DwD Studios

I was going to suggest this privately to Bill, but I think everyone else might be interested in this. Even if you do not like anime, this is some deep stuff. It's the only anime I've seen as intense and involved as Ghost in the Shell SAC, though surpassing it in gritty violence and shear darkness. The main characters are smuggler pirate mercenaries at the hub of a vast criminal underground. They are hired by and interact with the CIA, NSA, various criminal organizations including the Triad, Ex-Russian Military, and a rogues gallery of other cartels and government agencies.

I just finished this anime and thought it would make for a good hardcore game of Covert Ops. The show is chock full of political intrigue and the intricate balance between the world's most notorious drug cartels. Though it is about that balance, drugs do not feature at all in the show, but are merely implied in the background. Roanpur makes for an extremely awesome backdrop. Toss in the bar that gets blown up repeatedly, and your game has charm. There's so much character bio fodder that it creates an infinite variety of possibilities. It even demonstrates how to carry on a romance with not a single kiss traded nor any gushing dialog. Though it has its comic relief moments, it's mostly just intense.

Though there are a few boobs, mostly side-breasts, exposed in a few scenes sprinkled through the series, and one or two non-explicit rape scenes recounted, it is largely non-sexualized, though vixens are present. (That is, while women are objectified in the series, as in most anime, they are respected, not uncomfortably exploited.) It also deals with adult themes and abused children, which in one or two episodes of the second series gets a tad uncomfortable, but it treats it as a perversion, and not something pleasing. It's primarily what they call "gun porn", that is, a large variety of guns and RPG's blazing throughout most episodes and prodigious blood spillage.

If you can handle that, give it a try. Consider making some published material inspired by it. It's fascinating. It includes 2 series (or 24 episodes) plus a particularly intense 5 episode OVA to wrap it up. It's all connected back-to-back. There's apparently a third series called Black Lagoon 10CM that I haven't found on the online anime channels yet.

Though I recommend kicking out any rapey pervs from your play group when playing this game as they might try to exploit the setting's seedy aspects to live out their demented fantasies on other player's female characters. (Sickos like that make me physically ill, not to mention violent.) Rape is for full agency backgrounds, just as used in the series, not game play. Games without boundaries are not fun.

http://www.watch-anime.net/black-lagoon/