02 May

The Hypernatural and Supernatural in Madlax -- Episode 10

Episode 10: empirical laws and universal constant
"Infiltration ~dive~": (侵触: Shinshoku)

In the avant, young Vanessa is giving her answer replying to Margaret’s question as her governess regarding the norm of judgement on Good and Evil. Vanessa expresses her conviction on the essence of truth she believes in. It seems she is a person of strong decision who is able to conduct her action regardless of the influence of others.

Vanessa infiltrates into the computer in order to investigate the actual state of the contribution to the civil war in Gaths-Sonika practiced by Bookwald company. But her actions are monitored by the surveillance camera set in the room. The display monitoring Vanessa’s actions is also displaying the present condition of the civil war fought in Gaths-Sonika. A masked man is talking about the agent Luciano who had tried to snipe Carrossea, checking the movement of Vanessa on the screen.

Vanessa contacts her friend Badgis who was her schoolmate at university, to consult on her plan to hack the computer. “I want proof. Proof that the company and Enfant are involved in Gaths-Sonika’s war.” Badgis’ new model “True Cluster” is a supercomputer system built with 2,300 commercially available computers. “It performs operations at a speed of 262.4 TFLOPS. This system is on par with the fourth-fastest in the world. And It’s private property.” Badgis proudly explains. He is exalted with his success to have attained the ability comparable to the large computing machines owned by huge organizations, by constructing grid operation program that enables effective parallel processing. This episode has introduced a new characteristic of fictional genre called “cybernetics” that employs technological information on computer system. But there might be still some other special technological engineering hidden behind the “cluster” Badgis mentioned.

Carrossea is investigating about Vanessa who was staying with the girl who had the picture book at the hotel. “She’s as impressive as one would expect. The Allium Hotel’s guest records have all been rewritten. So there’s no information about that girl.” It seems Carrossea has full comprehension of the case. But his true concern seems to be on Margaret who possesses the book. “To think that all this time Secondari has been so close by. Firstari is in Friday’s hands. Secondari is in that girl’s hands. And as for me, I…” Though behaving as a minion of the Enfant, he seems to have still other circumstances of his own. He is a rare character who affords the viewer explanatory information. Nakhl is standing on top of a building outside of his room. It seems she has been watching Carrossea. The girl who first appeared in episode 8 in the village Dwaiho, seems to have acquired information about the man and have followed him to the foreign country Nafrece.

Margaret and Elenore are talking about Vanessa’s strange attitude. Vanessa had been expressing her doubt about the TV broadcast on the civil war in Gaths-Sonika. Carrossea mutters driving a car. “I can’t investigate this from a terminal. I can’t have him finding out, after all.” It seems that he is trying to rebel against his chief. But it is not shown what he is going to do after he has gained the picture book. Neither his purpose nor his expectation is indicated yet.

Badgis and Vanessa start to infiltrate the computer system of Bookwald company. “We’ll use the adaptive access module I built. …Parallel compact modules operate simultaneously, adapt, change forms, and as they hide themselves among more and more dummy modules, they head for the main system.” Badgis takes overwhelming confidence in his program he has constructed in order to hack the main system. But their activities are already under surveillance of the masked man. Just then, Carrossea is shown watching the residence of Margaret in cut back. True cluster has broken the security system of the Bookwald company and has stolen the access right to the classified data. Vanessa indicates her purpose to Badgis. “Salvage all the files that have to do with Gaths-Sonika.” But Enfant’s computer starts effective counterattacks to the infiltrating True Cluster. Gained access rights are blocked and network starts to be cut off. Just then, Margaret is shown on the bed opening her picture book.


The modules Badgis had programmed are analyzed and cut off from the system one by one. Margaret mutters, “Red moon.” seeing the moon hanging in the sky through the window. But the moon outside of her window is colored blue. Carrossea is watching the window of Margaret’s room, hiding outside. The computer of Enfant proceeds to trace the activities of Badgis’. The screen shows the tense psychological situation forked in three parallel proceedings of Vanessa and Badgis, Margaret and Carrossea. The masked man is exerting eerie influence on all of them, who rules the company Bookwald behind, and seems to control the civil war in Gaths-Sonika.

Badgis, being thrown into a critical situation on the verge of reverse detection, barely succeeds in regaining the access right and looks for an evacuation site of the data. Carrossea is watching Margaret who has just come out in the balcony. Margaret looks up the moon, and Carrossea is buried in deep thought at her sight. Carrossea, making his determination at last, walks to the door of the apartment of Margaret. Just then, his cellphone receives a call from the masked man. It is a notice that Bookwald company’s computer has been hacked by someone. “Bookwald, the company you’re affiliated with, was just hacked by someone on the outside.” Badgis transfers the data and forces the computer shut down on the verge of being detected. But the data was already redirected to the other location by the masked man. The masked man indicates the deal to cope with the hacking. “But I made sure the data he tried to steal ended up in a certain place.” Margaret looks back, noticing something. Vanessa asks Badgis. “Where did you transfer the data to?” Detecting abnormality occurring for some while, Margaret mutters, “Gaths-Sonika.” It is not shown at all why she mentioned the name of the country, who knows nothing about the hacking Vanessa and Badgis had been trying to perform and the trap the masked man had set for them.

Carrossea accepts the mission that he is going to the spot in order to deal with the issue. “It’s a shame. But I’ll be able to meet you soon, young lady who possesses Secondari.” In the ruin under the red moon, Poupe and Laetitia are standing together. “Does it bother you? The red moon…” The red moon that has been referred to in this episode, must have something to do with the title of the second episode, in which Margaret’s activities in Nafrece were described. And the following third episode in which Madlax’s mission of assassination was depicted, was titled “Blue Moon”. The contrast between red and blue, often adopted in order to indicate dual polarity, is going to be focused on this episode. Margaret’s moon is always red, and Madlax’s moon is always blue.

Badgis tells Vanessa about the transferred data, “The only way to recover the data would be to physically access the terminal.” But Badgis warns Vanessa, saying, “This isn’t something to put yourself in danger for. This is a war another country got themselves into on their own. What reason would you have for going so far?” Vanessa answers, “I have one. I have a reason that compelling.” Vanessa seems to have some circumstance of her own that viewers are not acquainted with, like as Margaret and Carrossea does.

Vanessa starts for Gaths-Sonika for onsite inspection. There is a figure of Madlax checking Vanessa’s arrival in the airport of Gaths-Sonika. Madlax talks to her, passing on the street, “Welcome. This is a war zone, you know.”

Badgis has been newly introduced in this episode, who had been an old friend of Vanessa’s from their university days. He has somehow succeeded in surviving in this episode. It will make a deep concern for the viewer in discovering the axis that may determine one of the meta-perspectives that this anime has not yet provided with, whether it was because he didn’t have direct relation to Madlax that he was afforded with an exceptional condition, or he is going to follow the same destination as others have fared. This concern must make the chief subject in appreciating this type of fictional work, that must be applied to both Carrossea and Vanessa who have been contributing to the construction of a fictional perspective since their first appearance. The fact that most of those who had something to do with Madlax were to lose their lives, indicates the existence of some kind of experiential law, through repetition that insinuates hidden meaning axis that defies the grasp by cause-and-effect chain process. As science has introduced several notions such as matter, space and time as basic initial conditions that are not definable by existing concepts, and tried to construct temporary meaning by asserting the idea of natural law, through repeated observations and experiments; so fictional creation asserts its own other-worldly implication as cosmological mechanics through contingent reiterations in its peculiar phase space.

In episode 10, several new subjects have been introduced that imply peculiar genre concepts that have not been discoverable in this show yet. Computer technology and relating supernatural or metaphysical topics that suggest the need to extend the scope of consideration breaking through the limits hitherto accepted norms of scientific understandings are called cybernetics, which has already established one of the modes that characterizes fictional presentations in novels and movies. It would be expected as determining the basic axes for constructing fictional meanings, how psycho mystery factors that seemed to presuppose supernatural elements as background information and newly introduced cybernetics factors are to be converged into a meaningful presentation.

One of the ideas to be able to respond this question is presented as a trial to interpret the computer employed by Enfant, as quantum processing computer machine. It is the outstanding merit of Madlax that encourages this kind of constructive attempts to complement the blank parts of fictional descriptions.

note:
It is Mukaibara Makoto, who has focused his attention on the superb direction technics of Koichi Mashimo since early period and accomplished critical considerations on the director. Mukaibara published a series of critical essays Media Promenade (MP), as “dojin-shi” and argued the quality of Mshimo’s works. Especially in MP4 and MP5, Mukaibara has succeeded in making full grasp of the method of depicting archetypal phase space by introducing the theory of quantum mechanics. Mukaibara’s active interpretation of the Computer of the Enfant to be a quantum processing system matches the directing strategy of the work in presenting the fictional world with undefinable genre elements.