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Madlax Volume 1
ADV's newest series is the very intriguing and interesting show Madlax. The program starts off as a straight adventure saga, but turns into something greater as the show progresses.
Madlax is a mercenary, a gun for hire, who is reputed to be the best there is. This assassin doesn't look like a hired killer though, she's a delicate looking young lady. Looks can be deceiving thought as she is quite competent and deadly. She shoots her victims with her eyes shut, but with pin point accuracy. Caught up in the middle of the Gazth-Sonika civil war, Madlax has more than enough work.
This is also the story of Margaret Burton, an odd young girl. She lives alone with her maid, and it's rumored that she's very wealthy. Margaret marches to the tune of a different drummer. She will spend a long time staring at shoes in a store's window display, or leave school early because she's afraid that it will rain, even though there isn't a cloud in the sky. When she looks at the world, it's almost like she's seeing something different from what everybody else sees.
These two people haven't met, and seem to be about as different as two people can be. Yet their stories are related, though exactly how isn't revealed yet.
Starting out as a fun adventure series, the first episode has Madlax on a case securing some stolen data in the jungles of Gazth-Sonika. The show takes an odd turn with the second episode; it is devoted to Margaret and Madlax barely makes an appearance. The shows alternate between the main characters, one show about Madlax, the next about Margaret. Each one has her own story line, and the two plots have nothing to do with each other, giving the show a schizophrenic feel.
The stories are fairly straight forward, but they have a bit of odd twist to them. In the third episode for example, the head of Gazth-Sonika's military hires Madlax to kill...himself. Things get even stranger in the last show on this disc. One of Margaret's class mates kills her father and then herself, apparently without a motive. The detective working the case, Maclay, discovers that a secret society, Enfant, might be involved. They warn him to drop the case or else he will "awaken." That involves something stranger than Maclay can imagine.
This is a very intriguing show, and its very easy to bacome engrossed in this world. Initially I thought it was going to be just a fun action series, but it is turning into much more than that. Each episode seems like a standard show, but some interesting questions are raised that makes it seem that this world is anything but normal. Something mysterious and odd is going on, and it somehow involves both Margaret and Madlax.
The thing that sets Madlax above your average anime is the unique way the story is laid out. On the surface, it is a regular story about two women, but if you scratch down just a bit, there are mysterious machinations occurring in this series that draw the viewer in. This seems to be a tightly plotted show, and I'm sure that small events in these opening shows will have a great impact latter on. I'm very interesting in seeing how this all works out.
The DVD:
Audio:
ADV provides the original stereo Japanese track to this DVD as well as a 5.1 English dub. I alternated tracks between shows, and both of the audio tracks sounded very good. The English dub was a little more full and robust, but the Japanese track reproduced the sound well. The voices seemed to fit the characters a little better in the original language, but that's just my opinion. There were no audio defects.
Video:
The anamorphically enhanced widescreen image is very good. The lines were very crisp, and the colors were reproduced well. The color reproduction is important, since They used a wide palate, with both the jungle scenes and the urban settings having distinct looks created by the colors that were employed. Digital defects were practically nonexistent. A great looking DVD.
Extras:
This disc has a good number of features. In addition to the standard clean opening and closing, there is an unused opening sequence, Japanese promo spots, and a two-minute reel of design sketches. My favorite bonus feature was Conversations With SSS, an 8-minute reel of outtakes where the English voice actors come up with some pretty humorous lines for the scenes they are dubbing.
Final Thoughts:
Madlax was much better than I was expecting. I went in thinking it was an action show about an assassin, but it is much more than that. These first shows feel a lot like Lain in a way; there is something odd going on, but I'm not sure what. The nice thing about this show is that it also plays like a straight forward anime show. If you don't feel like thinking about it, you can still lean back and enjoy it. This looks like it could be the sleeper hit of 2005. Highly Recommended.
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