There are plenty of stories out there that attempt to hook you by confusing you. You know the type. Serial Experiments Lain is a classic example, beginning with the bizarro back alleys of the Internet and a girl that seems to have overdrawn at the memory bank. These stories generally promise nothing, yet sometimes manage to deliver some decent insights. A variant of this kind is where the plot is just out of reach, subtly implying that the reward for enduring the trial is not unlike scoring a date with the Homecoming Queen. Stories of this variety subsist by teasing you until your interest has waned and they're forced to put out.

Make a hybrid of the two types and you've got the first volume of Madlax*. Volume One sports some entertaining action and great music, but it's also a merciless tease.

I'll be honest. I'm not wild about the confusion plots, unless there's a darn good reason for it. The Lain types only work if you remain confused at the end (but slightly less so), or if the plot hits on interesting social and philosophical topics. In Madlax, the confusion is embodied partly in the setting and partly in Margaret Burton, one of the main characters. We're told that she's working off a clean slate thanks to some previous traumatic event, and thus she is more observant than most. We don't feel the information overload that she undoubtedly feels, however, and the Margaret angle appears at first to be a contingency plan to hold back those who are unaffected by the tease.

Margaret's pondering whether her mystique-building exercises are worth the thinning of her fanbase.	Hawt!

The tease is perpetuated by several support characters who obviously know everything. They paint associations without a word as to their significance, like dropping random pieces of a puzzle on the table and knowing full well that the viewer won't be able to piece them together until much later. The rub with this kind of plot is that seeing the finished picture often does not make up for the headache of assembling it. There is too much focus on later; not enough on now.

The title character is in the now, at least, and she seems to be the only part of the story that is. Madlax is a sexy assassin, whose business comes through an intermediary named SSS (pronounced "three speed"). Her skills are perfect, but her personality is soft; relaxed. That she acts like a normal girl--even in the thick of combat--is what interests me about her. She is polite and complimentary, playful, and sometimes curious. She goes to work like it's a normal job, thinking about what she'll have for dinner when she's done. It's not that no assassin portrayed in film does any of these things, but Madlax is the only one I've seen where her job does not appear to affect her personality. She is rather likable from the start.

Aside from Madlax herself, the series has appeal in the form of an impressive audiovisual experience. Mr. Koichi Mashimo has shown a lot of expertise at directing scene in earlier Bee Train works, and he takes it up a notch in this series. He gives an artistic touch to Madlax and her work--geared toward maximum sex appeal, no doubt, but it is also for convincing us that her abilities are untouchable. Mashimo also appears to have gotten better at integrating Ms. Yuki Kajiura's music into his works. (This wasn't done so well in Noir and the .hack works.) As for Kajiura: Another great soundtrack. She provides a wide array of moving background music, and a few vocal numbers performed by Ms. Yuuka Nanri, including the opening and ending themes.

At the outset, Madlax does well at everything surrounding its title character. There is never a dull moment when she's around, it seems. The remaining parts of the show need to shape up, so as to not depend on an appearance by Madlax as its only redeeming quality. (Perhaps we'll learn something interesting about Margaret soon; that would help.) I would love to see Madlax avoid the plot troubles Noir had, and I think it has a good chance of doing so. We shall see what happens.

*When i first heard the name "Madlax", it sounded like an "X-Treme" version of a laxative. I even pieced together a slogan, which henceforth is my intellectual property and can only be used with permission: "Get Madlax, and get Mad regular!" Think it'll catch on?

Maybe they meant to call her "Madracks." More descriptive of the character, that.

Distributor: ADV Films
Creator: Kouichi Mashimo / Bee Train
Released: 2004

Video Quality: A
Audio Quality: A
Presentation: A
Content: B
Overall: B+