Madlax Volume 2: The Red Book - Anime Frontier

• Media Source:Anime Frontier
• Reviewed By:Jared Elswick
• Review Date:08/02/05
• Read the original review click here

"The show is getting deeper with each passing volume..."

The Verdict
Audio
For the audio here I went with the English 5.1 track for the majority of my viewing, although I did spot check the Japanese 2.0 track from time to time. The 5.1 track offers up a hefty amount of directionality, both forward and rear, although the Japanese track does pretty good as well, but I'd still rather listen to the more thorough 5.1 English track. Overall though, either track is a good choice in the end, as they both sound good, but the English track wins out in the directionality department.

Video
Visually, it?s really obvious where this show is coming from. Both Minako Shiba and Satoko Miyachi, who worked on Noir, did the character designs for this show, and they look great, but it reminded me too much of Noir. This isn?t necessarily a bad thing, but I would have liked to have seen a bit of difference between the two shows as far as looks go, since the stories seem to be somewhat along the same lines already. Even so, things do look good here, and the transfer only helps. From what I could tell, there isn?t really anything along the lines of aliasing or cross coloration here, although there were some scenes that seemed a bit soft, and it didn?t seem to be intentional either.

Characters
Madlax - Madlax is a mercenary who is caught in the middle of the Gazth-Sonika civil war, although she?s not your everyday assassin. She?s an attractive young lady who appears to be quite outspoken, although she looks like the proverbial girl next door.

Margaret ? Hailing from Neafrece, Margaret lives with her maid and its rumored that she?s quite wealthy. She?s in search of a missing page from a very odd book she?s come across, although she?s not quite sure what the book actually says.

Story
Starting things off here we find Madlax taking on a rather difficult case. Enfant, the big organized crime unit around town has begun a search to find a young boy who entered Gazth-Sonika illegally from Nafrece. The mission itself is rather straightforward at its core, but it ends up being much more difficult than she thought it would be. This boy is actually trying to reach his father, a man named Min Dirk, which, in itself is nothing too spectacular. However, Min Dirk is the leader of the Galza resistance, and that alone is what makes this mission so much more dangerous.

The second episode here kicks off a three part storyline that brings about a lot of new content, but it also raises a lot of new questions. This whole ordeal brings about new information into Margaret?s background, most importantly her mysterious accident 12 years ago, as we find out she was aboard a plane that crashed. Some time following that crash she just happened to show up at her estate, although her memory had been completely wiped and we learn that she was the only survivor but she doesn?t remember anything prior to the accident.

As it stands, Margaret has discovered an old book, and she holds it quite close to her heart, although the book apparently has odd effects on those who read it, except for Margaret that is. The big problem here is that this book is missing a page, so she hires a biblio-detective, Eric Gillian, to find another copy of the book. The only problem is that the book itself isn?t really distinguishing in any way, it?s written in an odd language and it has no title or author.

After identifying that the book is written in an ancient Gazth-Sonika script, Eric heads off to the war torn country to find this elusive book. However, when he arrives and starts asking questions, Enfant becomes quite interested as they want any and everything associated with this book, and they want him dead, so he hires a bodyguard, who just happens to be Madlax, and Madlax just happens to have a random page to a seemingly random book she knows nothing about. What a coincidence.

Afterthoughts
Overall, this volume of Madlax has done a good job of bringing Margaret and Madlax closer together, even though they still have relatively little to do with each other. The show is getting deeper with each passing volume as more facets to the storyline become exposed and more characters begin to take up different roles, it's all playing out quite well thus far. Things still seem similar to Noir, and I shouldn't compare the two, but they are quite similar so far just in overall look and execution, and while that's not too bad, it's not something I still like to see , as this show is definitely unique on its own.

Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 (Archive on Friday, September 02, 2005)