (in the manga it sometimes covers her abdomen and belly button) with daisy-duke shorts and combat boots. She also often wears her double holsters by the shirt. Perhaps her most signature attribute, is the tribal tattoo that engulfs her right upper arm. And for warmer attire like on her trip to Japan, she wears a opened brown, fleece jacket revealing her thin black long-sleeved sweater, black tights underneath a horizontally striped, belt buckled down skirt, brown leather cowgirl boots and a red hat. But still with it sometimes her holsters and gloves.

Personality
"She's violent, a tad psychotic and swears like a sailor. And we love her for it."

- Rebecca Brayton from watchmojo.com describing Revy in the video 'Top 10 Female Anime TV Characters'

Revy is very competitive, sarcastic, battle hardened, battle hungry, loud, psychotically humoured, rude, easily-bored, and extremely ill-tempered. Unlike Rock, she is undiplomatic, believing in the use of brute force and coercion to get her way. Surprisingly, she's revealed to be highly ticklish by Sawyer. Of all the characters in the series, Revy uses the most foul language and is also a heavy smoker and drinker. She is a merciless and sadistic killer, without a conscience, who will be more than ready to kill anyone at the slightest provocation, even unarmed civilians. She takes maniacal glee in killing anyone she fights or just for fun. She also has very little remorse for her enemies and many times have often stepped on male enemies' crotches for fun to show them how weak they are. However, she looks at it as doing them a favour as she believes any man would love a sexy woman such as her to "abuse" them. Whilst appearing to be driven by general bloodlust, it is shown throughout the series that Revy subconsciously uses violence as a dysfunctional coping mechanism and outlet for her deeply repressed emotional and psychological issues. An example of this is, when becoming uneasy at accepting both Rock and Benny into the Lagoon company, Revy vents her trust issues by becoming particularly unpredictable during missions and getting what Dutch nicknames "Whitman Fever", going on indiscriminate shooting rampages and executing hostiles and innocent bystanders alike. It is only when Rock arrives and begins to confront her over her actions that she begins to develop some reluctant introspection, and seriously think about who she has become and who she really is.

One of the ways Revy's subconscious pain and emotional scars manifest themselves is her aversion to the empathy of others or others trying to relate to her. People presuming to understand what she has been through or how it has effected her is a huge berserk button for Revy, causing her to react in a violent rage, suggesting the depth of the bitterness and grief her early life has bred in her. She has a changing but volatile attitude towards Rock, the newest and most outspokenly humane crew member of the Lagoon Company. Although she respects him later in the series, she is mostly hostile towards Rock, as she tried to intentionally kill him on at least two occasions and threatened him on countless others. However, she does have a tendency to save Rock from critical situations, and later on she admits to considering him as family.

Due to an impoverished upbringing which involved verbal, physical and sexual abuse from those who had power over her (such as her father or the police), Revy has developed an obsession towards power, over both herself and others, which causes her to appear fiercely independent and violently assertive, often using verbal or physical violence as a response to anyone who crosses her or to assert her dominance. However, while Revy initially appears to be tough, savage and strong-minded, her exterior actually covers up a profound lack of inner-strength and fear of the powerlessness she felt as a child. Her independence is actually more of a reactive attachment disorder, alienating others as much as possible to prevent the exposure of her own weakness and vulnerability. Revy believes the chief source of power in life is money, the "one thing everyone respects and agrees on", and consequentially has developed an obsession with maximizing the profits from each job as much as possible, such as ransoming others and looting corpses, when she feels that the Lagoon is not paid enough. In episode 7, Rock calls her out for her greed.

While her status as a 'hero' is highly questionable, Revy has one definite heroic trait: loyalty. She is very loyal to and protective of the other Lagoon members, and makes it clear early in the series that she despises traitors, believing that 'nothing's worse than being treated like some whore by your companions'. Therefore, when she catches Chaka shoot two of his men in cold blood, she is disgusted, calling him 'despicable to the end'.

Later on in the series it is suggested that, despite her insistence otherwise, deep down Revy actually hates Roanapur, her lifestyle and the person she has become, and that she wants to change but does not know how. In Tokyo, Revy opens up to Rock, saying that she has lived "on dirty air" her whole life and, though she temporarily forgot it, she would be incapable of living in "a good place" like the one Rock came from. In "Roberta's Blood Trail", after Revy states that Fabiola sees the world as a garden of roses, Fabiola retorts that Revy is actually the one who sees the world as a garden of roses, one that she herself was expelled from. The feeling that she was unreasonably denied a happy life causes Revy to adamantly view the world as bleak and desolate, to the exclusion of all contradictory evidence.

In Vol. 10 (chapter 81) Revy instigates possible bisexuality, by telling Jane that: "I've won over some sex-starved dykes by playing the man's role. And after that, their fingers just weren't enough for them ever again." This is somewhat ironic in Omake 4, as she is actually changed into her opposite gender, as it was for the other characters. Outside of these incidents, the former only being said as a means of sexually intimidating and undermining Jane, who provoked Revy by arrogantly threatening to get Rock involved in an orgy, Revy does not seem to have a sex life or any visible interest in sex, probably due to the trauma of the policeman raping her. However, in the manga it is revealed that she was involved in Rowan's S&M show, which may have been more to satisfy her sadism as well as her subconscious self-loathing. Rowan states in episode seven of the anime TV series, he wanted Revy to return to his employment as she was a S/M dancer previously. She retorts, "Forget it Rowan. I'm not coming back. Even if there is whipping."

Combat
Revy is one of the deadliest fighters in the series, whose skill with firearms and ability to dodge bullets is almost superhuman and unparalleled—there are only a few other characters, such as Roberta and Ginji, that can hold their ground against her in combat. Her weapons of choice are a pair of modified Beretta 92F's; which are made out of stainless steel and had their barrels extended from 4.9" to 5.9" each (the 5.9" is the combat MOD barrel) and also adapted for silencers. They are engraved with "9mm Sword Cutlass" on both sides, as well as the Jolly Roger of the infamous pirate Calico Jack (which is also inlaid into the ivory grips), and a manufacture inscription in Thai. Due to her ambidextrous marksmanship skills, she is nicknamed "Two Hand" by the denizens of Roanapur. However, Revy has been seen using a variety of other firearms. She is also quite skilled in hand to hand combat as seen when fighting Roberta and multiple other enemies through the series and manga.