Eventually, Madlax and Margaret meet and embark on a search for Quanzitta Marison, a Gazth-Sonikan mystic who supposedly knows about Margaret's book  

Saturday, August 15, 2009

























































The first half of the series alternates between the two leads. Madlax is one of the most efficient special ops agents for hire in the war-torn Gazth-Sonika, while Margaret Burton is a sleepy, clumsy amnesiac living in Nafrece, a country styled after France. When a "picture book", presumably given to Margaret by her late father, attracts the attention of international criminal network Enfant, she discovers that the origins of the book lie in Gazth-Sonika. Enfant's top operative, Carrossea Doon, tracks Margaret down but tips off his superiors in the wrong direction, towards Madlax, who has been causing Enfant trouble for some time. Meanwhile, Vanessa Rene, Margaret's former tutor whose parents died because of Gazth-Sonikan war,discovers that her current employer, Bookwald Industries, covertly supports the war by supplying both sides with firearms and starts investigating its true cause. Her investigation brings her to Gazth-Sonika, where Madlax is hired as her bodyguard, and together, they uncover data that proves that Enfant orchestrated the entire conflict. Enfant eventually intercepts them and they are forced into hiding. Back in Nafrece, Margaret decides to help Vanessa and travels to Gazth-Sonika, accompanied by her devoted and sometimes overprotective maid Elenore Baker and Carrossea Doon.
Eventually, Madlax and Margaret meet and embark on a search for Quanzitta Marison, a Gazth-Sonikan mystic who supposedly knows about Margaret's book, Enfant's involvement with it, and Enfant itself. Lady Quanzitta does indeed tell them about Enfant and its plans to plunge the entire world into a total war, starting with Gazth-Sonika. She reveals that Enfant's leader Friday Monday possesses supernatural powers connected to the three ancient books, one of which belongs to Margaret. Margaret uses her own supernatural abilities and that of her book to return her lost memories. Carrossea, who has been aiding Margaret, requests that his memories be restored as well despite warnings not to do so; he discovers that he, in fact, died 12 years ago and held on to life only by sheer force of will to protect Margaret. Carrossea disappears, and Margaret is captured by Monday who intends to use her abilities to advance his own plans

While Margaret and Carrossea perform the ritual, Madlax is attacked by Limelda Jorg, a Gazth-Sonikan sniper who holds a grudge against Madlax ever since she failed stop an assassination by Madlax earlier in the show. Limelda kills Vanessa while targeting Madlax, sending the latter into clinical depression. Elenore and Lady Quanzitta's servant Nakhl manage to restore Madlax's will to live and persuade her to save Margaret, and the three storm Enfant's headquarters together. During the assault, Elenore is killed and Margaret, now under Monday's control, shoots Madlax. Believing her to be dead, Monday commences a ritual to unleash people's inhibitions and trigger worldwide anarchy; but Margaret's memories return and she snaps out of his mind control. Only now does the audience learn the back-story: back in 1999, Monday drove Margaret's father insane with his powers and she was forced to kill her own father. To escape the horrible truth of her patricide, Margaret split herself into three personae: the "memory keeper" Laetitia, the sinful Madlax, and the innocent Margaret herself. Margaret then fuses her three personae back together to undo the ritual she previously performed with Monday, saving the world from insanity. Madlax, who should no longer exist after the fusion, appears and guns down Monday. It becomes apparent that Margaret has once again split herself into three, judging that after twelve years, she no longer has the right to make decisions for her other personae.







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Madlax (Madorakkusu) is a 26-episode Japanese anime television series produced in 2004 by the Bee Train animation studio  
















































Madlax (マドラックス , Madorakkusu) is a 26-episode Japanese anime television series produced in 2004 by the Bee Train animation studio. Kōichi Mashimo directed Madlax and the soundtrack was composed by Yuki Kajiura. The DVD version was released by ADV Films in North America and the United Kingdom and by Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand.
The story revolves around two young women who seemingly have little in common and do not know of the other's existence at the beginning. The titular Madlax is a legendary mercenary and assassin in the fictional civil war-torn country of Gazth-Sonika, who cannot remember her past or indeed her real name before twelve years ago, when the war started. The other protagonist is Margaret Burton, the sole heir of a wealthy aristocratic family in the peaceful European country Nafrece. Twelve years before the story begins, an airliner Margaret and her mother were on crashed over Gazth-Sonika, and its passengers, as well as Margaret's father who lead the rescuers, have been missing ever since. Margaret, however, mysteriously traveled back to Nafrece on her own, losing her memories prior to her return; the only thing she recalls is a single word, "Madlax". With this thread linking the two girls, they both independently start investigating the powerful crime syndicate Enfant after its enigmatic mastermind shows interest in both of them.
Madlax was produced as a spiritual successor to the studio's earlier project, Noir, and together with El Cazador de la Bruja, these series constitute a trilogy exploring the "girls-with-guns" genre. The production of Madlax began in 2002 but it wasn’t until Yōsuke Kuroda joined the project that the series took its final form. While the critics noted the resulting similarities between Noir and Madlax, they also acknowledged the differences, such as the latter's less episodic and more plot-driven style and, in particular contrast to the predominantly realistic Noir, incorporation of many supernatural elements, which the audience must often interpret without further explanation.







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The secret hiding-place of the sword can be found with "Kakan no Madonna" - Leonara...  
























The main character is Leonora, the daughter of an impoverished noble of Padua. She is a beautiful silver-haired, emerald-green-eyed girl and very good at fighting with the sword.One day, she is forced to marry an arrogant young noble, but she discovers on the day of their wedding that this man intends to use her to become king of Italy because she is involved in an ancient Italian legend:Leonara is the girl shown on "Kakan no Madonna" (Madonna of the Flower Crown), a famous painting drawn by Leonardo DaVinci. There exists a legend that tells whoever gets the legendary sword "Emerald Lion" will unite and rule over Italy. And the secret hiding-place of the sword can be found with "Kakan no Madonna" - Leonara...In order to find out the truth of the portrait's secret related her and to hide her identity as Kakan no Madonna, Leonara disguises herself as a black-haired boy, Leo, and sets out to find DaVinci. On the way she meets Falco, the blond-haired handsome king of Naples, who is unaware that she is a girl, and becomes his servant.When she finally finds DaVinci, she hears with surprise that she - the girl portrayed in Kakan no Madonna - is destined to possess the legendary Emerald Lion and therefore to become queen of Italy.




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First appearing in the anime during the Aoi Fest, Chihaya, or Yamase as Kazuki calls her, is Kazuki's childhood friend and is in the same year as Kazu  







































Supporting characters
Chihaya Yamase (山瀬 千早, Yamase Chihaya)
First appearing in the anime during the Aoi Fest, Chihaya, or Yamase as Kazuki calls her, is Kazuki's childhood friend and is in the same year as Kazuki at Aoi Academy. Tsukiji describes Chihaya as a comet that circles around and visits our system every once in a while. For most of their childhood, Chihaya did everything she could to prevent Kazuki from using any of his magic. However, when they got older, Kazuki began avoiding her making her feel like Kazuki hated her.
Chihaya makes three appearances in the anime series, the first appearance during the Aoi Fest when she asks Kazuki if their classes would join together to produce a play. However after the festival, Chihaya moves away. Chihaya's second appearance occurs when the students of Aoi Academy take a field trip to Kyoto after Kazuki has become a ghost. It is through her that it is learned that each of the girls contains a portion of Kazuki's ashes.
Chihaya makes one final appearance at the very end when she visits Kazuki. Even though his ashes returned from all four girls, Kazuki has not return to normal. It is soon revealed that Kazuki made the same promise to Chihaya as he did with Yuna moments before Kazuki met Yuna. Chihaya believed that Kazuki made it snow for her and that misunderstanding led Kazuki to avoid her. Because of that event, Yuna and Chihaya jointly hold the last portion of Kazuki's ashes.
In the novel, Chihaya was a character in the side stories that was released along with the novel, but not part of the main story itself. In the side stories, Chihaya is not Kazuki's childhood friend but just a student from another class that had a crush on Kazuki. Chihaya is a shy and inward character and does not have the proper chance to convey her feelings to Kazuki.
Voiced by: Mai Nakahara (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)
Dr. Haruaki Akai (紅尉 晴明, Akai Haruaki)
It is through Dr. Akai's monologue at the beginning of the series that the world of Maburaho is explained. The resident (and rather bishōnen) doctor of Aoi Academy, Dr. Akai is a formidable wizard with great powers of his own. Despite his laid-back appearance, he has Kazuki's best interests at heart. Throughout the series Dr. Akai uses a variety of eye lenses that he carries around and through which he uses his magic. Dr. Akai is quite smitten with Kaori Iba, and sometimes comments to her that he has a "special bed" in the nurse's office just for her.
Dr. Akai's main interest in Kazuki is that of a research subject, especially after Kazuki becomes a ghost. During the recap of events in episode 20, he reveals that this is the second time he has seen someone's body being restored after their ashes had been scattered. But while he knows how to restore Kazuki's body, he does not reveal the information to Yuna, Kuriko, or Rin.
Voiced by: Kōji Tsujitani (Japanese), Jason Douglas (English)
Shino Akai (紅尉 紫乃, Akai Shino)
Shino enters the story after Kazuki becomes a ghost. She attempts to capture Kazuki and make him part of her ghost collection, but is thwarted by her older brother, Dr. Akai. Afterwards, she becomes an assistant under her brother, but she still tries to make Kazuki part of her collection for personal reasons. At the end of the series, it is revealed that she along with Karei, Kazuki's dorm manager, were in a similar situation as Yuna, Rin, and Kuriko and tries her best to convince them that restoring Kazuki's body is pointless. She is powerful with seals and great in combat exceeding both Kuriko and Rin. She does not hate Kazuki, but feels that a tragedy will repeat itself if the girls persist on their goal. It is hinted that she has feelings for Kazuki since her brother had asked her why she kept hesitating to put Kazuki into her collection, even though she could have done so at anytime. It is also believed that Shino and her brother, Dr. Akai and Karei are somehow "ghosts" as in episode 23 she flashes back on when Japan was still in the era of Warring States, and how the Manager told her to "keep her promise", like they promised long ago during the era of Warring States.
Voiced by: Yoshino Takamori (Japanese), Monica Rial (English)
Elizabeth (エリザベート, Erizabēto)
It is explained in the story that Elizabeth is a ghost of a young girl who was once a member of a noble family during the Holy Roman Empire. Elizabeth is first introduced in the third episode when she "moves in" to Kazuki's dorm room. She once lived in an old mansion that was located between the girls and boys dorms until a group of real-estate agents from the Kazetsubaki group drove her out. After Kazuki and Yuna make an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve a suit of armor for her, Elizabeth creates a magical vortex which sucks Yuna in. Elizabeth threatened to torture her so Kazuki uses his magic to save Yuna, who ended up being tickled instead of tortured. Kazuki's magic resulted in the girls dormitory being pulled toward and merging into the boys dorm.
When Elizabeth sees Kuriko, who resembles Elizabeth's mother, lift up a helmet, it reminded her of a knight that guarded her and Elizabeth adopts Kuriko as her new mother. From then on, Elizabeth lives in Kuriko's chest and often tries to help Kuriko with Kazuki. When Kazuki becomes a ghost at the midpoint of the story, Elizabeth tries to gives him advice in order to cheer him up. She also seems to get mad easily, and then starts to use her magic to destroy things in anguish.
Voiced by: Kimiko Koyama (Japanese), Sasha Paysinger (English)
Karei Hirosaki (尋崎 華怜, Hirosaki Karei)
Through most of the series Karei is seen sweeping in front of the boys dorms, which she manages. She is always seen wearing a sexy, black funeral outfit and often appears to be watching out for Kazuki, even after he becomes a ghost. At the end of the series, it is revealed that she along with the ghost collector, Shino, were in a similar situation as Yuna, Rin, and Kuriko. However, unlike Shino, Karei views that it is better for a person to be alive, even without their memories, than to remain a ghost.
While never directly stated in the series, there are strong hints that the man that Karei and Shino once loved is related to Kazuki. The first is that Karei pledges to watch over her love from the background, something she still does with Kazuki. Second is that Karei's love was a Shinto priest, while Kazuki is also descended from a line of Shinto priests. And finally is an overlay between Karei's love and Kazuki as Karei reminds Shino of their pledge to watch over their love.
Voiced by: Emi Shinohara (Japanese), Kelly Manison (English)
Kaori Iba (伊庭 かおり, Iba Kaori)
Yuna and Kazuki's homeroom teacher for the class of 2-B. She seems like a student herself, as she rarely if ever truly tries to exercise control over the class of 2-B. Instead, she enjoys spending her time playing video games, sometimes playing them while in the middle of teaching a class.
Voiced by: Junko Noda (Japanese), Christine Auten (English)
Class 2-B
Class 2-B is the most troublesome class at Aoi Academy. During the entire series, the students of the class are always coming up with schemes to make money and getting into fights which destroy parts of the school building. The more notable members of the class are:
Yukihiko Nakamaru
He's a greedy individual who pretends to be Kazuki's best friend, but is extremely jealous of Kazuki's relationship with Yuna and would try to exploit Kazuki's abilities for his own personal gain. In just about every case, his schemes always backfire, hurting him the most.
Voiced by: Ryō Naitō
Sayumi Morisaki
She's a member of a rival house of Rin Kamishiro and is the only class member who does not participate in the class's schemes. Her clan happens to be masters of unarmed combat, and though she does not take part in the long-standing feud between her family and Rin's, she does want to compete honorably with Rin to finally determine who is the best.
Voiced by: Akeno Watanabe
Kazumi Matsuda
An equally opportunistic girl who is often Nakamaru's foil.
Voiced by: Masumi Asano
Maiho Kurioka (栗丘 舞穂, Kurioka Maiho)
Maiho is another of Kazuki's classmates. Maiho was introduced in the original novel just as the script for the anime series was finishing. At first, Shinichiro Kimura, director of the anime series, wanted to bring Maiho into the series but decided to focus on the relationships between Kazuki, Yuna, Kuriko, Rin and Chihaya, though Maiho does make an appearance in the final episode. According to Newtype USA, Maiho has the ability to neutralize magical powers. Because of this, she often tags along with Kazuki in order to keep his magic in check, much to Yuna's irritation.
Voiced by: Chiemi Chiba (Japanese), Cynthia Martinez (English)






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Character bios are taken from the perspective of the anime.  















































Primary characters
Kazuki Shikimori (式森 和樹, Shikimori Kazuki)
The male protagonist, Kazuki, is a second year student from an elite magic school, Aoi Academy, with serious social problems, and because he has a low spell count of only eight spells, most of the other students, especially the girls, would not notice him until his magical heritage is revealed. He is the most powerful character in the series.
Overall, Kazuki is a good person and helps others by using his magic, even when that means that he runs the risk of turning into ash. His selflessness and kindness eventually wins over the hearts of Rin and Kuriko. He is at times indecisive and uncourageous, but he prevalently shows his honest nature and his sense of doing the right thing.
Voiced by: Daisuke Sakaguchi (Japanese), Blake Shepard (English)
Yuna Miyama (宮間 夕菜, Miyama Yuna)
Yuna, the typical harem anime "housewife", transfers to Aoi Academy to become Kazuki's wife and even first introduced herself as "Yuna Shikimori" to the rest of Kazuki's class. Yuna is the only one who actually cares for Kazuki from the very beginning instead of just being interested in his genes. As the series progress, Yuna becomes extremely possessive of Kazuki and becomes very jealous when other girls show any kind of interests in him.
Using flashbacks, it is explained that Yuna and Kazuki first met each other when they were still children. Yuna was crying because she was about to move away, but after hearing Kazuki introduce himself as the greatest magician in the world, she begged him to use his magic so that she and her parents would not have to move. Instead, she settles on having him make it snow on a warm summer's day with a promise to become Kazuki's bride if he can do it.
Tsukiji states in an interview in Newtype USA that Yuna was the first character that "popped" into his head, so he created the two other characters to be different from her.
Voiced by: Hitomi Nabatame (Japanese), Jessica Boone (English)
Kuriko Kazetsubaki (風椿 玖里子, Kazetsubaki Kuriko)
At the beginning of the story, Kuriko's only interest in Kazuki is to obtain his genes for the wealthy and influential Kazetsubaki family and the stature that goes with being the mother of a powerful sorcerer. A third year student and a member of the student government, Kuriko takes great pleasure in flirting with Kazuki and teasing Yuna. Often she will appear out of nowhere into Kazuki's arms or lap right in front of Yuna or use her body, charm, or her family's resources to seduce Kazuki. Of the three girls, Kuriko demonstrates to be the most knowledgeable with regards to magic and the politics surrounding magic. She has an extremely high magic count, and it is considered to be among the strongest, though it is nowhere near as strong as Kazuki's. Near the beginning of the series, Kuriko finds herself playing "mother" to the ghost girl Elizabeth after an incident that resulted in both the boys and girls dorms merging together by one of Kazuki's magical spells.
Voiced by: Yuki Matsuoka (Japanese), Tiffany Grant (English)
Rin Kamishiro (神城 凜, Kamishiro Rin)
The third prominent female character, Rin is a competent swordswoman and a member of the Kamishiro branch family. Rin has a reserved and dignified personality and always dresses in a samurai-style kimono that is suitable to her warrior nature. Rin is ordered by the head family to secure Kazuki's genes in order to ensure the Kamishiro family's dominance, which according to Kuriko, has been weakening because of the number of branch families. At the beginning of the story, Rin would prefer to kill Kazuki than be forced to marry someone who, in her words, has bad grades, no athletic prowess, and no redeeming values. However, as the story progress, she gradually softens up to Kazuki and even begins to smile after witnessing his kindness and compassion towards others, including herself. Kazuki is the only one who could eat her horrendous cooking, and was totally honest about it.
Voiced by: Yuka Inokuchi (Japanese), Kim Prause (English)








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Maburaho is set in a world where every character has the ability to use magic, however everyone's magic is not equal  
















































Maburaho is set in a world where every character has the ability to use magic, however everyone's magic is not equal. Each person in the story has a different degree of magic and a set number of times that they can use their magic. The average person is able to use magic less than a hundred times, however some people are able to use magic several thousand times. Because of this, a person's social standing is determined by the number of times that he or she can perform magic. If someone uses up all of their magic, his or her body turns to ash and is scattered into the winds.
The series first introduces us to Kazuki Shikimori, a second year student from an elite magic school, Aoi Academy. However, unlike his classmates, Kazuki can only use his magic eight times before he turns to dust. As a result, he is at the bottom of the school's social pecking order. However things change one day when Yuna Miyama shows up in his dorm room and declares that she is his wife. Moments later, Kuriko Kazetsubaki and Rin Kamishiro appear at Kazuki's dorm, the former in order to obtain his genes and the latter to kill him to escape her obligation to marry him. Kazuki learns that he is a descendant of most of the world's greatest magicians from both the eastern and western worlds. Even though he has a feeble spell count, his offspring has the potential of becoming a powerful magician.
Despite his weak spell count, each spell he performs is treated as an epic event. Kazuki's magic is referred to as the most powerful magic in the world able to achieve miracles. Due to Kazuki's kindness, his spell count begins to drop as he uses his magic on behalf of each girl. First by making it snow in the middle of summer to cheer up Yuna. Second by pulling Yuna out of a vortex that also merges the boy's and girl's dorms together. Kazuki uses his magic again to destroy two Behemoths in order to save Kuriko, who was unable to defeat them. And then, Kazuki reverses time to save Rin's homemade box lunch. And finally to save his childhood friend Chihaya Yamase after a monster summoned by Kazuki's classmates appeared at the school festival.
Each event leaves an impression on the girls and they attempt to keep Kazuki from using any more of his magic and eventually search for ways to increase his spell count. However, their attempts fail when half way through the series Kazuki uses the last of his magic to save Yuna from a magical retrovirus. However, while Kazuki turned to ash and the ashes scattered, his ghost remains.
At this point in the story, Shino Akai appears in order to capture Kazuki and add him to her ghost collection. The girls try to protect Kazuki from Shino and eventually learn that Kazuki's ashes had been scattered into each of their own hearts. But before Kazuki's ashes were completely returned to him, Shino informs Rin and later the rest of the girls that this is not the first time someone's ashes have been scattered and later restored. However, when Kazuki's ashes are returned to him and his body restored, he will lose all of his memories. Knowing this, the girls still return Kazuki's ashes to him. At the very end of the anime series, it is shown that instead of losing his memories as a side effect of restoring his body, Kazuki has now split into ten different bodies.
In the novel, the side effect of Kazuki's restoration was gaining a special magical body that can cause disaster to the whole world if he lets out his magic powers. Another side effect of Kazuki's restoration is the overflowing of his magical powers every now and then causing minor mishaps and sometimes great chaos.







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