Marudukku sukuranburu: Nenshou

Without having seen the first movie in this trilogy, I sat down to watch the second installment. I didn't know what it was about, and I didn't know what I was in for. But usually Japanese animations tend to be interesting if not somewhat odd.

"Mardock Scramble: Second Combustion" (aka "Marudukku sukuranburu: Nenshou") however turned out to be anything but interesting or entertaining. First of all, the storyline was basically and quite honestly just downright pointless. There was no contents to the story and it was just a monotonous pacing without any goal or direction.

The characters in "Mardock Scramble: Second Combustion" were every bit as boring and pointless as the storyline was. So you didn't really root for anyone here, nor did you bond with anyone, or much less care about what happened to them.

I didn't even make it all the way to the end of this animation, before I gave up out of sheer and utter boredom. There was literally nothing compelling about this movie, aside from the style of the art and drawing. But that was hardly nowhere near enough to make up for the many other shortcomings that "Mardock Scramble: Second Combustion" had.

I am sure that there are fans for this trilogy. And perhaps I made the mistake of getting into the middle of everything. But this turned out to be anything but entertaining. But given the lack of anything interesting in this second part of the trilogy, chances are slim to none that I will take any interest in watching the first part.

Don't watch this without having seen the first movie of the trilogy. It is hard to comprehend at times as it is (and has a casino scene that is quite long - too long?) to boost with. Maybe you are into that sort of thing and the first one had a lot of dialog too - a lot of explanation or attempts too. Certain things get revealed here with flashbacks, that we were not aware of.

But as it is, this is the weakest link/entry of them all. That being said and while not just my rating dropped, but also that of the BBFC (from 18 to a 15), this still isn't for children. For those who care and think animation is always kids stuff (it ain't and boy is there a whole world of Japanese Anime, not to mention Hentai for you to discover ... if you are into that sort of stuff of course) - the movie is at least decent with some nice action scenes to carry you through it.