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Rock
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Name Rock
Information
Gender Male
Age 25-27
Affiliates Revy
Dutch
Benny
Affiliation The Lagoon Company
Race/Nationality Japanese
Status Alive
First Appearance
Manga Chapter 00: Black Lagoon
Anime Episode 01: The Black Lagoon
Anime Voice
Japanese Anime Voice Daisuki Namikawa
English Anime Voice Brad Swaile
Image Gallery

Rokuro Okajima (岡島緑郎, Okajima Rokuro) (more commonly known as "Rock" (ロック, Rokku)) is the main protagonist of the series. He is a Japanese businessman turned unwitting pirate of the Black Lagoon.

Background

Rock was born into a well-to-do but neglectful family in Tokyo. He entered college one year late and his family lowered their expectations of him, whereas his academically capable older brother landed a job with the Japanese government. Rock lived an unremarkable, demeaning existence as a white collar salaryman for Asahi Industries at the start of the series.

During a business trip in the South China Sea, Rock's ship was hijacked by pirates from the Lagoon Trading Company who sought a data disk he carried; he was taken hostage by Revy and her fellow pirates, Dutch and Benny, and kept aboard their PT boat, the Black Lagoon. Instead of helping Rock or negotiating a ransom, Rock's department chief Kageyama abandoned him in an attempt to cover up the smuggling operation in which he had been involved. Kageyama sent out a group of mercenaries to kill Rock and the Lagoon Company and destroy the disk.

However, Rock -- even though he never experienced combat -- helped the Lagoon Company defeat the mercenaries by using the Black Lagoon's anti-ship torpedoes to shoot down the mercenaries' attack helicopter. Rock is left invigorated by the experience of piracy. Unwilling to return to his former life in Japan, and having been told that Kageyama has already declared him legally dead, Rock decides to stay in crime-infested Thai city of Roanapur and joins the crew of the Black Lagoon.

Personality

Rock is a humble and good-natured person, despite being on the business end of guns from friends and foe alike, and often seems surprised at the barbarity of the Southeast Asian crime world. He wears a teal neck tie, short-sleeved dress shirt, slacks, and dress shoes since even though he is a pirate, he retains his business persona. He is not a fighter in any way but a pacifist who prefers to use words over weapons when interacting with the hostile people encountered on the job. Rock, from joining the Lagoon Company, has often wondered if he is experiencing Stockholm syndrome, consequentially developing a friendship with his former captors and co-workers.

Rock E 05

Rock's design.

Within the Lagoon Company, Rock is usually responsible for account management, diplomacy, negotiation, translation, interpretation, and running occasional errands. Having worked in the resource department of Asahi Industries, Rock is skilled in geology and chemistry. He is also a skilled linguist due to frequent traveling from his previous job, able to speak in Japanese (his native language), English, Spanish, Romanian and Russian. He also has a surprisingly high tolerance for alcohol, owing to the heavily drinking lifestyle of a ladder climbing salaryman.

Rock's earnest personality has earned him the interest and respect of several characters in Roanapur, including Balalaika, Mr. Chang, Rowan "Jackpot" Pigeon, Yolanda, Eda (who develops a crush on him), and the young Garcia Lovelace, whom he trusts to the greatest degree. In many ways, Rock is the heart of the Lagoon Company, serving as a balance for his more jaded teammates and as a bright spot in the world of darkness that is Roanapur. He retains a strong sense of right and wrong, trying to hold on to and share his beliefs with others in Roanapur. He is often shocked and horrified by how people suffer from the injustices of the criminal underworld despite his best efforts, wearing him down as the series progresses. Although physically weak and unarmed, Rock has shown tremendous courage to stand up for himself, others, and for what he believes is right as seen when he clashes with other characters over their immoral actions, especially Revy.

He is one of the "luckiest" characters in the series as he managed to survive every single thing he experienced from being taken hostage to being shot at. Thus far, he has survived the wrath of Revy, Balalaika, Roberta, and Sawyer, all without using a weapon other than his wit. Though he is a pirate with morals, he is neither good nor evil as described by Yukio, but rather in the twilight, unable to chose between a life of crime or normality.

Later in the series, Rock begins to enjoy his life as a pirate and becomes even more comfortable with corruption, and it is shown that a darker side of his personality is beginning to emerge. In "Roberta's Blood Trail", he is personally appointed by Chang to help Garcia Lovelace and Fabiola Iglesias track down Roberta before she finds the American Special Forces unit that killed Garcia's father before she and the unit kill each other and endangering Roanapur to destruction at the hands of the United States. Rock knows that Chang doesn't care if Garcia or Roberta is killed and only wants to keep Roanapur out of the eyes of the world for it's drug trafficking, and Rock manages to turn Chang's plan around by demonstrating exceptional deductive reasoning skills by figuring out every factions motives and playing on them. He manages to give the Americans an escape route out of Roanapur and towards their mission area in Laos to stop Roanapur's drug trade, as well as having Roberta follow them and have Garcia snap Roberta out of her psychotic rampage. However, doing all that required him to use the same callous and manipulative thinking as Chang, and he even seems to find the same sense of power over others psychologically rewarding. However, this apparent change in Rock alienates and disturbs the other characters, particularly Revy and Dutch, who do not understand Rock's motives and think he simply doing it to extract a large reward from Garcia, causing them to fear that Rock is becoming sadistic, cunning, and ruthless due to being corrupted by Roanapur. However, he does it entirely because he wanted to save someone, and manages to achieve Chang's goal of keeping the US out as well as saving Fabiola, Garcia and Roberta. Fabiola, enraged by Rock's high risk strategy which involved manipulating Garcia into a game of "Cambodian Roulette" with Roberta and gambling with people's lives, shoots him with a blank and states that she hopes never to see him again. Months later, things haven't changed in Roanapur and Rock begins to think he hasn't made a difference at all. Revy later tells him that it will hurt him if he continues to look at Roanapur with life in his eyes, to which Rock responds that he came close to the darkness but is not ready for it yet.

Dutch has stated earlier that he believes Rock should never wield a gun because if his bullets were like his words, they would ricochet back to them.

Combat

Rock has no experience with (or interest in) any sort of combat weaponry. His main "weapon" are words and arguments. But it is safe to say that he has a fair amount of physical strength as he was able to overpower and push away Revy when she punched him after they had a intense argument. He also seems to possess a at least above average reaction time as he is constantly able to avoid being hurt by crossfire and is able to get out of tricky situations efficiently. At one point he was even able to redirect a gun being fired at him from almost point-blank range so that the did not take any serious damage from the bullet. Even though he has some potential, he consistently refuses to actively engage in combat with anyone, regardless of the situation.

Because of his inexperience with weaponry and his pacifistic nature he is clearly one of the weaker members of Black Lagoon. However, he makes up for it with his intellect, his knowledge and his managing skills which constantly proves Rock to be a very valuable asset to the group.

Relationships

Revy

From the beginning Revy had a explosive and rough attitude towards Rock. It grows to a respectful but still rough relationship near the middle of the series. At times he criticized some of her usual habits and job related actions to be extreme, infantile, and sickening in ways. He's also recognized her actions are not just out of toughness or sheer recklessness but also mental illness and disorders that have made her become who she is. To anyone else, Revy would retaliate to this attitude but took his words into account. Especially in their emotional standoff at a diner in Calm Down, Two Men. Rock left a lasting impact on her life after the confrontation. Rock is probably unaware of Revy's romantic feelings towards him even though she has become attentive and protective of him and displays jealousy, always ready to lash out at anyone who plans to hurt. kill, or hit on him. Even so she hides the fact by lashing out against him for his stupidity, morals, moments of embarrassment and chastises him about "trying to get himself killed". She also complains about his habit of being captured/kidnapped, though she does have a point to her claim. Rock is also unaware of moments when Revy could be seen visibly empathetic when he is hurt, or in a state of depression under grim circumstances like his feelings of alienation from Roanapur. His personality grew darker in Roberta's Blood Trail, in response Revy was very disturbed and at some point kicked him across the deck of the boat.

Dutch

As a direct accomplice to Rocks kidnapping in the past of course there was talk ransoming and threatening and of course roughing up. But overtime in taking him he took a liking and respect to Rock for his resourcefulness and skills as a former business man which serve well in the company. Dutch remains unusually calm and mellow than the average person an obvious contradiction to most in the world of Roanapur. In Roberta's Blood Trail he along with the rest of the group were uneasy and disturbed by Rock's growing darkness as a result of the twisted wiles of Roanapur.

Benny

For the most part he remains to get along with Rock. Seeming to be on common and friendly ground. Benny seems to be the only kind of normal person to talk to and not get eventually yelled at like Revy. In Roberta's Blood Trail, like the rest of Lagoon he was troubled by Rock's dark transformation. And there were some moments of weirdness between them when Jane begins a relationship with Benny. And sexually disturbing moments upon her return.

=Mister Chang

Mister Chang is often amused at Rock's "unique" way of handling things, once commenting that Rock's actions will determine the fate of not only Garcia and Roberta, but of Roanapur itself.

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