Mardock Scramble: The First Compression

Rune Balot is a down-and-out teen prostitute in Mardock City. One day, she's picked up by an ambitious casino manager named Shell who gives her everything she could want. Renewed by a false innocence, a false past, and now the false life Shell has given her, Balot feels grateful. However, she can't help but be curious about why he's done so much for her, so she does some research about his past on a computer. This turns out to be a mistake which will change her life greatly. When Shell finds out what she's done, he attempts to burn her to death by blowing up her car.

Due to the high crime rate in Mardock, a new law called "Scramble 09" has given police carte blanche to take extreme and otherwise illegal measures to revive crime witnesses. With this in mind, they allow a professor to bring Balot back from the brink of death by reassembling her entire body with reinforced synthetic fiber. When she finally wakes up, her confused mental state eventually turns toward revenge as Shell is revealed as her killer.

(Source: Nippon Cinema)

Balot, Rune Main

Hayashibara, Megumi Japanese

Penteano, Œufcoque Main

Yashima, Norito Japanese

Welldone the Pussyhand Supporting

Tanaka, Masahiko Japanese

Septinos, Shell Supporting

Nakai, Kazuya Japanese

Boiled, Dimsdale Supporting

Isobe, Tsutomu Japanese

Medium the Fingernail Supporting

Wakamoto, Norio Japanese

Dr. Easter Supporting

Touchi, Hiroki Japanese

Mincemeat the Wink Supporting

Miyake, Kenta Japanese

Flesh the Pike Supporting

Waki, Tomohiro Japanese

Rare the Hair Supporting

Kanai, Mika Japanese

Nakanishi, Go Producer

Kishimoto, Reigo Producer

Kudou, Susumu Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Foster, Steven Script, ADR Director

Reviews

Nov 7, 2019

mouthpiece

Recommended

Review up to the second movie. Will edit as I watch more.

This trilogy of movies had a rough time while getting green light for production. It was originally planed to be animated by studio GONZO, but after its almost bankruptcy the project was handed over to a new studio on the block, called Go Hands. This studio and the director haven’t made any good anime so far (their roster is full of crappy ecchis) but the final poject can’t possibly be any worse than that piece of shit that is GONZO. So I like this change.

So what is this show about? It is based on ... an award-winning science fiction novel concerning the attempts of a law-enforcing organization to fight crime by resurrecting victims of crooks and using them against said crooks as witnesses in trials. In one such case, a young girl is resurrected to stand in trial against a casino owner who has the habit of killing his lovers.

STORY SECTION: 6/10 [OBJECTION !]
Analysis: Premise 2/2, Pacing 2/2, Complexity 1/2, Plausibility 1/2, Conclusion 0/2

- As far as the premise goes, Mardock Scramble delivers in spades, as we hardly get trials in anime and I never saw another show where the dead are used as witnesses. Closest thing you can find is avenging ghosts (Mononoke) and supernatural vigilantes (Gungrave).
- The pacing is good for what the story is all about. You get all sorts of events going on, which don’t feel like they drag more than they should. A minor issue would be all the scenes where they describe the technologies they use; it will feel like they talk too much and nothing happens. Especially for those who don’t care about long explanations.
- Despite the fancy sci-fi dressing, the plot is not complicating. It is easy to follow and even resembles a typical action flick half the time.
- Despite the numerous explanatory monologues around how each technology works, the story still has major plausibility issues. After awhile you think they are using spells instead of microwaves or nanomachines and several characters simply make no sense. How is Shell remembering his past when it is constantly deleted? Why is Balot given so much access to super powerful technology when she is just a witness? How do you turn burned people to blue diamonds? How do you expect to get away with killing a witness when she has already been part of a trial and you are living in a world where everything is monitored? And many more.

CHARACTER SECTION: 5/10 [What do you expect me to do, turn to a handsome adult male ?]
Analysis: Presence 2/2, Personality 1/2, Backdrop 1/2, Development 1/2, Catharsis 0/2

The characters are not complicating to understand, nor are their actions mysterious and multi-layered. They are definitely very confusing because they usually do things that seem too hard to buy. They are otherwise cool and extreme enough to pay attention to but also think and act usually in a very linear or simplistic manner. So they are fun but not high-caliber material.
- Balot is the main heroine, a teen prostitute that is killed and resurrected with fancy technology to be a witness against her killer. She also gets this magic golden mouse called Oeufcoque (try to say that fast 10 times straight) which turns her to a super soldier that can do all sorts of fighting acrobatics. She is a tragic character; made to have a very weird idea of what love is. She only knows how to express it through sex and constantly feels betrayed and manipulated. Gets easily crazy on power and revenge too.
- Oeufcoque the Pokemon looks like a cute little mouse but in reality is the most hax mascot you have seen in your life. It can transform to anything better than T-2000, it can sense danger better than Spiderman, it can talk more philosophical than an average GITS character, and still look cute as a pie.
- Shell is your typical megalomaniac villain who likes to make money, have sex, and turn women to jewelry. He also has this condition where he must constantly take medication and have his memories deleted. Nothing about this concept has been exploited yet story-wise.
- Boiled is the evil henchman, an ex partner of the golden mouse. He seems to think he lives to constantly prove to others the vanity of life. He has cool gravity-control powers.
- And some goons with the craziest names, such as Pussyhand and Rare the Hair. Each one has a body member fetish and loves to wear it all the time by ripping it off its current owner. Ok, these guys are basically one-dimensional comic book villains but sure are more fun than your average faceless mook.

ART SECTION: 9/10 [I see nude people. –When ? – All the time !]
Analysis: General Artwork 2/2, Character Figures 1/2, Backgrounds 2/2, Animation 2/2, Visual Effects 2/2

Superb production values with only a few glitches in storyboard continuity (some poses seem off when the camera switches angle). The whole Mardock city is drawn to look like a fancy futuristic place full of aerial roads, digital machinery everywhere, and holograms scattered for decoration. There is smooth animation and funky visual effects to really believe there is heavy sci-fi going on in here.

There is also a HUGE amount of nude, sex, gore, and bloodshed in here, so keep it to a high place little kids won’t reach (damn rascals know how to use a BD player from the age of 4). I can even say it has TOO much of them and one can wonder if it would be so attracting without them. It kinda feels like they blended a serious setting and story will lots of guilty pleasure for kicks, so it is questionable if this degrades or elevates the movie. It is bold and cool though and I did have fun with the whole crazy premise of teen prostitute and mutated freaks being blasted to a pulp.

One thing many have notices is how the feel of the movie is very close to the first Ghost in the Shell movie and a very violent/erotic OVA called Kite. Especially for the former, you can literally find the exact same scenes in it. Not to mention there is a character names Shell… Indirect tribute or not, Mardock Scramble is definitely nowhere near as mature and philosophical as GITS, since it has too much guilty pleasure and crazy characters.

SOUND SECTION: 8/10 [Do you love me ? –YES – Then prove it by letting me rape you. – SILENCE]
Analysis: Voice Acting 2/3, Music Themes 3/4, Sound Effects 3/3

Nothing much to say here. Voice acting was good for everyone, although those mutant crooks really makes you iffy with their stupid cartoony pinch. Music themes were gloomy and sad but not exactly memorable. Sound effects were great for the context of the film.

VALUE SECTION: 6/10 [I like making precious blue diamonds out of women]
Analysis: Historical Value 1/3, Rewatchability 1/3, Memorability 4/4
I doubt it will have any significance to the fandom other than being a half-serious GITS. Also, there isn’t much to get from a second watch, other than watching a half-hentai. Other than that, it is very well made and quite memorable for its setting and crazy characters.

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 8/10
I enjoyed it as a whole but it definitely doesn’t try too much to get serious about it. There is way too much magical technology in here which makes all sorts of dangers to feel easy to overcome. Also the characters are too simplistic and defined through their sexual preferences or deviant fetishes to the point they become caricatures. I still need to see if they manage to develop the idea further than that and offer us a much more elaborate plot later on.

OVERALL: 7/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Nov 25, 2022

DewDue

Mixed Feelings

My 3 AM thoughts on this 3-star movie that I watched 3 months ago.
This review is written out of boredom.
____
I randomly got the urge to watch "Hellsing Abridged" (not to be confused with (Hellsing Ultimate), and during that scene in Seras' backstory, I got reminded of this movie's beginning.

So, in the most generic cyberpunk-ish dystopian advanced civilization, we follow this particular big shot with an underaged girl wrapped in his arms on a perfectly dark night in a perfectly isolated automobile in a perfectly isolated woodland, doing what the night asks except it's far from romantic. After a few minutes of doing his _thing_, the ... guy gets out of the car, locks the girl in, and then... BAM! The car explodes after a very graphic depiction of a young helpless girl frantically fighting to rescue her broken life.
This is insignificant. What counts is that an unaffiliated third party comes to her aid, despite the fact that he had been closely studying everything prior to the explosion with his heat vision goggles. They only save her psychologically by implanting her with an artificial fiber body, which completely messes up her mental state and nearly kills her, due to some law that allows the police to resuscitate the criminal witness. Now, this befuddled cyborg must defend her 'innocence,' as the mistake known as "Her Past" haunts her on both a societal and psychological level. Fortunately, she is being supervised by a professor com' scientist com' gambler and an AI resembling a rat, but how much can they handle this psychologically unstable cyborg while evading a hunter appointed by the villain?

TL;DR,
What if Batou was actually a villain and Kusanagi was actually a confused teenage girl in an edgy Ghost in the Shell rip-off?

One clear thing while watching the movie is the over-saturated colors. The entire movie is bright and shiny everywhere and every time, which is both a plus and a drawback. Plus, in the sense, it's ✨bright✨, and drawback in the sense, that it's so bright that it makes me avert my eyes. There are, however, some slick gun animations with some good camera usage and choreography. This is something that appears throughout the trilogy, so if anything, it gets entertaining eventually. Why eventually though?

Because the story is just edgy and pretentious (This goes down the lane as you progress into the trilogy). Not even in the entertainingly edgy but in the most boring sense. Like the court where our mentally complicated victim can only answer in a Yes/No/No Comment throughout the trial, or the whole irrelevant gambling plot that happens in movie 2, or whatever the fuck happens in movie 3. The story progressively degrades from being a mildly mind-bending character study, into edgy bullshit drama. As a trilogy it really fails, because you don't feel like you watched a coherent story unraveling character pasts or decisions, but 3 separate films with 3 different plot lines got superficially intertwined. You are better off spending those 3 hours on Ghost in the Shell 1 and 2, even as a rewatch it would be a better experience than this.

While 2 & 3 movies are definitely not worth the time, the first compression, however, is definitely worth experiencing because of this mildly mind-bending (I'm using this word for the 'Intelligence' effect. Don't take it too literally) character study between Balot and Oeufcoque. _Balotto_ is a confused cyborg who already has a damaged mind and past as a human being. Oeufcoque, while being an AI, shows genuine human emotion upon hearing this emotionless girl asking for its love, a cute & tiny rat-looking AI's love, and the movie does a surprisingly good job by not making this weird but making their interactions, endearing.

But that's all the credit I give for the movie in the writing department. Anything and everything else is just a poorly written edge fest with very little damn giving to portraying themes or invoking drama.
____
Who should watch this?

If you want Ghost in the Shell but edgy, then watch the entire trilogy.
If you only want good parts and don't want to waste your time, then just watch movie 1 and leave it there. Or
If you want to see a pretense adult film with an overly sexual animation of a r*** victim, then go ahead and satisfy your kinks for all I care.
____
Not a good trilogy but not a bad introduction.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Aug 9, 2022

RyanSpring

Not Recommended

This review is for the entire three movie trilogy, not just the first movie, as they are essentially one giant movie broken up into three parts.

I purchased the DVDs for all three of these after watching a trailer and reading the base premise. Dark, hypersexual and hyperviolent? That is about as up my alley as it gets! Unfortunately, I think that representation is significantly overblown and there's not nearly as much of any of those things as certain reviews would have you believe.

I didn't like this series as much as I'd hoped I would. It has a lot of problems that there just isn't any ... way around. Starting with the positives, the visuals are absolutely stunning, and this is easily the strongest individual aspect of the product. I'd also praise the originality of the story. However, major pacing issues plague this entire series, with an egregious example being the entire first half of the third movie spent sitting at a table playing blackjack, but this is but one of many examples. The tone, likewise, is inconsistent. It felt to me as if the anime lacked depth or purpose and wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be or what it wanted the viewer to take away from it.

The ending as a whole felt abrupt and forgettable. It did not make me feel anything one way or another and that too- a lack of memorable or emotionally impactful moments- also plagued this entire series. There are SOME sex scenes, SOME dark moments and SOME action scenes, but they are few and far between and the majority of the anime is fairly slow and boring. Also, the story as a whole is really weird and can be quite difficult to follow. After completing this I felt much the same as I felt after completing The Garden of Sinners- "I have no idea what I just watched, but, it was great to look at!"

At the end of the day there's a potentially interesting concept and setting here dragged down into absolute mediocrity by ultra rough around the edges execution. Outside of its excellent visuals this anime simply lacks polish. The characters aren't fleshed out, the pacing is off and it's not an easy watch in the context of understanding what you're watching. I don't walk away with a bitter distaste for this anime in my mouth, but if I'm being honest I'd have to stop short of recommending it to anyone. It feels very skippable.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 6-6.5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 6

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sentai Filmworks Acquires Mardock Scramble

According to their official press release, Sentai Filmworks has announced their license of Mardock Scramble, the movie trilogy whose second film will premiere this S...read more

Jun 21, 2011 12:29 AM by Naruleach | Discuss (13 comments)

	Poll: Mardock Scramble 1: The First Compression Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Kraker2k - Nov 21, 2010	110 replies	by Archean-Return »» Oct 2, 2023 8:53 AM
	Thoughts on Mardock Scramble LightningSoul - Sep 4, 2017	7 replies	by Salty-GB »» Jul 23, 2021 5:45 PM
	/ delete_plz - Jun 7, 2010	7 replies	by ZaMpa »» Mar 31, 2011 4:00 AM