Ranked #1012

Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion

I make alot of comparisons to the first film in this review. This is also my first review I have posted onto this site, so I'm welcome to all sorts of feedback you may have.

I watched the first film less than a month ago, and I came away from it feeling rather under whelmed, but after finishing the second film I feel like this series has redefined itself and proved that it can still deliver a rather good experience. As with the first film, the runtime is just over an hour; less so if you count the credits but a number of things have been improved on.

In the first film, you get a feel of Rune's problems. Her vague past gives off an idea of how she cannot come into normal contact with another human being, and the introduction of her coming back to life in a Robocop-esc feel in which her whole body was reassembled with reinforced synthetic fibre's further her conflicts of loneliness and inability to trust a human being. The only person she seems comfortable with is Oeufcocque, who is an organic intelligence who can transform into either her skin-tight outfit and weapon. His quirky personality really brings something different to the serious atmosphere.

The first film felt like it was trying to compress too much information into one hour, leaving the plot rather vague. It also had some pretty bad pacing issues, being way too fast. However, the second film improved on it's storytelling and didn't try to give you too much to grip onto, and slowed down to a very reasonable pace. Even in the span of one hour, I felt that they took their time and were not forced to rush for the most part.

The Art is just as, if not more amazing than it was in the first film. they had a lot more opportunity's in this one because of Paradise. The mix of 2D, colouring and 3D CG blended amazingly well together. I really have to praise GoHands for their outstanding animation which really did liven up my experience. I don't usually judge an anime for it's art, but I personally love seeing gorgeous artwork with fluid and crisp animation. It grabs my attention a lot more than an anime that has sub-par artwork. One effect that can turn off people watching is that there is an ongoing grain effect throughout the film. If you have watched Kara no Kyoukai 5, you'll know what I am talking about. However, I feel that it works very well not just alongside with the animation, but also with the Cyberpunk atmosphere.

During the first film, I really didn't care much for the sound and music. I thought that it didn't do a good job of fitting the dark, gritty and Sci-Fi-esc feel of this film. This was all improved in the second film however. When I think of Cyberpunk or Sci-Fi, the music, in my opinion, that most suits the theme is a mixture of Ambient electronic and upbeat fast paced Techno. Because of the lack of fight scenes, there wasn't much in the deal of fast paced tracks. However, I felt that the OST was very ambient, in which gave out a soothing aura. I do have to say, with what little music and sound they used, I was still impressed.

The first film had a lot of trouble with developing the characters. I blame the way the first film handled itself when it came to trying to fit everything in such a small time span. It gave the characters very little time to actually develop, and give you a reason to actually care for them. Very little changed in character development in the second film. Only new 4 characters were introduced, but they lacked a lot of substance since they had very little screen time. Doctor Easter was once again pushed to the side to allow Rune Balot and Oeufcoqcue more time to shine. I'm not really complaining, since I like these two characters; especially Oeufcoqcue, but with what limited time they had, I felt the characters were portrayed fairly averagely. The villains didn't get much screen time, but that isn't saying much since the group in the first film had little no chance of getting any development at all. The Assassin that follows Rune was only in a couple of scenes, and had his back story very vaguely hinted it in a simple flashback. Hopefully in the third film he get's more time to shine, since I find him to be very mysterious and interesting; even with his cold exterior and super serious mass murderous attitude.

I really have to say that this film was a very vast improvement compared to the first film. it solved most of the pacing problems and the OST choice. We got more information about the world where this story is set, through the introduction of Paradise in the first half and the casino in the second. A rather gritty Cyberpunk themed anime with a small theme of trust, partnership and morality. The use of Symbolism is beautiful, especially within Paradise. This series really is a breath of fresh air and I really recommend that this is a well worth experience. This film is slightly less graphic than the first, which had small scenes of sex, rape and incest.
read more

The first Mardock Scramble movie had some…well, a lot of problems, but there was something genuinely fascinating at its core that I really enjoyed. The relationship between teenage prostitute turned mute cyborg assassin Balot and her inter-dimensional transforming intelligent golden mouse Oeufcoque had this wonderful contrasting symmetry. Their dialogue revealed more about their characters through their contrasting viewpoints. Sure, the movie also had a man who grafted a vagina onto the palm of his hand, but it was ultimately centred on their relationship and that’s what made me come back to the sequel movie. Second Combustion has homosexual dolphins, Norio Wakamoto being eaten by flying sharks, and a completely baffling shift to gambling as though the author got really into Kaiji while he was writing it.

Mardock Scramble has always had a bit of a problem with symbolism. Its shtick of characters being named after eggs is probably supposed to tie into rebirth, but it’s so shoddily implemented. It’s as though Ubukata read the first page of ‘Symbolism for Dummies’ but got totally the wrong idea from it, like he read a book on how to chop down a tree with an axe but then stuck the axe up his backside and started to gnaw at the tree trunk. The contrast between how blatant the naming convention comes across is completely at odds with the effort it then goes into making it relevant. In the end it all comes across as incredibly silly.

Or maybe it’s supposed to be silly, what with the first half of the movie being spent largely on Balot swimming nude with a homosexual dolphin while jumping through a sort of cyberspace. What the hell this was supposed to represent was completely lost on my mind, not having taken the requisite amount of hallucinogenic drugs beforehand. If it was meant to be a big fat joke though, it goes against the tone of the movie. Norio Wakamoto being eaten by flying sharks was possibly supposed to be hilarious, but everyone looked so stone faced about the event that I just felt confused. Plus why was Norio was relevant too the story in the first place?

What really kills that first half of the movie is that Oeufcoque is nowhere to be seen. He spends a solid half hour in a vat looking like something I threw up after a kebab. Without him, there’s no direction. Perhaps intentional, given that Balot is effectively aimless without her golden mouse, but considering how capable Mardock Scramble had proven itself to be with regular old symbolism, the idea that it could pull off this level of meta-narrative is hard to swallow. That said, once Oeufcoque dresses back up in that adorable little set of dungarees and starts talking to Balot, I finally saw a glimpse of what kept me watching this franchise in the first place.

And then they went to a casino, and suddenly it becomes an entirely different story. The gambling segment doesn’t tie into Balot’s relationship with Oeufcoque, nor does it do anything to develop her character and put her further on the path to redemption and rebuilding. It’s all supposed to be a battle of wits with other gamblers. My guess is halfway through writing this book, Ubukata got obsessed with gambling tricks and had to include that in everything he was writing at the time.

It’s not even a well-written gambling story. A large part of the appeal in stuff like One Outs or Kaiji is being able to follow the events and understand their strategies. When Tokuchi Toua pretends he’s going to throw a certain kind of breaking ball, you can understand he’s done this to give the batter he’s facing something to latch onto which means he ignores all other signs. Stuff like that, you can follow the reasoning and the strategy. With the roulette table segment that takes up a solid 15-20 minutes of this movie, the entire strategy boils down to “can I correctly calculate how the dealer has thrown the ball into the roulette wheel”. There’s some mind games going on, but the movie does a miserable job of conveying what these mind games are. Combine this with how irrelevant the entire piece is to the overall story, and it feels like a massive waste of time. read more