Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion Blu-ray Review
Egg-celent.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, December 30, 2012
Say what you will about anime (and let's face it, many anime fans aren't exactly shy about sharing their opinions),
there's one kind of odd fact about the genre that doesn't get mentioned all that often, namely the often extremely
weird titles various franchises have. Now some of these odd monikers are of course due to having been transliterated
from the original Japanese, but even names that are ostensibly in English can sometimes seem like they've been ported
over from some bizarre alien tongue. Case in point:
Mardock Scramble, which to some ears might sound like a
Klingon breakfast dish. What
sounds a bit odd, though, turns out to be a relatively straightforward science
fiction tinged action thriller (
relatively straightforward being the operative modifier, this being anime, after all),
an often absorbing look at a really interesting heroine named Rune Balot who, as I mentioned in my review of
Mardock Scramble: The First
Compression Director's Cut, combines elements of Lisabeth Salander from
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy
with just a dash of
La Femme
Nikita. Rune inhabits a dystopian future world that at times is more than a bit reminiscent of the one in
Blade Runner, where technology runs
amok and genetically engineered species have become, if not the norm, at least a more or less regular part of everyday
life.
To bring those of you unfamiliar with the
Mardock Scramble universe up to speed, I'll redact part of my
Mardock Scramble: The First
Compression Blu-ray review as a brief summary.
Mardock Scramble began life as a series of novels by Tow
Ubukata (
Chaos Legion, among many other
titles) which was later adapted into manga form and then, most recently, into a trilogy of anime OVAs, with
The First
Compression being the lead off episode. Set in a sort of indeterminate future world where a glistening
Blade
Runner-esque metropolis glows in shades of garish chartreuse, we're thrust into a drama that sees Balot reborn,
after Shell's vicious attack, as a sort of half-human, half-cyborg killing machine who has been engineered to be "better
than she was" according to a top secret protocol (an
illegal top secret protocol) named Mardock Scramble 09.
Balot's "savior" is the appropriately named Dr. Easter, who has resurrected the girl from her own ashes, but needs
something from her in return: she needs to turn state's evidence against Shell. That of course doesn't make Shell very
happy, and thus we have the makings of the first episode's central conflict. Once Balot awakens to her new life, she
finds herself ill equipped emotionally to handle the new demands being made
of
her. Dr. Easter may be well meaning, but he's also strangely unempathetic to Balot's unease. Balot soon finds an ally
in
what may end up being
Mardock Scramble's coolest and most memorable character: a little glowing gold mouse
named Oeufcocque ("eggshell" in English) who has, like Balot herself, been engineered and who is equipped with a
superhuman intelligence. Oeufcocque is able to assume just about any form (within reason—or at least what passes
for
reason in the wild world of
Mardock Scramble), and it turns out he has a somewhat surprising past within the
Mardock world of reengineered half-human half-cyborgs.
Mardock Scramble: The First Compression ended with a cliffhanger which in turn becomes the opening sequence
in what might initially seem to be an action packed second installment, but which actually turns out to be a bit more
ruminative and (as odd as it may sound) Biblically themed piece than the first OVA was.
Mardock Scramble: The
Second Combustion continues this franchise's rather peculiar obsession with all things "egg" (Oeufcocque being
only one of several such conceits), but
The Second Compression introduces a whole new layer of allegory when
Balot finds herself in a so-called Paradise after the opening battle, a place that
seems like it may indeed be a
veritable Garden of Eden, but which has its darker elements as well. Balot is likened to Eve in just one of many
references to Genesis, but as with the first
Mardock Scramble OVA, there's also an at times almost lunatic
intelligence at work that introduces all sorts of weird elements, like a super-intelligent talking dolphin that sounds for all
the world like a not so distant cousin of Charlie the talking
tuna from those old Starkist advertisements
(Herschel Bernardi fans, take note). There's also a character (one of the so-called "creators" of Paradise) who turns out
to be a head detached from a body which is enclosed in a kind of case that may remind some Matt Groening fans of any
number of
Futurama episodes.
While
Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion may in fact at least slightly disappoint some who come to it
expecting the nonstop action-fest that
The First Compression was, but there is a lot happening in this OVA,
albeit on a more personal level than in the first film. The budding connection between Rune and Oeufcocque is nicely
deepened, and becomes one of the few ways we see Rune totally vulnerable. Perhaps more importantly, we finally are
given some much needed back story on supervillain Boiled and
his connection both with Mardock and
Oeufcocque. The second half of this fairly short film (in either its theatrical cut or just slightly longer director's cut) plays
out in one of Shell's casinos and has some "caper" aspects to it which aren't fully fleshed out, but build some
momentum toward what should be an exciting third chapter.
Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Some are probably going to feel like
Mardock Scramble is experiencing something akin to a sophomore slump with
The Second Combustion, if for no other reason than this second OVA is relatively quieter and less concerned with
bloody shootouts (though there
are some of those, of course). But I would argue that this second installment is
simply the calm before the storm of what is probably going to be a gangbusters third act, and the audience
needs a
little breathing room to digest everything that went on in the first OVA. Even granting that the second OVA
isn't as
viscerally exciting as the first one was, there are still so many great little character beats here, not to mention some of the
most sumptuously gorgeous animation in recent memory, that any major complaints really should fall pretty much by the
wayside. I actually think I enjoyed this second OVA a bit more than the first, which certainly bodes well for the third.
Recommended.
