Mardock Scramble

Description

From Kodansha:
“I’d rather be dead.” Rune Balot was a lost girl with nothing to live for when a man named Shell took her in and cared for her until he tried to murder her. Standing at the precipice of death, Rune is saved by Dr. Easter, a private investigator, who uses an experimental procedure known as “Mardock Scramble 09.” The procedure grants Balot extraordinary abilities and now Rune must decide whether to use her new powers to help Dr. Easter bring Shell to justice or if she has the will to keep living a life that’s been broken so badly.

Official English: Azuki, INKR

Type

Manga

Related Series

Mardock Scramble (Novel) (Adapted From)

Mardock Daemons (Sequel)

Associated Names

Marudoukku Sukuranburu

Marudukku Sukuranburu

マルドゥック・スクランブル

壳中少女

殼中少女

Groups Scanlating

Maigo

Latest Release(s)

v.2 c.6 by Maigo Scans 14 years ago

v.2 c.5 by Maigo Scans 14 years ago

v.2 c.4 by Maigo Scans 14 years ago

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Status in Country of Origin

7 Volumes (Complete)

Completely Scanlated?

Anime Start/End Chapter

Starts at Vol 1, Chap 1 (Movie 1) / Vol 3, Chap 11 (Movie 2) / Vol 6, Chap 21 (Movie 3)

Ends at Vol 3, Chap 10 (Movie 1) / Vol 5, Chap 20 (Movie 2) / Vol 7, Chap 32 (Movie 3) Abridged & different

User Reviews

N/A

Forum

1 topics, 1 posts

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User Rating

Average: 7.6 / 10.0 (68 votes)

Bayesian Average: 7.19 / 10.0

28%

13%

21%

Last Updated

July 20th, 2024 7:27pm PDT - 1 year ago

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Genre

Action Drama Mature Mystery Psychological Sci-fi Shounen Tragedy
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Categories

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Category Recommendations

Mardock Scramble (Novel)

Recommendations

Seirei no Moribito (Novel)

Author(s)

UBUKATA Tow

Artist(s)

Ooima Yoshitoki

Year

2009

Original Publisher

Kodansha

Serialized In (magazine)

Bessatsu Shounen Magazine (Kodansha)

Licensed (in English)

Yes

English Publisher

Azuki (digital)

INKR Comics

Kodansha Comics (7 Volumes - Complete)

Activity Stats (vs. other series)

Weekly Pos #754

(-28)

Monthly Pos #1666

(-146)

3 Month Pos #3815

(+560)

6 Month Pos #4521

(-1030)

Year Pos #6815

(-511)

List Stats

On 562 reading lists

On 475 wish lists

On 70 completed lists

On 26 unfinished lists

On 169 custom lists

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Forum Posts Click to view the forum

Mardock Scramble Ends in Japan

13 years ago

User Comments [ Order by usefulness ]

Masterful

by ampand
5 months ago

Rating: 9.6 / 10.0

I felt the need to submit a comment seeing as the previous two are complete opposites. I agree with "liquidsin" on everything except his guess, on the scans being bad; I think 'MangaGhost' is just an idiot.

The art is very nice and easy to follow, doesn't feel rushed the slightest and there is often the 'frame by frame' slow-mo moments of emotional/action filled scenes. There's plenty of things not said with text so if you do not look at the art I guess it would be hard to follow.

The movie doesn't have bad art either though...Ok technically this is spoiler but I will comment only the first first seconds and first pages so do not fear looking:

The unnecessary sexualization of the female lead with bare breasts and increased cup size is probably the reason mangaghost preferred the movie. It makes no sense though, Shell doesnt rape Balot, he murders her. She was a child prostitute prior and was raped by her own father. This is a sad, dark story and it should be really disgusting though the movie paints it as sexy albeit dark/evil.

Read the manga prior to watching it. definitely. Way better suspense and horror.

The world building is very interesting though every piece of it we gain is only when it directly relates to any characters. I'm probably being bad at explaining this though it's not confusing at all in the manga; It's like a history story told to from our(the readers) world, like they will not explain why Hitler is the bad guy, it's assumed you know that he is. Again this is done very well, not at all in a confusing manner, If you look closely at the art you can pick up how/why things work/are. I find this helps a lot with immersion; when they don't stop to over explain how some tech works or why someone is an asshole and simply paint it.

Overall I think this could have been a full 10 though I'm removing 0.4 out of petty annoyance that there is no more :'D I feel like Balot's origin story was completed though not the story of the world it played out in. Plenty other characters didn't get an ending and I wished for more 'hand holding' here, I wish there was some kind of prologue or at least words from the author+artist in the end page (every book except last one had 'em.) I would gladly read some other story play out in that world, concurrent as well as both ahead in time and prior.

TLDR; Dark and horrible(good), emotional and action, good satisfying art. Read it!

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Captivating

by liquidsin
14 years ago

Rating: 9.0 / 10.0

Beautiful drawings, interesting characters with a non-weak female lead, and a storyline that's simple yet enjoyable make this a great read. I'm not quite sure what the previous poster was talking about because the first 3 volumes have been easy to follow so far.

On a special note, I read these on the printed copy at my local library so I don't know about the quality of the online scans. Maybe that's where the discrepancy of art quality comes from, but that is merely a guess.

... Last updated 14 years ago

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Not worth any investment of time

by MangaGhost
14 years ago

Rating: 1.0 / 10.0

The description made this sound interesting and supposedly its based on a novel. I also think I read somewhere that they were going to make this into an anime. Well, I hope the anime is based on the novel and not this terrible piece of gunk. The art is just bad, ugly and inconsistent. Furthermore, the story is not told well at all. There's no real set up for anything and many things are just hurried or glossed over. It has a really weak start and such a turn off I couldn't get beyond the first volume.

Update. Well I just saw the 1st anime movie (there's supposed to be 3) and I found it to be much more coherent than this manga. The art style is also different and I would say much better. I think the movie is pretty decent and I'm interested in seeing how the others turn out. It is not shonen like the tag on this manga. Its pretty violent and quite a bit of abuse goes on, definitely not for the kiddies. However, if you are old enough I would recommend the movie over this manga any day of the week.

... Last updated 14 years ago

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