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Hänsel (ヘンゼル Henzeru) and Gretel (グレーテル Gurēteru), also respectively known as Frate Mai (Romanian for "my brother") and Soră Mai Mare ("my big sister"), were two unnamed Romanian twin assassins. They were hired by Roanapur's Italian mafia leader Verrocchio to assassinate Balalaika of Hotel Moscow.

Appearance[]

The twins' true genders were unknown, but they dressed as a boy and a girl, and regularly switched between them. The boy, Hänsel, had short white hair, and the girl, Gretel, wore a long wig of the same color. They shared the same gray eyes, sharp canine teeth, pale skin, and both wear black gothic attire. Gretel carried around a M-1918 BAR concealed by a blanket, and Hänsel wielded an incredibly sharp-looking battle axe as well as two small pistols hidden in his jacket.

Personality[]

As a result of rampant childhood sexual abuse and being forced to murder other children, the twins enjoyed killing others for the sake of killing, believing that killing other humans extended their own lifespans. Furthermore, the twins also acted incestuously with one another, having a tendency to express this most intensely during charged situations such as murders or narrow escapes. They had literally bathed in the blood of people whom they killed, albeit initially doing so by force. Unknown to most people, "Hänsel" and "Gretel" were also actually two personalities alternately adopted by the two children, both of whom suffered from dissociative identity disorder, meaning they swapped their identities as "Hänsel" and "Gretel" with each other from time to time. Although mentally unwell, Hänsel and Gretel were also cunning, having used one of the local Thai orphans as a decoy to distract the bounty hunters and using money to distract Eda. They were also not above using their innocent appearance to deceive their enemies.

Due to their abuse, the two children did not believe in God, believing that any higher power had abandoned them and wondered why they had to suffer such abuse. In their spare time, Gretel was a very talented singer, as shown when she sang for Rock, causing Dutch to remark "[The] Girl sure can sing. Hard to believe it's the voice of a homicidal maniac. A devil with the voice of an angel." Likewise, despite their ruthless upbringing, the twins seemed well-read. During a conversation about the writer of the quote "The ultimate love is cannibalism," they listed off Richard Matheson and Edgar Allen Poe, with "Hänsel" accusing the latter of being a necrophiliac. Both children also sang nursery rhymes such as "The Juniper Tree" by the Brothers Grimm.

History[]

The twins were born in Romania in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains, and were initially put in a state-run orphanage in Romania. Under Nicolae Ceaușescu's government, he enacted a pro-natalist policy which banned abortion to increase birth rates. Due to the economic downturn in the country, people could not afford to take care of their newborn children and sent them to orphanages. After the death of Nicolae Ceaușescu and the downfall of his communist regime, a large number of orphans, including the twins, fell into the hands of various mafias, and the two children were moved to Sicily.

Under the control of mob groups that used them as sex slaves, "Hänsel" and "Gretel" were forced to participate in pedophilic snuff films, in which they were either to murder other children or be raped. Such horrific incidents and witnessing continual beatings of other children turned them into misanthropic, sadistic, cunning and deranged killers. They had a firm belief that their lifespans were extended by killing others, and this belief derived from the fact that they had to kill other children to avoid beatings. Eventually, the twins decided to work for the Sicilian Mafia a.k.a. Cosa Nostra.

Bloodsport Fairy tale[]

When they arrived in Roanapur, they took shelter under Verrocchio and listened to his orders to kill Balalaika, and Moretti surveilled them. Although assigned to kill Balalaika only, the twins killed several people in town, including two members of the Hong Kong Triad, six Hotel Moscow gangsters, and even one Cosa Nostra member. In a later incident, the two children recited poetry and kissed each other before heading out to the Caribbean Bar to kill more people, particularly the Russians in town. Showing a Bougainvillea Trade Company business card to the bartender, Hänsel and Gretel waited for Private Sakharov and Corporal Menshov, two of Balalaika's men, in the back. Upon seeing the two Russians arrive, Hänsel walked up to them and eerily asked them if they wanted to play with him. He then grinned at the two, signaling that he was one of the killers.

Though Sakharov tried to pull out his pistol, the smiling Hänsel cut open the Russian man's chest, frightening Menshov, the bartender, and the customers. Kissing the doll hanging from her large rifle, Gretel declared to her brother that they needed to send an "angel" for everyone in the bar, beginning to shoot everyone in the bar. As the bleeding Sakharov reached for his pistol, Hänsel stepped on his hand and gleefully smiled, throwing down his axe onto the man's head. Noticing Menshov flee, Gretel turned her machine gun toward his direction and shot his knees, immobilizing him. As he continued axing the dead Sakharov, Hänsel recommended that they take back Menshov to their place to "play" with him. Agreeing, Gretel ordered Hänsel to carry Menshov into their black sedan while she entered the bar and continued killing anyone whom she thought was still alive. As a result of their slaughter and accidentally leaving behind a surviving waiter, the police reported that the twins used a black sedan and were Caucasian children but not of an English-speaking country.

The subsequent day and night, the two children brutally tortured and mutilated Menshov by tying him to a chair and sticking nails into his body. Menshov continued to call out his captain's name until he died, but the two twins mutilated his body afterward to see if it would twitch. That night, Moretti came across the twins playing with Menshov's corpse, greatly disgusting him and causing Bikey to vomit in the adjacent hallway. Angered at the mess, Moretti berated the twins for killing everyone but Balalaika and ordered them to leave immediately after they finished their job. Preparing to betray Verrocchio and his men, the two children prepared their weapons and even switched clothing, with Hänsel becoming Gretel and vice versa. The next night an emergency meeting, Verrocchio angrily asked his men why Balalaika had not been killed yet since he did not tell the twins to murder other people, and to their surprise the twins showed up. Proclaiming that they had a change of heart, the two children giddily said that they wanted a different "dish" to eat and murdered all the Italians, including Verrocchio. As they left, Gretel killed some of Mister Chang's men and forced the Triad leader to take cover behind his car. Bidding goodbye, Gretel complimented Chang's firearm skills but remarked that she could not stick around.

As revenge for killing her men, Balalaika deployed her closest soldiers throughout Roanapur to prevent the twins from fleeing the city. At the same time, knowing that they had caused even more chaos and attracted everyone's attention, the two children paid 5,000 baht to two Thai orphans to use their black sedan to drive into the street. Running into the city's alleyways, Hänsel and Gretel ran off with their weapons and a duffel bag of money that they stole from Verrocchio's office. Once the decoy succeeded and fooled Joey's group of bounty hunters, the children agreed that they felt bad about tricking the Thai children but assured themselves that killing was just how the world functioned. While being diverted onto a certain path by the Vysotniki, Eda suddenly cornered them at gunpoint. Wondering about the bounty on her head and discovering that it was $50,000, Gretel tried to encourage Eda to look the other way by offering $80,000 that she and her brother stole from Verrocchio's office. When Eda refused, Gretel began tossing the dollar bills into the air and raised the offer to $150,000, making Eda frantically ask Revy for advice. Above them, Revy asserted that they would take the twins' money and the bounty, prompting Gretel to immediately shoot at them.

While the two sides exchanged gunfire, the Russian soldiers showed up and started raining bullets on the alleyway, forcing Eda and Revy to back off while the two twins were forced into a building. Kissing her, Hänsel recommended that they split up to confuse the Russians, so Gretel split away while Hänsel drew the Russians' fire. Taking initiative, Gretel caught the alone Eda off-guard and disarmed her, telling the nun that she and her brother needed safe passage out of Roanapur due to the heat on them. Angered, Eda asked why they continued to fight, making Gretel laugh. Smiling coldly, Gretel answered that they killed simply because they wanted to. The next morning, Balalaika used herself to lure Hänsel into one of Roanapur's parks since the boy was demoralized at being unable to kill any of the Vysotniki. Trying to unease the Russian leader, Hänsel recalled Menshov's painful death and mutilation, to which Balalaika replied that he painted quite the picture.

Pulling out his axe, the boy stated that Balalaika would die, but the unfazed ex-soldier in turn rebuffed him, saying that he would instead die and ordered him to kneel. Laughing at the request, Hänsel was immediately shot in the knee from a far distance by one of her snipers. Surprised that he got injured, he tried to no avail to swing his axe, but again his hand was blown off by another expert sniper. Unsatisfied, Balalaika decided to not torture him but to watch him bleed to death. Crying and smiling, Hänsel retorted that he would not die since he and his sister killed so many people that they would live forever, slightly amusing Balalaika. When he began to cry to death, Balalaika sternly told him to accept his fate, and soon the boy collapsed and died much to Boris's displeasure and the discomfort of several of her men. Meanwhile, Gretel managed to escape and held the lone Eda at gunpoint as a hostage to gain passage on the Black Lagoon of her own volition. In turn, the young girl agreed that she would give up her weapons and the unharmed Eda per Dutch's request.

On the ship, she and Rock bonded when she began to sang. Disappointed that she could not go on deck to see the ocean, Gretel politely pouted, prompting the curious Rock to ask her if she had truly not seen the ocean. Confiding in him, the gloomy girl relayed to him her and Hänsel's story of growing up as orphans in Romania and being sold to various mafias to be subjected to horrid child sexual abuse and participation in child snuff films made for pedophiles. Every night in those days, Gretel stated that she conversed with her brother and wondered why God had let her suffer an incredible and unspeakable amount. With cold eyes, Gretel told Rock that the cycle of murder was simply how the world worked, making Rock wonder if she was sad that her brother had died. Taking off her wig, Gretel suddenly switched to Hänsel and stated that he and his sister were always together. When he added that he had gotten used to bathing in blood and children's screaming, the distraught Rock hugged his arms around the child, trying to say through tears that blood and darkness were only a small part of the world. With the wig back on, Gretel momentarily looked affected by his earnestness, and became saddened that she upset him. Attempting to cheer him up, she claimed that she had a gift for him and showed him her genitals.

Now completely horrified, Rock left the cabin, and Revy, thinking the girl was simply messing with Rock, punched her in the face. This infuriated Gretel and brought her fierce and sadistic front back up, taunting Revy about how they were the same. Unconcerned, Revy threatened to kill her if she ever tried to intimidate any of the members. However, she remained affected by Rock's kindness and took a genuine liking to him. Unfortunately for Gretel, Balalaika paid off the Vietnamese Navy to blockade Dutch's boat from dropping the girl off northward on an island near Hainan Island and the Vietnamese coast, so Dutch changed course to Pangkal Pinang. There at the dock, Gretel told Rock that she wanted to meet up with him and have a picnic at some point in the future. However, just as Gretel disembarked and happily waved goodbye, she was shot in the back of the head by Elroy, the getaway man whom Dutch contacted and who was paid by Hotel Moscow to kill the girl as insurance.

As Gretel fell to the ground, her last words pertained to the beauty of the sky. While Rock was initially horrified at her death, he expressed relief that Gretel and her brother were now at peace. After she had died, Dutch suggested that they bring something to cover her up; however, Rock quickly refused, saying that it would be better if she had died looking up at the sky.

Trivia[]

  • The characters' names are taken from the German fairy tale Hänsel and Gretel. A couple of the series' characters compare them to a similar pair of disturbed, sadistic twins from the American horror film The Shining. In the manga, the song sung by Gretel to Rock on the Black Lagoon is called "Midnight, the Stars, and You", the song used in the ending credits to The Shining. In the anime, she sings "The World of Midnight", made for the anime and sung by Minako Obata.
  • In the anime, their specific genders are unclear, and in Omake 4, it makes it seem like nothing changed because the children's true individual genders are unknown in part from their switching of personalities and clothing.
  • In episode 15, instead of the normal ending with Revy walking along the shoreline, it is Gretel and Hänsel who walk on the shoreline. First, only Gretel is shown walking barefoot in basically the same manner as Revy; later she is shown to be walking beside her brother Hänsel, then it ends with them both watching the sunrise.
  • In a popularity contest released for the May/June 2008 issue of Monthly Sunday Gene-X, Gretel ranked 10th with 167 votes while Hänsel ranked 14th (with an unspecified number of votes).
  • In a popularity contest during the 10th collection manga release, Gretel ranked 1st with 2,433 votes while Hänsel ranked 19th with 71 votes.
    • Since Gretel came in first, a special smartphone wallpaper was made.
  • In a popularity contest during the 12th collection manga release, Gretel ranked 10th with 398 votes while Hänsel ranked 18th with 134 votes.
  • In a series of drawings made by Black Lagoon creator Rei Hiroe for Comiket 83, the twins (among other characters) are shown in a "what-if" scenario where Black Lagoon is a TV series. Their caption is: "The twins who showed up in season 3. They're real twins of German descent. In the story, they have differing genders, but actually both of the actresses are girls. The photo at the right is taken during the commemoration party for season 9. They've grown from since then."
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