Madlax

[Mikeido]

With it's recent release into the english speaking public, I figure it's as good a time as any to make a topic about the series for anyone who was curious, has seen or wants to see it. This is all open for thoughts an discussion past the first four eps an the like, just since it's definetly a series that's worth watching unravel for yourself than hearing about it from others, just try to be careful how openly some things are mentioned.

Thoughts on the Series/First DVD's Episodes:
Since it aired in Japan last year and I read about it in Newtype whilst out in New Mexico with Angel, I'd always been curious to pick up the series an had first thought their article meant it was available in the US. Son found out that wasn't quite so just yet and found AnimeSuki, which served fan-subbed versions of it via lower quality tv-rips straight from Japan. An then proceeded to instantly fall in love with the first eleven episodes that were available at the time.

Of course right now there's only four episodes on general release from ADV, but that's standard for anime DVDs and still enough to give a lasting impression of what MADLAX intends to subtly achieve. Which is, as the Screenplay writer says on one of the nice little extras two page "Staff Talk" DVD insert is; "My first thought was I'll make this really extravagant. Action, suspense, the occult, the thriller-type feel, psychotics, the absurd, conspiracies, comedy, romance, friendship, familial love...every single element you could ever think of. The product would be totally incoherent? No, no, of course it wouldn't. I think Director Mashimo saw what I was doing as nothing more than a monkey dancing on the hand of Buddha [pained laughter]".

Small side-note, in old Japanese folk tales an the like, Monkeys were known to decieve people into thinking they were gods and ruled over villages, demanding sacrifices until some brave soul who knew better would come along and confront them.

An though even now, after I've seen the whole series in fan-sub, it still sounds an ambitious task. At least one to try and reproduce sucessfully now that MADLAX has come to completion. It's made possible by the sheer variety and inter-connection of characters, as well as the environments they begin in.

Madlax lives in a civil war zone, taking jobs from "SSS" to do anything from retrieve data to assassinate as SSS gets the offers. With what she does and the people she crosses, you get alot of the action and suspense. What's really refreshing about this character is though she's a legendary mercenary living in a war zone, she's not pumped over the top with angst and facial scars. Instead she's remarkably elegant and enjoys what life she has in fine cuisine and if the people she got close to didn't end up dead before the end of the day, going on dates. A kind killer, as such. It's a rare character that seems to take no especial enjoyment from her work but prefers the finer, elegant things. This is the reason she wears a red dress during a gunfight in the first episode, which didn't sit well with many people since they couldn't quite piece together her unique character habits.

Far away from the battlefield in a peaceful european style city lives most of the rest of the cast; Margaret Burton the constantly dreaming schoolgirl who feels like she's missing something, her maid and apparently only family Elenore Baker and their old next door neighbour Vanessa Rene for a start, the three of which creating the mainstay of the familial love, comedy and friendship elements. On surface, this complete opposite lead characters (Margaret and Madlax) might make you think that it is infact totally incoherent as you're jumping back an forth between action and sit-com, but it's not so disjointed.

Once the characters are established, including several that I haven't mentioned name of, the plot connections, conspiracies, occult, obscure and fantastical, all start bridging themsleves together in a way that doesn't become anywhere near clear in the first DVD but does create a solid base of most of the players that are on the board. Vanessa's company has ties with alot of money in the warzone area and a murder-suicude with no apparent motive breaks out in Margaret's seemingly peaceful world, for instance.

All the while including a nicely handleable dose of philosophy that's nowhere near the likes of Lain, but is still nice to see from the start and important to the characters decisions and developments. For instance there's one Army General Gwen McNichol who I won't say why or what for but at one point elaborates that "a life that's not exerted by it's own will is painful" which is an important clarification for understanding his characters choices. All of which spirals and spirals, with answers and revelations appearing only to create bigger questions and theories, to create one of the most intricately thought out and perfectly balanced stories I've yet to come across. Reccomended without question to any who enjoy a deep and mature plot of action, suspense and conspiracy that unravels as quickly as it becomes more intricate and leaves questions till the last.

Thoughts on the DVD:
With it being recently released by ADV, I was quite curious as to what they'd do with it, since for all people may have issues they do put some considerate effort into the design front and that was no exception with MADLAX (in caps: title, no caps: character name reference), packaging the first disc in an optional Ammo Crate style DVD case that will hold all seven DVD's, in time. So that was nifty in itself and still holds a place on my desk where I routinely drool over it's quite well designed styling. Short of actually being a metal ammo crate (which would have cost just a little bit more to produce and ship, lol) and especially considering it's flat, it gets the dimensions and texture bumps just right. A better shot of it from my desk.

Has some generally amusing extras on the disc. Some of them were mid-way, mostly sucking but getting the occasional laugh like this section similar to the one in Texhnolyze, where the dub actors improvised the script over random things like selling girl scout cookies and syncing it with the animation on screen. Also gave me an extra glimpse at how godawful the dub actor voices are. Once again, they (not ADV or anyone inspecific, just this happens...alot) managed to choose only the finest of people that are either camp or just completely off mark for the character's personality and voice. Oh well, maybe I'm just spoiled over the original voice actors but some of them really just should not sound like that. Madlax for instance sounds far too american pop-teen brat for her character and Carrosour (never sure on the spelling of that one) who should have a swuave, deep pitch in his voice sounds airy and camp...good thing either tracks selectable, an I was curious but not expecting much.

The subs quality however is excellent for all but one or two places. Only place I really don't like what was subbed is one of Madlax's first lines where the guy in the helicopter wants to interview her and asks her name. She says "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you" winks an jumps out...groan, one of the oldest cheesy lines I know. Now on the fan-sub, she said "it's best you don't know (might have been ask that but hey), you'll live longer" wink an fall/jump out. Sounded much better, but that's one line which by the time I've finished moaning has already long dissapeared into the distance. Other one's further in where a character says "an invitation to madness, now endless", which is fine. It's just on the fan-sub version I prefered his "Invitations to insanity, they arrive endlessly" but ah, nitpick.

Otherwise they have a refreshing professionalism about the translation, honourifics are translated as they should be, which is mostly shown up with Elenore, Margaret's maid who has a very official personality and will always call her "Ojou-sama" or "Margaret Ojou-sama" which in fan-subs they pretty much just translated as Margaret either way. Official sub they translated as Miss. or Miss Margaret, which is much more proper. When the lyrical song "nowhere" plays, they'll even sub the lyrics in white lower down than the normal lyrics, further off the screen, which is also quite a nice touch. Ayu fan-subbers did a similar thing, only across the top, in karaoke fashion, and with kanji too. That just crowded the screen and got distracting though. So all this, as well as getting peoples names and places right and generally translating into clean, proper and full english, all makes it a very worthwhile purchase.

Not much else I can think to say right now, lol. Well, not that doesn't delve into the plot in a spoiling fashion an such. Well, short of going into a seperate topic all of it's own I'll just say the Soundtrack is some of Yuki Kajiura's most stunning, mature and complex work yet, whole steps and octaves above Noir's OST which on most all fronts pales in comparison of style and composition.

Oh, an on the extras front, don't expect much from the "unused opening sequence" extra. I got all excited thinking it was footage from the first ep they cut or somesuch...it's two scenes from the actual OP sequence where the ethereal figures appearances were originally that of a slightly creepy rag-doll, lol. If you've seen the opening you'll know where I mean, quite glad they changed it though amusing to see it was once a possibility.

[omnibreak]

I have only seen a certain amount of episodes but the show seemed interesting, had an air of mystery and suspense. For some odd reason, Madlax and Rusena, the main characters of Madlax and Grenadier, remind me of each other. Both have long hair, are skilled enough to take down whole groups on their own, use a gun as weaponry, and can dodge a barrage of bullets. Does Madlax enjoy bathing? If so, one more similarity though the personality is very different. Rusena does enjoy bathing but does it mostly in hot springs. Grenadier is an action comedy so differs greatly from Madlax but you may be interested. I don't think Rusena's large bust will deter you from watching. It seemed distracting at first but later on I enjoyed the show enough for me to not really notice, even she was bathing, lol. Grenadier is licensed but that won't be a problem for you right? ^_-

[Mikeido]

Lice-what now? Hehe, thanks I shall have to look into that. Only dislike excessively large breasts when the anime also tries to take itself seriously, so they're honestly doing it out of fan-service. Like with Bakuretsu Tenshi... Yes, Sei...they are expanding, lol. The level of fan-service without comedy and generally size of their breasts scared me at times, lol.

Preliminary image search on Grenadier brought up some interesting images.
Ah, I can kinda see what you mean, hehe. She's more a platinum shiny blonde where Madlax's is more faded dirty blond which is probably why I like her as much as without her even being a red-head, lol. Think I've seen that character before, cool, hehe. Madlax showers, sure, though it's never that big a thing, maybe only one shower scene from her in the series that I can remember, which is another one of those amusing little things about the character in aswell as seeing her be a highly skilled assassin, you get to see her more human side shopping for groceries an the like. They don't dedicate a whole ep to it or somesuch lol, just see her leaving a store with a bag an she actually smiles to Vanessa as she passes, though at the time they don't know each other an says (more to herself since they've passed) "welcome...this is a battlefield" in a strangely content way. What I like about Madlax as a character is she has the more gentle an even caring side to accompany her unrivaled gunplay which makes a nice change from the likes of Jo (I'm not trying to target Bakuretsu as bad, it was still amusing hehe, but first example that comes to mind, an there was a plot relative reason for her sleepy/angry characteristic but still) an the like.

Went button mashing on the hot-key for Direct-X / overglide capture with this screencapturing software I have and took a couple images. Have to use this since DVD's use overlays I can't disable like an avi file. An it's easier than copy pasting anyways since it automates the new snapshot into a file with a single click.

The DVD Menu since it's easier to actually show it than just explain that they did a good job on the graphical theme front, though there's no chapter selection sub-menus, it's pretty well designed with the smaller window playing the intro and the larger in the back looping some scenes. The extras menu is a similar battle-worn metal crate lid with the list in a similar font. Even though MADLAX as a whole is a very elegant an stylish series, it works quite well on the civil war element front of it all, which is quite integral so it's all good.

An the "unused opening sequence" I was on about...



...Yep, lol.

[omnibreak]

That alternate opening...lol, don't even know what to say. Mostly looks odd when it is half of Margaret's face. Takes away from the serious nature as the smiling doll makes you laugh. I have no clue how to capture pictures from any video format, specifically avi as it is the most common. I'll try to figure it out at some point as it would be helpful when words aren't, like with Dokuro-chan.

[Hakumei Naru]

Wow, this is just the info I wanted! Great!

I got a trailer and a poster from Newtype and I've been looking for info ever since. God.....that unused opening looks messed up! What is that thing? A rag-doll? A robot? Does it hold any significance to the story? Or is it just some weird japanese gag? Looking at thing's face again....maybe it's better not to find out.

It's strange that I'm interested in something like Madlax. I like most anime I see but I usually steer towards shojou, fantasy or sci-fi. Things like Gunsmith Cats and Noir don't really appeal to me very much. If they were there, I'd watch it but if there was anything else like Psychic Academy or Mahoromatic I'd soon forget about it.

[Mikeido]

Ah glad it was of some use was debating making a topic for it then you're asking just made it a definite run. Indeed it's a rag-doll, an does have small place in the plot as such. Much more a later on thing, you'll see the little ethereal girl who always sits in "that place" holds the doll an think nothing more of it. Thing I really like about MADLAX is round ep. 18-20 they'll say something really small about the doll that just made me go all O.O

Though they said alot of little things that made my head explode with theories and revelations throughout the series, hehe. So yeah it has a small part in the whole picture, though from the start you'll see it's the ethereal girls doll that sits on the bench with her. Thankfully they changed it in the final cut, lol.

That is quite curious that you're as interested in it, but a very good thign all the same, hehe. It could be the stylisation of the characters, for all I've searched an all I've found similar, there's nothing quite like what MADLAX does in character design and elegance. It could be that it's close enough to shoujo for it to be what you're after, since Madlax is known as much for her beauty (especially in a dress...hehe) as she is her gunplay and all the character designs do definetly have a definite edge of swuave shojuo attraction to them. So yeah, they even accomodated the shojuo ellement into the series, it's amazing lol.

Aaah, omnibreak I can at least tell you how to get a screenshot of .avi's anytime you want. Load em into Windows Media Player and go into the Options. Look for the advanced settings (I think it's a button) and disable all the overlays an such you find in there, should only be about two. Likely tell you it needs to play the file from start which is fine, find where you want and pausing can help but isn't completely necessary, then hit Prt Scrn, to the right of F12 and Paste it into an image editor to resize or crop as necessary. I used Hyper Snap DX 5 for the above images, which can take shots of overlay active screens and generally anything with one hit of either prt screen or Scroll lock, as well as any other specific area dependant on mouse key combinations. Course that one has a 15 day trial period an is more for the DVD snapshotting while you can.

[omnibreak]

Found options but couldn't seem to find those advanced setings. Could be my version of Windows Media Player. I think it's version 9 and says View Point Media Player. I was going to try and make some Dokuro screen caps but this will have to do.
http://home.nc.rr.com/momotato/dokuro0102.html
If that link is a little too ecchi for this board you can remove it but thought it would be fine. Though those hideous faces near the end of the second episode, example in the lower right corner, would be more likely to scare people. Thanks anyway and sorry for running away with your thread. I'm expecting a Madlax avi/sig combo in the future. Will you deliver?

I thought about making some specific anime threads too but there never seemed to be that much interest here. Was going to do a Mai Hime and Scrapped Princess one, two series I really enjoyed. Scrapped Princess is getting a release soon outside of Japan so I might do it to celebrate its release. It's coming with a limited edition that includes a figure that was also released with the Japanese edition.
http://store.yahoo.com/animenation/d...-princess.html
DVDs look real nice as well. Seems there will be figures for each one which doubles the hurt to the wallet. Was an interesting fantasy anime based off a novel that I would love to have in my collection. I especially love Pacifica, who's voiced by Fumiko Orikasa. Her previous roles that I have enjoyed include:
Meia Gisborn-Vandread
Ciel-Tsukihime
Victoria Ceres-Hellsing
Rukia(sp?)-Bleach
Aoba-Jinki:Extend

[Hakumei Naru]

Originally Posted by Mikeido

Not much else I can think to say right now, lol. Well, not that doesn't delve into the plot in a spoiling fashion an such. Well, short of going into a seperate topic all of it's own I'll just say the Soundtrack is some of Yuki Kajiura's most stunning, mature and complex work yet, whole steps and octaves above Noir's OST which on most all fronts pales in comparison of style and composition.

I was meaning to ask this a while back but it slipped my mind.

What sort of music is on the soundtrack? If it's any good I'll go fishing for it now because I have a feeling it will be hard to find once people find out that Madlax exists.

[Mikeido]

Quite an interesting range to suit any emotion perfectly within the series. Can go from the electronic techno style of "Enfant" to the haunting choir sounds of "Saints" and much inbetween including a humble accordian number "Street Corner" that suits it's scene appropiately. "nowhere", the first big title lyrics track that gets used in the series (as a pose to Noir, they don't just dump all the ost into the series at once and chop it up to play out of sequence, songs are introduced at regular intervals and given a much smoother play), is one of my favorite songs of all time due to all the layers of melody it uses that work perfectly together an I'll often be found doing air-viola to it's beutiful violin solo section.

Definetly Yuki Kajiura's best work to date, even after finding the Mai-HiME ost collection, it's not as varied and powerful as the Madlax set. I did havea direct-download link for it but it seems they're out of bandwidth, lol. An the other .torrent source I know of is down for repairs, I could always send them to you if you were curious. I'd think when more people are aware of the series the OST's would become more readilly available, the .torrent site I know of recently put up a batch of the osts due to Madlax being played at the users anime club, but either which way, definetly worht a look for at least some of the most noteworthy tracks.

Originally Posted by omnibreak

I'm expecting a Madlax avi/sig combo in the future. Will you deliver?

Little late getting back hehe but who knows? ^_- I'd made a group of 3 sets before, which are likely still online...ah, they are.

Firstari (Mine)
Secondary (Ultimas)
Madlax (Nikitas).
Think in retrospect I could have done better with them but then you're always your own worst critic an such, hehe. Less text, better font and more scattered I think. Mostly Secondary I would uproot, though I'd get rid of the flashing text on Firstari. The image of Limelda (I swear it's Rimelda but she's russian so it could be either and ADV sub it as Limelda, figure it must be since they'd ahev the official scripts written in plain english/katakana as need be), wasn't easy to get since there is a shot of it like that, but it's further away so far less detailed. I ran through the series making a few custom images like this, taking a screen cap every so many seconds of it panning across the figure, which when joined up gave a perfect high-res shot of the figure you won't find anywhere else. Currently working on a Madlax wallpaper or two aswell, no suprise hehe, so we'll see what happens.

[Hakumei Naru]

Originally Posted by Mikeido

Definetly Yuki Kajiura's best work to date.

Yuki Kajiura...isn't that the same person who composed the .hack//SIGN soundtrack?

[omnibreak]

Originally Posted by Hakumei Naru

Yuki Kajiura...isn't that the same person who composed the .hack//SIGN soundtrack?

Yep, same composer. Poor Mikeido's thread isn't getting anywhere.

Spoiler:Umm...that maid can really fight.

That doesn't help much, does it?

[Mikeido]

Hehe ah don't worry, Hakumei's found it useful which is all it could hope to be really. An I like having smaller seperate threads like this that people can come back to later or somesuch than a single thread where any sense of conversation gets completely lost in the flow of posts.

An indeed, same composer as .//Hack, Noir, Chrno Crusade (I think), Mai-HiME, though from all I've heard (haven't heard her .//hack work), the Madlax OST's are her best work to date and have the best planning within the series. I've started watching through Noir an whereas I like it, the music feels really poorly placed and generally without much thought for it's placement, pitch or much anything. One of the rare occasions where (so far) the ost is better off outside the anime, lol. Madlax's music though just compliments and finishes it all off perfectly. Ya know it's funny, I may not be able to translate it all, though I have the full romanji and english texts of nowhere, including the official subbing of it that I transcribed from the DVD, but I can sing along to it like it's my native language, it's just that good a song, lol.

Hehe, indeed she can. Elenore's one of the more touching characters that just thinking of from a certain scene when a specific song's on the playlist brings a tear to my eye, hehe. If you follow it through to the later episodes she has a very powerful moment in it. Don't mean destructively, just in showing how her character stands up in what she loves an lives for. *Gets all misty eyed thinking about it* Gah...er...dust, yeah, lol. That's what i love about MADLAX, all the characters have a reason and connection, an they all have ways of causing the viewer to feel what they need to. Some of it, such as the ending, isn't the most obvious set-up ever, but that helps it along in that even the few things that could be considered disjointed or for the sake of it are slid into the continuity of it all perfectly.

[Hakumei Naru]

Originally Posted by omnibreak

Yep, same composer.

I adore the .hack//SIGN soundtrack. I have listened to it to death. That soundtrack has some of the most enchanting music I have ever heard. The chord progressions leave me mesmerised at the sheer genius and talent of the composer.

Originally Posted by omnibreak

Poor Mikeido's thread isn't getting anywhere.

I guess some people aren't ready for Madlax yet.....or more than likely, they have no idea of how magnificient that anime is. Heck, I've only seen one trailer and I'm saving up to buy the box-set. I dunno, something tells me that it's going to be something I really shouldn't miss.

[Ultima-Matrixed]

Originally Posted by Hakumei Naru

I guess some people aren't ready for Madlax yet.....or more than likely, they have no idea of how magnificient that anime is. Heck, I've only seen one trailer and I'm saving up to buy the box-set. I dunno, something tells me that it's going to be something I really shouldn't miss.

No you shouldn't