Review for Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion

Introduction

I wanted to do this right. Just like with the first film, my intention was to watch the theatrical version first in English, and then do a compare and contrast with the three minute longer director’s cut, this time in Japanese. Actually, I was planning to go the whole hog, and re-watch The First Compression to jog my memory regarding the characters and the story; after all, it’s been a year since the first film was released. That plan was rendered moot by those pesky unforeseen circumstances, in this case a wayward envelope courtesy of the Royal Maul. At the second time of trying, the Blu-ray check disc for Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion arrived two days before its scheduled release date. This is going to have to be a quickie review, and I’ll have to hope that my memory of the first film gets suitably jogged while watching it.

Mardock Scramble is the cyberpunk story from Tow Ubakata (writer of the Le Chevalier D’Eon anime) that has been adapted into three theatrical anime features. These movies are relatively short, but visually striking, and of significant production value. The first film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Kazé Entertainment through Manga last year, and the second film comes to Blu-ray and DVD now. Although prior to their home video release, they did do the anime film festival circuits together, so many fans will have already seen them prior to their dub and release. The same can’t be said for the third film, Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust, which was only released in Japan last September.


Kazé’s release of the first film wasn’t without its issues. It pretty much got a simultaneous worldwide release, and unlike the US disc, the UK disc was a pan-European release, which only had the English dub for the theatrical cut. More annoying was that the major extra features were hidden in the French menu, subtitled in French only. The other European nations including the UK got promo videos only as extras. The benefit of not being English became clear, and even clearer for the Second Combustion. The non-English speaking markets don’t have to wait on the US for an English dub to release their anime. Across the Channel, Kazé released the Second Combustion to eager European fans some six months ago. We in the UK have had to wait for Sentai to finish dubbing it. On the bright side we don’t have to worry about other language menus this time, or extra features hidden tantalisingly close behind a language GCSE...

15 year old Rune Balot has had a hard life. Abused by her family, she fell into prostitution. When businessman Shell Septinos offered her his ‘love’, it seemed like an escape from her troubles. Except Shell is a psychopath with a memory problem. Left for dead, but clinging to life, Rune Balot would be the ideal witness, but Dr Easter was almost too late in recruiting her help. It was only by invoking the Mardock Scramble 09 ordinance, that he was able to save Rune’s life, and that only by using prohibited technology to turn her into a cyborg. She was assigned an unusual advisor to help her get used to her new existence, the talkative shape-shifting mouse named Ouefcoque. But Shell hadn’t finished with her, and he assigned a grotesque group of assassins to erase the evidence against him. Worse, Ouefcoque’s former partner, Dimsdale Boiled was after them. The First Compression ended at the moment of their confrontation.

At the start of The Second Combustion, that confrontation is interrupted by Dr Easter, but it isn’t without cost to all involved. Easter takes Rune Balot and Ouefcoque to Paradise. Paradise was the research facility where the forbidden technology behind the cybernetic mouse and Rune Balot was perfected, and it’s the perfect hiding place for them to recover. While Ouefcoque heals, Rune Balot has to come to terms with the darkness within her, and the pain it caused Ouefcoque. But Paradise also offers unparalleled access to the information networks, and Rune Balot learns how to interface with the system thanks to another mute cyborg, Tweedledee, and his dolphin lover Tweedledim. She learns that Shell Septinos is keeping the memories that implicate him stored on high denomination casino chips. To get that evidence, she and Easter will have to walk into one of Shell’s casinos and win... and win big. Before that though, they still have Dimsdale Boiled to deal with, as he is a cyborg that also hails from Paradise, and he knows just where his prey is hiding.

Picture

Just like the first film, Mardock Scramble: The Second Combustion gets a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p resolution on this Blu-ray disc. Unlike that first disc though, this is the UK retail version, with no other language materials on it, and while I might have nitpicked about some fine aliasing on that first film, there’s no such nitpicking here. The Second Combustion is pristine, it looks fantastic, and at no point was I aware of any kind of compression artefact, aliasing, or digital banding. The film maintains the design style from the first movie, a fantastic colour palette, brilliant character designs, and a breathtakingly imaginative future world. This film exceeds the first in terms of fantasy imagery, especially with the other-worldly Paradise, and the lush and decadent casino scenes. Detail levels are high throughout, and the animation is excellent. Not all anime shows a major difference when it comes to DVD and Blu-ray, as the source resolution is usually less than 1080p. Not so for Mardock Scramble, as this is a film that really has to be seen on Blu-ray. The DVD version is like watching a pirate VHS tape in comparison.

The images used in this review are sourced from the PR, and aren’t necessarily representative of the final retail release.

Sound

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English and Japanese, and this time around both language options are available for the Theatrical and Director’s Cut versions. The Japanese audio comes with player forced subtitles, which are close to Sentai’s dub script. I didn’t notice any significant divergence in the subtitles though; they flow well and are accurately timed to the Japanese dialogue. Just like the first film, the audio really is designed well, and comes across with suitable swagger in the action sequences, and with great ambience in the fantastic future world settings. The surround gets a full workout, and this is a wholly immersive film in both languages, although I only sampled the English dub this time. From my brief sample, it did seem comparable to the treatment given the first film, and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Once again, a Kazé disc refuses to show caption translations and translated dialogue simultaneously. Fortunately for Mardock Scramble, it’s only an issue in the extra features.

Extras

This time it’s a UK specific release, no other language menus to worry about, and no hidden extra features. The disc autoplays with the trailer for Bleach: Hellverse, before loading up a very pretty animated menu, from where you can set your language options, jump to any of the six chapter points, play the film from the beginning, or look at the bonus menu.

The Bonus Features is where you’ll find the Theatrical Cut of the film, this lasts 62 minutes, as opposed to the 65 minute director’s cut.

On The Way To The Movie Theaters lasts 23 minutes, and is a series of panel discussions featuring Tow Ubakata, the cast and crew, as they follow the Second Combustion from the completion of its animation, casting and dubbing, to its premiere. It’s here where captions are un-translated, and you won’t always know who is speaking.

The Promotional Video is a 2-minute trailer for the film.

Of much interest will be the Film 3 Preview, where you can see 3 minutes of trailer for Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust.

Conclusion

In my review for The First Compression, I opined that this Mardock Scramble trilogy really isn’t three separate movies, it’s more one movie split into three. The First Combustion was an explosive first act, a visually arresting hook that draws you into the film, and builds the tension until... BAM! Cliff-hanger. That would make the Second Combustion the middle act of the film, and sure enough, if you were tuning in merely expecting more of the same intensity as the First Compression, you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, The Second Combustion is where the story puts the brakes on a tad, slows things down, and becomes more thoughtful. It’s here where the narrative expands, where exposition is committed, relationships develop, and characters are explored. It’s where the meat of what makes a story meaningful, and emotionally relevant is, and taken in the context of the three act structure, The Second Combustion really works well.


Of course if you miss all that sex and violence, there is the resolution to that explosive cliff-hanger from the first movie, there are moments of random nudity, there’s a psychopath randomly slicing off limbs, and there are giant flying sharks raining down blood. That’s Giant Frickin’ Flying Sharks! Once again Mardock Scramble chows down on the meat and veg of Cyberpunk and spits out imagery that is destined to blow your mind.

The film really has two arcs to it. The first half is the aftermath of the confrontation with Boiled. Not only do Rune Balot and Ouefcoque have to heal in body and mind, but they also have to mend the strained relationship between them. Ouefcoque feels he’s let Balot down, while she feels she has betrayed his trust. Balot is helped in this by meeting kindred spirits Tweedledee and Tweedledim, another ‘damaged’ cyborg, unable to speak and his dolphin partner, and she can see a partnership that works through mutual affection. It doesn’t hurt that Tweedledee is an innocent who is wholly welcoming and trusting of her. It’s here that they also learn of Shell’s secrets, and formulate a plan to move forward. At the same time, we learn of Boiled’s past, as he recuperates, and attempts once more to retrieve Ouefcoque.


Balot and Easter’s plan involves a casino job, and with Ouefcoque at her side, Balot is in the perfect position to play the system. The final half of the film follows the group as they take on Shell’s casino in an attempt to win the chips on which he stores his incriminating memories. This is the pure mechanics of the con here, the sort of thing you see in shows like Hustle and films like Ocean’s Eleven, and it works a treat in Mardock Scramble. You probably won’t believe me when I say that the highlight of the film (even given Flying Sharks) is a conversation that Balot has with the woman working a roulette wheel, as the two try and outwit each other. But I found it the most mesmerising fifteen minutes in either of the Mardock Scramble films to date.

The Second Combustion also ends on a cliff-hanger. It’s a more sedate, less explosive and more narrative cliff-hanger, as Easter and Balot finally break into the high stakes game where people play for the big chips, but it is a cliff-hanger nevertheless. Naturally that will make the wait for The Third Exhaust just as painful. When it comes to memorable Cyberpunk anime, Mardock Scramble is two-thirds of the way there. If the final instalment lives up to the standard set by the first two, this will become an instant classic. I just hope that the third act does this story justice.