Review for Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust

Introduction

This time I’m doing it right. I’m not going off ouefcoqued. I have taken the time on this occasion to catch up on Mardock Scramble. Besides, this release of the Third Exhaust has been delayed so often, that it only now sees a UK release almost 2 years after the Japanese premiere, six months after the US home video release. I reviewed The Second Compression for this site eighteen months ago, exactly a year after I reviewed The First Combustion. That’s more than enough time to completely forget what the story is about. So this time, I made sure to rewatch the first two movies before getting into Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust and it’s a good thing that I did. This story really does play best as one narrative, especially across the final two movies, and if you can find the time to watch it all in one sitting, even better. After all, it’s really just three hours or so, not even a Lord of the Rings movie in length. Just as in the first two films, Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust is presented in both Theatrical and Director’s Cut versions on this disc, although for the purposes of this review, I watched only the Director’s Cut, longer by three minutes, and I can’t speak as to what was excised for the Theatrical Version.

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.


At the start of The Third Exhaust, they’ve learned where Shell’s incriminating memories have been concealed, in the million dollar chips in the Egg Nog Casino. To get the evidence, they’ve gone into the casino to play some high stakes games, and they’ve made it to the Blackjack table where the betting is big. But by winning big, they risk attracting the attention of the casino owners, the very same Shell Septimos that they seek to prosecute. And if they get too close, Shell’s benefactors might choose to get rid of all of the evidence, the suspect, and the investigators. Meanwhile, Dimsdale Boiled has unfinished business with Ouefcoque.

Picture

Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust gets a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p resolution on this Blu-ray disc. Again, this is the UK retail version, with no other language materials on it, as opposed to the first Mardock Scramble movie. The Third Exhaust is pristine; it looks fantastic, with strong colours, excellent detail, and smooth animation. The film maintains the design style from the first two movies, a fantastic colour palette, brilliant character designs, and a breathtakingly imaginative future world.

The images 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 once again 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.

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

Mardock Scramble comes in a thin Blu-ray case, with perhaps the most machine-translated blurb I have ever seen on a back cover.

The disc presents its content on a messily animated menu screen.

In the bonus features, you’ll be able to access the 66:14 theatrical version of the movie (the director’s cut runs 69:19).

On the Way to Movie Theaters lasts 30:33, is presented in 1080i, and follows the promotional roadshow for the film prior to its Japanese premiere, as the staff host roundtable discussions at various locations. The dialogue is subtitled, but there are no captions to inform us of who is speaking.


Blackjack Battle lasts 30:00 and is presented in 1080i, and follows the anime staff as they take part in a Blackjack tournament, to see who will get to the final where writer Tow Ubukata will be dealer.

Memorial Talk lasts 33:01 and writer Tow Ubukata, and voice of Rune Balot, Megumi Hayashibara sit down and chat about the Mardock Scramble project, all three films.

Finally on this disc, you’ll find the 2 minute trailer, and the 3 minute Promo Video. Note that if you buy this film on Kazé’s DVD, the only extra on that disc is the Promo Video. Sentai’s Region 1 DVD has all of the extras.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust, but I get the feeling that had I not watched The First Compression and The Second Combustion over the last week, I wouldn’t have appreciated the film half as much. It really is one whole story split into three, three acts of a film on three separate discs. That it took so long to produce the films obviously resulted in them being released this way, but that’s no reason at this point why you should watch them that way too. Mardock Scramble is one discrete story, and you should just set aside three hours of your life to watch the films back to back. Indeed if Kazé had any sense, and if Manga had given them enough of a nudge, we by all rights should have had a Mardock Scramble Movie Collection released on the same day as this final movie was released.


The Third Exhaust picks up right where The Second Combustion left off, in the casino, with Rune Balot, Ouefcoque, and Dr Easter playing high stakes Blackjack for Shell Septimos’ memory chips. It’s like picking up a novel after putting it down eighteen months previously. Even with a bookmark in the middle of the story, you’ll have no idea what was going on when you last closed the book. There isn’t even a recap ahead of the film to get you caught up with what has happened so far. It’s just straight to the blackjack table with Easter and Rune Balot as they continue their plan to beat the casino. If you’re coming to this movie without benefit of a rewatch, you may find the hour long film devoting more than half its runtime to a card game somewhat frivolous, and talky, and not particularly extravagant in terms of animation, despite the fact that the script is good, and there’s a whole lot of character insight and development going on here.

Similarly, following the casino piece, the sudden burst of action when they encounter Dimsdale Boiled again seems jarring and unexpected, and while the denouement of the film has a degree of emotional closure to it, simply from the way that it is written and how it plays out, it still lacks the overall context. Reviewing Mardock Scramble: The Third Exhaust on its own merits is a pointless endeavour.


It’s when you take the Mardock Scramble series as a whole, as a single story in three parts that you can truly appreciate it. It’s a dark and macabre cyberpunk fairy tale, rich with fantastic imagery and ideas, touching on the nature of identity and memory, but at its heart it is truly a love story. It’s an unconventional love story to be sure, that of a broken girl and her mouse, but a love story nevertheless. It’s also about these characters transcending their fundamental natures to affirm that love. For Rune Balot, the girl who died, and was brought back so that she could seek justice and vengeance against her killer, in the end she has to transcend that desire for revenge, and start to see her abuser as a victim as well. For Ouefcoque, an intelligent creation who is designed to be Rune Balot’s perfect partner, but who has an ingrained aversion to hate and destructive violence, he has to overcome that aversion to truly protect and understand who Rune Balot really is.

I watched the three films over the space of a week, and I think that is too far apart. The next time I watch Mardock Scramble, it will be all three films at one sitting. That is the best way to take in the story. Unlike your average movie trilogy, none of these films really stands alone. The mark applies to the whole of Mardock Scramble, as trying to judge The Third Exhaust by itself is a meaningless exercise.