マドラックス

MADLAX

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
26
RELEASE
September 27, 2004
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

In the country of Gazth-Sonika, civil war rages. There, a mercenary called Madlax plies her trade, with almost supernatural skill. In the seemingly peaceful country of Nafrece, Margaret Burton lives a tranquil life. As separate as their lives may seem, the two are connected by ties of mystery, and by a holy book that is also sought by the shadowy organisation, Anfan. As Margaret and Madlax follow the path of their destiny, they come ever closer to uncovering the truth - with no guarantee that it is a truth they can bear to learn.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Madlax
Sanae Kobayashi
Elenore Baker
Ai Uchikawa
Margaret Burton
Houko Kuwashima
Vanessa Rene
Satsuki Yukino
Friday Monday
Masashi Ebara
Carrossea Doon
Toshiyuki Morikawa
Limelda Jorg
Aya Hisakawa
Baggis
Nozomu Sasaki
SSS
Jin Urayama
Laetitia
Tomoko Kaneda
Chris Krana
Miyu Irino
Nakhl
Eric Gillain
Hiroaki Hirata
Charlie Winston
Tokuyoshi Kawashima

EPISODES

Dubbed

| | |

Not available on crunchyroll

REVIEWS

Morrhaxan
86/100
What do you mean to do from now on? (spoiler free)
In the beginning, Madlax seems to be a typical war anime with a mix of conspiracy and espionage included in it. Slowly but surely, anime is starting to convert itself into a different genre, by revealing mysteries and answering the viewer's questions one by one. Combining it with other things such as music, characters, etc. we receive a beautifully yet slow story, accompanied by marvelous music, memorable characters, and... bad animation? Well, nothing is perfect, in the end.
Chapter one -story-
The story of Madlax takes place in the fictional countries Nafrece and Gazth-Sonika. Personally, I would say that Nafrece is more important during the 1st half of the anime, while Gazth-Sonika takes this spot during the second half, however that is just my opinion. As the story progresses, we are introduced to more characters and we learn more about their past, desires for the future, etc. As I stated before, the anime changes itself later on, however, I cannot reveal what exactly happens because it is strongly related to the main plot in the series.
Chapter two -characters-
There isn't much to talk about the characters in Madlax except that they are amazing. Some may appear weird at the beginning (I'm looking at you Margaret) but later on it's alleviated and explained. The main character, Madlax, works as an assassin for mysterious somebody called SSS operating mostly in Gazth-Sonika. It turns out that the main character completely forgot her past and she wants to bring back her memories. Other characters are all connected by different events happening during the anime, and I leave it to you to experience it by yourself.
Chapter three -music-
The music in this anime is one of the best I've ever heard in any other anime. It fits this series extremely well and I have fallen in love with it. Here's an example:

Chapter four -animation-
Time to finally get to something which is not so well done in the anime. Unfortunately, the animation feels really outdated and slow, and facial expressions are also a weaker side of the show. Both those things are very visible throughout the series and unfortunately, I had to lower the final score.
Epilogue -conclusion-
To conclude my review, I recommend this series to anyone patient enough to wait for the answers to all of the questions this anime brings upon the watcher, and who does not mind outdated animation.
And, for right now, I'd like... pasta...

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WeatherReport
77/100
I am the pain of when we touched truth
This review contains spoilers

Madlax is a largely overlooked action/mystery anime from 2004. It is a part of what people seem to call the “girls with guns trilogy” made by the now-defunct studio Bee Train, the other two being Noir and El Cazador de la Bruja. This is the first one I have seen from these three shows and I will get to other two soon after, and it was a pretty good watch.

The story is set in the fictional countries of Gazth-Sonika, which is in a state of civil war, and Nafrece. It progresses in a somewhat slow manner compared to other action anime I have seen but I never had an issue with it. As it goes, various events occur which are related to the overarching mystery and the show does a pretty decent of connecting them in a way that makes sense. The OST is fantastic. It’s composed by Yuki Kajiura (Madoka Magica, Garden of Sinners, Princess Principal, etc), and you have probably seen me gush about her soundtracks for a quite a while now.

Madlax, the titular protagonist, is an intriguing character. She’s a badass mercenary who’s one of the best people at her job, but she’s also a kind person who hates war and laments all the kills she has to make. What she really wants is to put an end to the war as quickly as possible and thus, fights towards that end. She doesn’t have any memories from before 12 years ago, and she consistently seeks to find out what actually happened with her and how did she come to be this way.

Her journey to unravel what’s going on and how it connects to her is nicely done. Eventually she becomes friends with Vanessa Rene, a woman who seeks to expose the wrongdoings occurring behind the scenes, and forming a rivalry with Limelda Jorg, the bodyguard of one of her victims. Both of them contribute significantly to her growth while being interesting characters on their own, especially Vanessa who was tied with Madlax as my favorite one. Madlax will fight in her normal attire half the time, but switch to dresses other times… for some reason. (She’s just built different like that)

The ending is satisfying and a thematically fitting end to the story. It’s revealed at the end that Madlax was actually a part of Margaret all along, her desire to survive her father’s attack after being influenced by Friday Monday given a physical form by the gate’s power. The fact that Margaret had basically ended up killing her own father wasn’t something she could bear, so she created Madlax to make her bear that burden. But she decides to accept Madlax as a part of herself instead of running away from the truth and erasing her, as she accepts the malice inside her to kill Friday Monday for good. It’s kind of an unconventional story decision for one of the main characters to end their journey with accepting a violent part of themselves, as most stories will emphasize on the positive stuff, so this was cool to see. It especially fits with how Madlax is a kind killer who shows compassion for people despite what she does, while Margaret, who's supposed to be a normal girl, takes on her side that decides killing to be a necessary end for certain people. She uses the gate’s power to let Madlax and Leticia live as their own existences, as they have their own wills and memories, instead of assimilating them into herself. And thus, Margaret lives on with the crimes on her conscience instead of failing to acknowledge them, and Madlax will likely put an end to Gazth-Sonika’s war for good now that Enfant is no longer in control.

The shortcomings:
-The most obvious one is the animation quality. It’s clearly low budget and doesn’t look too good. For an action anime, this isn’t a great thing to have. It’s decent at some points and gets the job done but most of the time, it leaves you wanting for more.
-Margaret is kind of a bland character for 90% of the show. Her conclusion is pretty good but she’s still kinda unremarkable for the rest of show beforehand.
-Friday Monday is a meh antagonist. Least favorite character.
-The supernatural aspects aren’t too great. Personally it felt like they weren’t explained and implemented as well as they should have. How they affect the plot somewhat make sense in terms of the actions taking place, but it needed to be more in-depth to be actually convincing.
-There are too many repeated scenes via flashbacks

Overall, I can recommend it. Pretty good watch if you like action and mystery anime.
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