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About.com Rating
A beauty to behold
I’ve always been amused by how the more modern the SF, the more the future we’re shown seems to be like the present. It’s hard to tell how far into the future Mardock Scramble is set, and I think some of that is by design: cars drive on elevated roadways that appear to be made out of nothing but light, and Oeufcoque himself breaks more than a few known physical laws in his transformation sequences.
Elsewhere, bums huddle around ashcan fires and law-abiding citizens go shopping at the mall. Because there’s still so much that’s familiar, it grounds the goings-on in reality all the more. Doubly so because the story’s populated with people that draw in our attention and keep it.
Scramble looks and sounds terrific, more than a few notches above the usual anime product. The look of it was courtesy of animation studio GoHands—a relatively new production outfit, but there’s nothing about Scramble that seems unprofessional. The color palette, in particular, is a standout: the whole thing manages to look both lush and grim at the same time, like Blade Runner (obviously a major influence) at its finest. And the sound—an electronic score with a broad range of textures and influences—is by another name I’m not familiar with, Conisch (also of Appleseed XIII and Linebarrels of Iron), but based on this score his will be a name to watch as well.
Don't fret - there's more
If there is any one flaw here, it’s that this is only part one of a projected three parts, and it ends on such a brutal cliffhanger that you’ll be howling when the credits roll.
Then again, the subtitle is The First Compression—same as the first installment in the novel, which ends in precisely the same way. But this is actually good news, since Ubukata wrote the screenplay himself. It means he did a fine job of preserving everything that mattered: the emotions, the ideas, and most of all the touchingly human and vulnerable Balot, who keeps this most unlikely of stories pinned down firmly at its center. It’s just going to be very hard to wait for the next installment.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
About.com Rating
A beauty to behold
I’ve always been amused by how the more modern the SF, the more the future we’re shown seems to be like the present. It’s hard to tell how far into the future Mardock Scramble is set, and I think some of that is by design: cars drive on elevated roadways that appear to be made out of nothing but light, and Oeufcoque himself breaks more than a few known physical laws in his transformation sequences.
Elsewhere, bums huddle around ashcan fires and law-abiding citizens go shopping at the mall. Because there’s still so much that’s familiar, it grounds the goings-on in reality all the more. Doubly so because the story’s populated with people that draw in our attention and keep it.
Scramble looks and sounds terrific, more than a few notches above the usual anime product. The look of it was courtesy of animation studio GoHands—a relatively new production outfit, but there’s nothing about Scramble that seems unprofessional. The color palette, in particular, is a standout: the whole thing manages to look both lush and grim at the same time, like Blade Runner (obviously a major influence) at its finest. And the sound—an electronic score with a broad range of textures and influences—is by another name I’m not familiar with, Conisch (also of Appleseed XIII and Linebarrels of Iron), but based on this score his will be a name to watch as well.
Don't fret - there's more
If there is any one flaw here, it’s that this is only part one of a projected three parts, and it ends on such a brutal cliffhanger that you’ll be howling when the credits roll.
Then again, the subtitle is The First Compression—same as the first installment in the novel, which ends in precisely the same way. But this is actually good news, since Ubukata wrote the screenplay himself. It means he did a fine job of preserving everything that mattered: the emotions, the ideas, and most of all the touchingly human and vulnerable Balot, who keeps this most unlikely of stories pinned down firmly at its center. It’s just going to be very hard to wait for the next installment.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
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