The Story
Big-eyed, little-mouthed (which means good) test pilot Ellie Kusumoto has a bit of a problem. After administering a healthy thrashing to fellow army comrade, little-eyed, big-mouthed (which means evil) Lt. Kilgore in a field demonstration for military brass, Ellie lost her weapon of choice, the exo-suit MADOX-01 during a transportation accident. She now has to find and recover her Madox before Lt. Kilgore can exact his revenge on the suit, which doesn’t make any sense at all, because Ellie was driving it so shouldn’t he want to kill her? But I digress…

Seemingly fortunate college student Sugimoto Kouji finds the misplaced Madox and being the curious type, decides to play with it a little. Who wouldn’t tinker with a multi million dollar piece of strange and possibly dangerous military equipment? Suddenly Kouji finds himself inside of the Madox and unable to find a way out. As he stumbles like an idiot through the heavily populated city, he unwittingly destroys hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of government and private property in a matter of seconds…and then stops to buy a plate of noodles from the shop that he just demolished.

Now determined to meet his girlfriend, Shiori, for a previously set date on top of a building Kouji makes a disastrous run from the military and even kills a few soldiers in a helicopter, although nobody seems to mind that little slipup.

The determined Ellie Kusumoto outfits herself in the prototype Madox-00 in order to track down and capture the Madox-01, which she does quickly. However, when Kouji tells Ellie that he needs to meet his girlfriend on the roof of the building where they are battling, her heart apparently goes out to him and she ignores the rampage Kouji just went on through Tokyo. In a moment of naivety, Ellie walks into Lt. Kilgore’s trap and loses the use of her mech. In true anime fashion, Kouji is the only one who can face Kilgore, despite the fact that the Madox is a highly complicated piece of machinery that only the most qualified professionals can operate. The best part of this masterpiece of contradiction, is that mere minutes after Kouji was trapped inside the Madox without any way to escape, suddenly, he’s out of there like a fat girl in dodge ball.

Characters
Supposedly this anime was one of the historic pieces that kicked off the “golden age of anime” here in the states. Taking that into consideration, calling the characters stereotypes isn’t really fair. Kouji’s your “clever” hero who tries to juggle school, a part time job, and a girlfriend. Ellie is the sassy young businesswoman and Kilgore is the militant meathead with a one-track mind. They aren’t bad, they aren’t good, they just are.

DVD Extras
Now this is where Madox actually shines, and the extras really are fantastic. We have an interview with the CEO of AnimEigo where he talks about Madox, the history of anime in the states, and the history if AnimEigo. It’s really incredibly interesting to listen to how anime came to the states back in 1989. If nothing else, it’s funny to watch a 40-50 something year old man talk about hentai, and pretend to show us “the goods”. There is also an interview with Eric Tomosunas, the voice and sound director for Madox, and thirdly, we have a Japanese documentary that compares real-life weapons to the ones used in Madox. Now, I’ve never met a documentary I didn’t like, and this unique piece is no exception. It was a wonderful idea to put something like this on the DVD; I wish other companies took such care when producing titles. Lastly we have a commentary track over the movie with some of the voice talent and Mr. Tomosunas: Another nice touch from the folks at AnimEigo!

Conclusion
Usually you’ll see a section on video (art) and sound in my reviews at this point, but Madox-01 is so old it wouldn’t be much of a review. It looks old, it sounds old, and there’s nothing more to say about that. Anyone who has seen titles from the late 80’s and early 90’s knows what I’m talking about. Frankly, I didn’t enjoy Madox-01. It had no plot at all, the characters had no motivation, and it completely kicked me out of the realm of suspended belief . I understand that AnimEigo is technically the oldest remaining US anime group and that Madox-01 is more of a historic “collectors item” than an enjoyable movie, but I refuse to give it extra points for nostalgia. This movie is very short, running just under 40 minutes (the box says 50) but it was 40 minutes of unadulterated pain.

However, the DVD extras are some of the best I’ve ever seen in an anime title, so my hat goes off to AnimEigo for that one. If you have a vast collection of anime from various eras, add Madox-01 to your list for collection reasons only. Definitely, don’t watch this movie if you’re looking for a good time.