Madlax #1:
Connections
ADV
120 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 04/12/2005
Reviewed: 08/02/2005
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Madlax #1:
ADV
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Not too long ago I was describing to my friend Greg a curious friendship I have, and now I'll relate it to you. I know a girl who works in radio promotions. This girl's personality I do not particularly like, but I do like the fact that she'll call me at a whim and invite me to parties in the area. Parties with an open bar. My kind of parties. The only problem with this arrangement is this is a girl is so specifically irritating to me that I could cry just being in her presence. In any normal situation I would say 'Buzz off' without a second thought, but, come on, open bar. That's pretty much all I needed to hear. I don't know what compels me to buy things like Madlax, things I know I'll despise. When I was sitting in Best Buy one night last week all I could think about is how delightfully angry I would feel after having spent an hour and a half watching these girls do their annoying thing. Plus, the title Madlax makes it sound like a laxative for gangsters.** I figured that the chance to crack that joke on the internet would more than comp my $20 purchase. With those two bits of bogus rationale plugging me forward I was just a quick debit card swipe away from torture! |
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Madlax looks so immediately familiar than any casual viewer picking up the case could probably mistake it as a continuation of former Beehouse production, Noir. Upon actually watching the show it would still be easy to consider the show as somehow related to Noir. This may be because the main characters, both in design and concept, are almost exactly the same. Madlax is a stand-in for Mirielle, a skilled assassin/loner who goes around killing people for money. Margaret is slightly different than Kirika in that she's a thirteen year old girl who doesn't wield a gun (yet). I don't expect it's going to be long into the series before she picks up some sort of firearm, and possibly wears a Wu-Tang apron, but for now she's just a relatively normal girl. Madlax and Margaret have yet to team up. The focus of each episode on the DVD alternates between Madlax's adventures in a faux South American country and Margaret's mundane life in a faux European country. So far Madlax's time in the sun has been much more interesting than Margaret's humdrum life. In fact, the only thing one can really get excited over in Margaret's episodes is the absolutely spectacular job Jason Douglas does as a cop that I hope will be returning in later episodes. But since I go to bed with a picture of the man underneath my pillow, it should be no surprise that I'm quite enamored of his performance. |
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The main characters are specifically annoying for one reason: They both talk and act like they have a mental age of six and brain damage. Margaret, especially, acts like a freakin' autistic, but Madlax has her moments in the sun. When she finds herself embroiled in a sniper battle with a surprise opponent she takes a time out to state "Oh, it's that scary lady". Not helping matters is that Sanae Kobayashi and Nancy Novotny are poor choices for the role in their respective languages, but I'm not really convinced that any voice actor could salavage these crap piles. Why a fetish like 'cute' assassins is exists, or why people deem it so useful/adorable is beyond me. When the "most deadly killer in the world" pauses a moment out to muse on how she'd like to eat pasta for dinner before killing six or seven militia guards I get a little pissed off. That's just poor writing, stupid characters. Crap like that is beyond fantasy. Also irritating is that Beehouse has decided that they didn't get enough out of the amnesia and mysticism angles when they made Noir. Both show up heavily here, as does something that pissed me off more than anything else in the first show. Women fighting in dresses. Not only does Madlax enter a gun fight in the steamy South American jungle wearing a saucy evening gown, she actually goes out of her way to change into it! Just moments before that scene she was wearing a rather sensible set of army fatigues. For absolutely no reason revealed to us she decided a change of pace would be good. Now not only does she do the standard assassin tricks in her red dress, but she seems to have relatively little trouble driving a jeep in her ludicrous high heels. |
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Things like that scene are the kind that conspire to give me ulcers. I screamed out loud, quite literally, when I saw it. What exacerbates everything is that the action in the scene itself is pretty good. Madlax flips and shoots, dodging enemy gunfire while excellent Yuki Kajiura music plays in the background. It should come as no shock that this Yuki Kajiura music sounds like it might as well have come from the former Beehouse production I keep mentioning. That's okay, because the music was one of the few things in Noir that didn't make me want to spontaneously vomit out my liver. Madlax is a lot like that radio promo girl. I don't really care for her -- every time she opens her mouth it's like pure offal is flowing out -- but through some mystery of fate she unlocks the door to a world of wonder. So too with this show. I can't stand the characters, I can't stand how derivative it is, but when the music is playing and the guns are firing it's a lot easier to forget my worries. If Madlax was only 13 episodes and entirely free for me to watch I might consider it, but as it is... Jerry owns all of Noir. It's not like I'll notice the difference. |
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