Roanapur

Buddha Statue, on entrance to Roanapur.

Roanapur (Thai: โรอานาปุรั; Japanese: ロアナプラ Roanapura) is the fictional city in Thailand where the Black Lagoon series takes place. The city is infamous as a den of crime and corruption and is home to a wide variety of criminals and outcasts including pickpockets, thugs, mercenaries, thieves, prostitutes, assassins, and gunmen, all of whom operate without much hassle from authorities.

History

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese military dredged the harbor to use it as a naval base. In 1944, the Japanese Army even built an underground shelter in town to prepare for attrition warfare. A city born during the Cold War, Roanapur was a dying port town until in 1961 when it started to become the den of vice and crime that it is currently notorious for. At the end of the Vietnam War, a large numbers of Vietnamese refugees and former soldiers who defected arrived into the town, one of these Vietnamese defectors being Bao, who founded the Yellow Flag bar in 1978 and took in fellow Vietnamese people. Afterwards, Roanapur became a haven for smugglers and criminals, who flocked to the city in order to capitalize on the growing Southeast Asian drug trade. Currently, Roanapur is dominated by the Hong Kong Triad, which had to previously deal with the introduction of the Russian crime syndicate Hotel Moscow in late 1993.

The subsequent fight between Mister Chang and Balalaika almost tore the city apart when both of them greatly injured each other, but Dutch saved Balalaika and managed to broker peace between the two, and the two syndicates have been on more or less good terms ever since. Besides the Triad and Hotel Moscow however, Roanapur is home to several other criminal organizations, including Cosa Nostra, the Colombian Cartel, the Nuevo Laredo Cartel, and most recently the Albanian Mafia. The city's mafia heads do their best to keep Roanapur out of international news and intervention since they enjoy their criminal livelihoods and prosperity. The four leading groups (Hotel Moscow, the Triad, Cosa Nostra, and the Nuevo Laredo Cartel) make up a group known as the Council that control and maintain the city's balance of crime. More recently, the Colombian Cartel completely departed from Roanapur due to their decline in their home country, leaving their seat on the Council open to the Nuevo Laredo Cartel. Besides crime syndicates, foreign government groups like the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the People's Liberation Army of China have stationed agents in Roanapur for the purpose of international influence.

Spinoff history

According to Balalaika in the spinoff manga Dismemberment Galore! The Gore Gore Girl, in the mid-1930s, there was an unnamed, wealthy man who held a certain financial interest in Roanapur. Moreover, it was rumored in later decades that whoever possessed the key belonging to the man received the rights to the city, but the key was also speculated by local residents to be cursed because of that rumor. After the wealthy man fell in love with two women and could not choose which woman he wanted to give an engagement ring to, he decided to seal himself in a coffin with an empty ring case (which could only be opened with the special key) and submerged himself at the bottom of the ocean. Close to 6 decades later, Balalaika possessed the key but arbitrated it to police custody so that people stopped killing each other for the fabled key. In the mid-1990s, the American serial killer family known as the Baba Yaga family fled to and settled in Roanapur since their crimes were exposed on their farm property in the United States.

Geography

Dart pointing to Roanapur

Roanapur is shown to be in the geographic location on or very near Trat, Thailand. Roanapur, being a port town, is situated on Thailand's coast adjacent to the Gulf of Thailand, stationed quite close to sea level. The city is greatly urbanized and has a tropical savanna climate like most of Thailand.

Demographics

While the town mainly has Thai citizens, its international standing among criminals and tourists has attracted people from various nations, including Vietnam, Japan, Russia, Italy, China, the United States, Colombia, Mexico, Albania, and even Australia. Given the large Buddha statue in Roanapur's bay as well as Thailand's history, Buddhism was indicated to have a large presence in the area at some point, and a small number of Christians reside in the city such as churchgoers of the Rip-Off Church.

Language

Thai is the primary language of Roanapur, which is greatly demonstrated by the numerous Thai signs in the city and its location in Thailand. Nonetheless, because there are lots of foreigners in town of various backgrounds, English is Roanapur's lingua franca, which is also demonstrated on business and city signs where English commonly accompanies the Thai script. Additionally, the languages of the various crime syndicates can be seen in the respective territory of said groups, such as Russian and Chinese signs for Hotel Moscow fronts and Triad businesses. In the anime, there is a more noticeable amount of Vietnamese signs, such as the signs in front of the Lagoon Company office.

Economy

The primary currency of Roanapur is baht, although the U.S. dollar is also popular given that USD is prevalent in illicit activities across the globe. Furthermore, the majority of the city's GDP comes from the city's businesses, some of which act as fronts for the crime syndicates, in addition to tourism, including tourists' visits to casinos and the brothels in the profitable red-light districts. Even the city's police force are frequent customers of Roanapur's prostitutes. Additionally, money from the hotels and motels that tourists use for lodging also pull in money, as well as strip bars and the sale of alcohol. Of common crimes, much of Roanapur's illicit business includes drug smuggling, illegal weapon sales, identity document forgery, murder-for-hire, human trafficking, the distribution and sale of child exploitation films, and match fixing. Local informants like Richie Leroy also make money from distributing information on criminals' whereabouts and actions to others. Because of the many gunfights and massacres, the business of "cleaning" (corpse disposal and evidence cleanup) is a widely common and thriving business with great competition, although it is not without risk due to cleaners routinely facing traps and lethal retribution in their line of work.

Locations

Roanapur can be easily identified by the large sea stack with a Buddha statue carved into it at the entrance of the city's lagoon. The Buddha statue, meant to brighten the world with the light of virtue, is in disrepair and has his eyes faded out. There are only two entrances to the city, one being the sea route where one must pass by the Buddha statue, and the other entrance is the overland bridge, where nooses hang from as a warning to outsiders. To the city's south is the Roanapur harbor, the Roanapur Wharf, and the shipping yard, where ships dock for importing and exporting goods. The Lagoon Company's dock building is located in this area where their ship, the Black Lagoon, sits at port. In addition, there are many warehouses on the city's outskirts where individuals, businesses and syndicates can pick up goods that they ordered. Land prices are quite cheap in Roanapur, and many abandoned buildings like factories are located on the outskirts as well.

The city has different areas divided into territories by the crime syndicates, and smaller groups must pay tribute to the Roanapur City Police in order to operate, with the police essentially being a corrupt crime syndicate in their own right. Bigger crime syndicates like Hotel Moscow and the Triad merely have to cooperate with the police for good relations, and the police themselves are not untouchable as demonstrated when Balalaika once disappeared three officers whom she found incompetent. There are also various markets where street vendors sell produce, food and equipment, and in these markets and streets are various hotels and motels, including the Tokaīna Hotel, the Blue Moon Motel, the Ramsap Inn, the Waio'le Motel, the Lafette Roanapur Hotel, the Marnie Juni Motel, and the luxurious Sankan Palace Hotel. There are a few towering skyscrapers in the city, one of these buildings being a base for the Hong Kong Triad's Thai branch.

Yellow Flag

The Yellow Flag is a bar in Roanapur named after the South Vietnamese flag. It was established in 1978 by Bao, who is an ex-ARVN soldier that fought in the Vietnam War. The bar is often frequented by the Lagoon Company, and the bar is subject to frequent destruction by gunfights. Equally important to business, the upstairs of the bar has a brothel called the Sloppy Swing managed by Madam Flora, and tourists can also rent the upstairs bedrooms for a night, though Bao has cameras installed in the rooms which he uses to (when applicable) record tourists' sexual intercourse and sell the subsequent sex tapes across town. Lastly, Bao also exchanges information with anyone on the condition that he trusts them and that they meet his price.

Bougainvillea Trade Company

The Bougainvillea Trade Company is a front business for Hotel Moscow's Thai branch, and the building, located on Satanam Street, serves as Balalaika's office and base of operations. The company has legal cover in its transport dealings on ships such as the Marya Zaleska and the Nefrit.

Rip-Off Church

The Rip-Off Church is a Catholic church located atop a hill on the outskirts of Roanapur. Although its members dress in Catholic religious garments, the church in reality is a front for a weapons and drug smuggling operation headed by Sister Yolanda with assistance from Eda and Rico. Mister Chang personally allows Sister Yolanda as the only non-Triad affiliate to sell weapons in Roanapur, showing good relations with the Hong Kong Triad. Moreover, the Church also has a large network of informants for intelligence gathering throughout the city, and they have connections to the Ramsap Inn. Eda, being a CIA agent, reports back to her superior in Langley since foreign and economic intelligence gathering in Southeast Asia is reserved for Eda's branch. The CIA is one of the Rip-Off Church's frequent clients.

Jackpot Pigeons

Jackpot Pigeons is a strip bar located on Rachada Street. It is owned by Rowan "Jackpot" Pigeons, who also sells pornographic films there, including illegal snuff films and child sexual exploitation films. Likewise, the female employees tend to wear exposing clothing with some arriving as trafficking victims from various countries (the same conditions of many prostitutes in Roanapur). For example, the performer Emushira is from Bosnia.

The Golden Swingin Night Club

The Golden Swingin Night Club, located on Hamipong Street, is a restaurant and nightclub owned and operated by Mister Chang as a front for the Hong Kong Triad in Roanapur. Chang occasionally uses the establishment as a hosting place for Council summits between the cities' crime bosses to figure out and discuss problems in Roanapur.

Hot River Film Company building

The Hot River Film Company building is a corporate office in Roanapur that is owned by Hot River Film Company, a cable television provider and Hong Kong Triad front. The building is empty of film equipment and production, and it is solely used as an occasional office for Mister Chang because most of the company's production collaborations take place in the Bangkok branch.

Sawyer's workplace

Sawyer's workplace is where Sawyer the Cleaner receives corpses or living people to dispose of, being commissioned often due to the high frequency of murder in Roanapur. The inside of her disposal area mimics that of a morgue insofar as there is a mortuary table and surgical tools, and she also has meat hooks like those of a butcher shop and a large freezer room for storing bodies.

Roanapur Public Cemetery

The Roanapur Public Cemetery is a cemetery operated and maintained by Bunny the Undertaker. The cemetery serves as a front for hiding the bodies of disappeared people, and Bunny commonly receives requests from various people, including her friend Frederica Sawyer, to fill up graves. The cemetery of course also hosts funerals, and most of the tombs and graves are arranged in a manner of Christian burial despite the dead being of many backgrounds from all across the world. The entrance to the cemetery has an arch with the graveyard's name written in English.

Other

There are other businesses and places throughout Roanapur, including:

• Club Heart, a brothel
• Hoang Yen, another brothel
• Chinese Dragon Tower
• Molton Club
• Caribbean Bar
• Pub Sky
• Los Mivas Coffee Company, a front business for the Colombian Cartel
• Visconti Food Service, a front business for Cosa Nostra
• Praiyachat's firearm store and gun range
• Nankwai Internet Café
• Salon de Licorne, a place that provides hideouts
• Club Scelorum, a weapons shop
• Isaac's antiques shop
• Club Flame Zone
• Abandoned resort
• Picton's Studio
• Xu Fu Tang

Trivia

• Black Lagoon creator Rei Hiroe has stated that he included payphones in Roanapur since he personally likes them, also due to the fact that he found it hard to identify cell phones of the era. He elaborated that he liked the scenes in 80s and 90s U.S. movies where characters made important calls on payphones.
• In Episode 14 of the anime, on Balalaika's map of Roanapur streets, many real-life locations in Bangkok, Thailand are listed across the map, including the Dusit Zoo, Victory Monument, the King Chulalongkorn Statue, Rajadamnern Stadium, the Jim Thompson House, MBK Center, Vimanmek Mansion, Wat Pathum Wanaram, Chitralada Palace, and the Krung Thon Bridge.