%%
%%
%%
%%
%% Zero-Context Examples are not allowed on the wiki, and have been commented out.
%%
%% Please add context before uncommenting an example.
%%
%%
%%
%%

[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/49ef5639_1281_455c_9771_cef38da3ac40.jpeg]]

->''"Why me?"''
-->-- '''Rune Balot'''

Rune Balot is a teen prostitute whose life is saved after an attempted murder by being cybernetically enhanced. Partnered with a cyborg mouse who can transform into any tool or weapon, she has to defend her life by putting away the casino owner and [[MegaCorp October Corporation]] employee [[BigBad Shell Septimos]], the man responsible, using her new abilities to sense her entire environment and control any nearby electronics.

A three volume novel by Creator/TowUbukata (published by Creator/VizMedia's Haikasora label in English as a single omnibus volume). An OVA series was commissioned to be animated by {{Creator/GONZO}} with character designs by Range Murata, this was later cancelled and instead it was released as a series of three films animated by Creator/GoHands, with a [[http://www.theanimenetwork.com/Anime/Mardock-Scramble-The-First-Compression/Feature/Watch dub + subtitled release]] by Creator/SentaiFilmworks in America and Canada, Creator/MadmanEntertainment in Australia and New Zealand, and Kaze in the UK, Ireland and Europe.

A {{Prequel}} called ''Mardock Velocity'' was published in 2006. A sequel called ''Mardock Anonymous'' was published in March 2016.

----
!!''Mardock Scramble'' provides examples of:
* TheAce: Ashley Harvest is this for the Eggnog Blue casino. He's their last-resort dealer when dealing with problem gamers, and is almost super-humanly skilled at manipulating the deck.
%% * ActionGirl: Rune, when she begins to use Œufcoque for combating the Bandersnatchers.
%% * ActionPet: Œufcoque in his mouse form.
* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: The film glosses over certain details, such as why Balot couldn't shoot Boiled on the ground, but could in the Humpty-Dumpty. Or the detail about Shell attempting to kill Balot because he knew she'd looked into her fake [=ID=]. Particularly, most of the details of Boiled's past and his history with Œufcoque and Easter are merely hinted at and glossed over.
* AmazingFreakingGrace: The ending theme of the first movie. Appears again as background music in the third movie.
* ArtificialLimbs: Medium replaces the hand that Balot blew off with a mechanical prosthetic.
* AsTheGoodBookSays: Professor Faceman quotes the book of Genesis during his conversations with Balot and Boiled, comparing them to Eve and Cain, respectively.
* AvengingTheVillain: Medium intends to do this for his fallen comrades by teaming up with Boiled and attacking the Paradise Research facility, unaware that Boiled set up his team to lose in the first place and only intends to use him as a distraction.
* BadBoss: [=OctoberCorp=] is quick to sell [[spoiler:Shell down the river when it becomes clear he's legally screwed.]]
* BatmanGambit: Boiled's hiring the Bandersnatch Company to get rid of Balot comes off like a pretty classic version of the trope. [[spoiler: Boiled doesn't actually expect them to be able to kill her, because he's aware of what Oeufcoque can do. He's therefore sending them in to test the extent of her abilities and how she will react to a threat on her life. If they do manage to kill her, all well and good. If not, then he still will have learned how tough she'll be to kill and hopefully worn her down a bit. He also wants to see if he can push her into abusing Oeufcoque so that he will reject her, thereby making Balot an easy target.]]
%% * BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Rune and Œufcoque, mutually.
* BlandNameProduct: The movies have Wisa (credit card).
* BlastingItOutOfTheirHands: Averted. Rune does this a few times, but it always causes severe damage to the gun-wielder's hand. And she usually kills them anyway.
* BigBrotherInstinct: When Rune's brother found out their father was raping her, he shot him.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Rune's father was an out of work laborer with a degenerative neurological disorder, who raped Rune several times. Her mother was a mentally unbalanced, emotionally and physically abusive drug addict. Her brother was forced to resort to gunrunning for money, and nearly killed their father after learning about the aforementioned rape. Currently both parents are hospitalized, and her brother is serving a prison sentence.
* BloodKnight: Boiled is no longer capable of experiencing anything even resembling emotional sensation unless he is in combat.
* BodyHorror: The Bandersnatch Company, in spades. Let's see, we've got: a guy who replaces his fingers with those of his victims, a guy with [[EyesDoNotBelongThere eyeballs implanted all over his chest and arms]], a cackling sadist whose skin and hair are a patchwork of grafts taken from his victims, a FatBastard with human breasts grafted all over his body, and... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Pussyhand]].
* BottomlessBladder: Averted. Rune has to use a department store toilet on her first trip away from Dr Easter's lab, where she finds and disables a hidden camera. Her urine smells of medication.
%% * BrokenBird: Rune. Oh so much...
* ButForMeItWasTuesday: Thanks to Shell's neurological condition he has no memories of Rune Balot whatsoever.
* CelibateHero: Rune's history has resulted in her having absolutely no interest in sex.
%% * CoolBigSis: The way Rune idolizes Belle Wing has shades of this.
* CoolShades: Shell wears a pair of color-shifting Chameleon Sunglasses.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Basically the entirety of [=OctoberCorp=]. However Cleanwill John October takes the cake, what with him [[spoiler:[[ParentalIncest raping, abusing and selling his mentally challenged daughter]], and being a huge pedophile.]] However, the founder of [=OctoberCorp=] was an idealist, and Doctor Easter insists she'd be disgusted with the direction the company is going now, were she not borderline brain-dead.
* CurbStompBattle: Rune's confrontation with the Bandersnatch Company is completely and brutally one-sided. [[spoiler: This is reversed seconds later when Boiled enters the fray and has Rune on the ropes instantly.]]
* CuteMute: Rune's vocal cords were incinerated, so she can only speak by ''snarking'' nearby speakers or screens. In the manga, this was because Shell [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill slit her throat before blowing up the car]].
* CuttingTheKnot: The reason Boiled [[spoiler: killed all those people]] when he still worked with Œufcoque and Easter. They had uncovered a case where acting, or not acting on their discovery would probably see them all in prison. So Boiled [[spoiler: simply killed all involved]] and made the problem disappear.
%% * {{Cyborg}}: Rune, Shell, Boiled and the Bandersnatch Company.
* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Dimsdale Boiled's lost empathy is due to Paradise's experimental technology.
%% * CyberPunk: The overall setting.
* DarkActionGirl: Rune as standard, but particularly when she [[spoiler: begins to ''enjoy'' killing the Bandersnatchers in horrible and painful ways. Also applies with regard to her disregarding Œufcoque's initial pleas for her to stop abusing his powers.]]
* DeathSeeker: It becomes increasingly clear that more than anything, [[spoiler:Dimsdale Boiled]] is tired and wants his miserable life to end.
* DepartmentOfChildDisservices: Rune and many other children were the victims of gross negligence and sexual abuse from the volunteers at the orphanage she was taken to.
* DidntNeedThoseAnyway:
** Tweedledee barely reacts to having both his arms sliced off. He later comments that [[GoodThingYouCanHeal they'll soon grow back.]]
** [[spoiler:Boiled loses two limbs in his final battle with Balot. It barely slows him down.]]
* DimensionalTraveler: Œufcoque is some kind of multi-dimensional being. Though this only means he exists in several dimensions simultaneously, not that he can teleport or open wormholes like the trope usually refers to. It's part of how he can turn into almost any kind of object. In the novel, the Doctor also explains to Balot that it's helping keep him alive; Œufcoque suffers from hypertrophism, meaning that he is growing exponentially as his cells increase in size. He'll eventually smother under his own weight, but for now he's able to shunt the extra mass into these other dimensions.
%% * DisposableSexWorker: Shell views Rune as this. It comes back to bite him.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Rune's abuse of Œufcoque's powers late in the first movie is ''very'' strongly reminiscent of rape, especially considering the latter's reactions to it.
%% * TheDragon: Boiled's place in Shell's employ.
* DragonInChief: Despite Rune's ultimate goal being the taking down of Shell, Boiled is by far the greater presence and more significant threat throughout the story.
%% * DuelToTheDeath: An intense one between [[spoiler:Balot and Boiled at the climax of the series.]]
%% * EarnYourHappyEnding: Do they EVER. But in the end, it was all worth it.
* EdibleThemeNaming: It's everywhere!
** Rune '''Balot''' (a chick boiled inside its own shell)
** '''Œufcoque''' (from the French for soft-boiled egg, Œuf à la coque)
** Doctor '''Easter'''
** '''Shell''' Septinos
** Dimsdale '''Boiled'''
** The Bandersnatch Company: '''Mince''', '''Welldone''', '''Rare''', '''Medium''', '''Fresh'''/'''Flesh'''.
** The flying house '''Humpty''' (which overlaps with the Creator/LewisCarroll-based ShoutOutThemeNaming)
** The '''Eggnog''' Blue Casino
** "We go for the yolk, not touching the shell or the white."
** And of course, the title: ''Mardock'' '''''Scramble'''''.
* ElectronicEyes: The Bandersnatchers all have cybernetic eyes as a standard feature. [[spoiler: This backfires on them pretty nastily when Œufcoque is able to hack their network and screw their visual receptors all to hell.]]
%% * EmotionlessGirl: Balot's unique selling point as a prostitute.
%% * EmptyShell: In an odd protagonist version, Rune starts as this. She gets better, though.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Welldone the Pussyhand has a vulva on his hand (indeed all the Bandersnatchers are named after the body parts they like to collect)
%% * ExternalCombustion: How Shell intended to do away with Balot. [[spoiler:He also did this to his mother.]]
* EyesDoNotBelongThere: Mincemeat the Wink; his body is covered in stolen eyes.
%% * {{Fingore}}: Medium the Fingernail, and later [[spoiler:Shell.]]
* FlyingCar: [[ArtificialGravity Anti-gravity]] hover cars, to be precise. Rich people show off by getting ''old-fashioned'' cars, to show they have the money to waste on gasoline.
* FreudianExcuse:
** Shell's murderous impulses are rooted in [[spoiler:having been raped by his mother for years. This leads to him targeting women who were also sexually abused by their parents and making them "clean" again by turning them into blue diamonds. Doctor Easter theorizes that his neurological disorder is also a factor since it has robbed him of the capacity to develop stress coping mechanisms.]]
** The ''[[BodyHorror Bandersnatch]] [[PsychoForHire Company]]'' has an excuse in the manga, and the novels to a lesser extent. [[spoiler:They were a tight-knit company in a horrific war, and Welldone refused to force cyberization on them. Soon after, the horrors of war caught up with them and they all broke. Having fallen to despair, Welldone gave in, and they were converted into cyborg killing machines.]]
* FromBadToWorse: [[TheWoobie Rune's entire life: Her mother is addicted to drugs, her father raped her, her brother is in jail because he injured their dad to protect her, she had to work as a prostitute. As a minor prostitute! Then Shell killed her.]] At least up until meeting Œufcoque and Dr. Easter.
%% * GogglesDoSomethingUnusual: The Doctor's Tech Glasses display information. This only really comes up once, though.
* {{Gonk}}: Characters who are merely ugly in the movies and novels, like Cleanwill John October, are cartoonishly hideous in the manga.
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted, as the novel strongly implies Balot has had one.
%% * GravityMaster: Boiled, and Paradise's Cherubim, both through the power of ''magnets''.
* GreaterScopeVillain: OctoberCorp is Shell's employer and the ones responsible for his screwed-up mental state, thanks to their programs of supplying "corrective" surgeries and recreational drugs to Mardock's poor. The Doctor and Œufcoque are out to take the company down, and Balot's case is part of their efforts to do so. At one point, the Doctor states that they effectively control the entertainment and pleasure industries in Mardock City and have their fingers in all kinds of illegal pies.
%% * GroinAttack: Delivered to Welldone, courtesy of Balot. [[spoiler:Later Medium suffers one. From a ''shark''.]]
* GunsAkimbo: Rune, sometimes. It makes sense, since she really is that good thanks to her new artificial skin, and Œufcoque can generate new magazines inside the guns to reload. If she ever needs a free hand, she can just [[ThrowAwayGuns toss a gun]] and have Œufcoque generate a whole new one later.
* HandCannon: Boiled's revolver. It's so ridiculously powerful that he is only capable of firing it due to his PGF ability. When Œufcoque turns into a copy for Balot to use, the recoil nearly breaks her wrist.
* HeKnowsTooMuch: Why Shell has the Bandersnatch Company dispose of his neurosurgeons.
%% * HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Rune is basically this. Although she retires from prostitution early in the story.
%% * HotBlade: Hutchinson knives.
* HumanResources: The Bandersnatch Company proudly claims that they let ''nothing'' go to waste from their "livestock".
%% * ImplacableMan: You'd be forgiven for mistaking Boiled for The Franchise/{{Terminator}}.
%% * ImpossiblyCoolClothes: Rune's battle-suit. Justified by it being made out of Œufcoque.
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Rune is good enough that shooting bullets out of the air isn't even a strain for her. {{Justified|Trope}} taking into account just how big a GameBreaker her new skin makes her.
* InstantExpert: Balot is a natural with her new skin, and its ''[[{{Technopathy}} snarking]]'' function affords her instinctual mastery of any electronics she comes into contact with.
* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: The Bandersnatch Company, for one. Not to mention the ass-kicking they receive from Balot in the last quarter of the first movie gets Balot reminiscing about all the abuse she's been through.
%% * InterspeciesRomance: Rune and Œufcoque, as well as Tweedledum and Tweedledee in ''Second Combustion''.
* KarmicDeath: The Bandersnatch Company is destroyed by the same type of young victim they've been preying on for years.
%% * LackOfEmpathy: Most of the antagonists, though especially Boiled due to experimental technology implanted into him by Paradise.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: {{Justified|Trope}} with Shell. His faulty brain implant will cause irrevocable damage if the memories he has associated with stress aren't regularly removed. He's [[SerialKiller ritualized]] this whole process.
%% * MadScientist: Easter is a heroic but still eccentric version of this.
%% * MadeOfIron: Boiled and the Bandersnatchers.
%% * MegaCorp: [=OctoberCorp=]
%% * MentorMascot: Œufcoque
%% * MoralityPet: Œufcoque used to be this for Boiled, and now fulfills a similar role for Rune.
* MsFanservice: Rune spends a lot of time either wearing snug clothing, naked, or wearing a NakedApron. She alternates between ReluctantFanserviceGirl and InnocentFanserviceGirl depending on the situation.
* NonActionBigBad: Shell Septinos is a lot of things; a show gambler, a crooked businessman, and a serial killer. But a skilled fighter is not one of them.
* NonActionGuy: The Doctor is a scientist and physician, not a soldier. He openly admits to Balot that he's useless in a fight and leaves the fighting to her and Œufcoque, though at one point he does grab a rifle to try and deter Boiled.
* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted. Rune buys sanitary napkins.
* NoSell: A pack of Paradise's Cherubs attempt to stop Boiled from infiltrating the facility. They quickly realize that their advanced PGF technology means next to nothing compared to him. [[CurbStompBattle Right before he blows them all away.]]
* NotSoDifferentRemark: During her massacre of the Bandersnatchers, Balot becomes intoxicated by the feeling of power it gives her, and reasons that this is what all the men who used her must have felt.
* ObfuscatingStupidity: The Doctor and Rune ''look'' completely harmless (and Œufcoque usually looks like part of Rune's wardrobe). They are not. They particularly take advantage of this to play a couple of [[TheFool fools]] (and wardrobe) to rob a casino blind. The casino is almost certain nobody can be ''that'' lucky, but can't prove it for sure.
%% * OffhandBackhand: When a downed mook tries to interrupt Rune while she is snarking Cleanwill John October's location.
* OutOfTheInferno:
** Thanks to Œufcoque, Balot manages to survive the explosion set off by Rare unscathed.
** Boiled reacts to being in the middle of a massive explosion set off by Balot with casual indifference.
* ParentalIncest:
** Rune lost her virginity when her father [[RapeAsBackstory raped]] her after school. She was twelve.
** [[spoiler: Shell was also a victim of this for years at the hands of his mother. This is, in fact, the detail that connects all of the women he has killed, and the answer to why Balot was to be his next victim.]]
* PayEvilUntoEvil: By the end of her conflict with the Bandersnatchers, it's clear that Rune's projecting every shame and indignity she's felt throughout her life onto them. Eventually she doesn't even see them as people, [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope just representations of everything that has done her wrong that she can gleefully dismember in revenge.]]
* PlayfulHacker: Rune can ''snark'' virtually ''anything'', and displays a sadistic mischievousness about it when she does so to the Bandersnatchers. In the novel, she also punishes some teenagers for parking in a handicapped space by shutting the gates of the car park on them, forcing them to pay a fine to get out.
* ProfessionalKiller: Boiled is basically this, despite being a licensed case officer. The Bandersnatch Company also qualifies, though killing is only a side-effect of their [[HumanResources chosen career]].
* PsychoForHire: The Bandersnatch Company. They didn't even want money for the Rune Balot job. They fancied her parts so much that they considered the job and the payment to be one in the same.
* RaceLift: Some characters described as dark-skinned in the novel version appear as the usual {{mukokuseki}} in the movies, though skin color isn't the only area where designs are changed.
* RapeAsBackstory: Rune was raped by her father. [[spoiler: Shell was raped by his mother, as it turns out.]]
%% * RazorFloss: Rare the Hair's preferred ranged weapon.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: The eyes of the Bandersnatchers turn red when activating their night vision.
%% * SapientCetaceans: Tweedledum the dolphin.
* SerialKiller: Shell has made a ritual of taking in young women, killing them when he finds out they've looked into the fake [=ID=]s he gives them, and turning their remains into blue diamonds. [[TheOneThatGotAway Balot]] was set up to be his next victim.
* ShootTheBullet: Balot can do this consistently, even to multiple rounds at once. Played with concerning Boiled's bullets though. They're just so ''huge'' that shooting them hardly alters their trajectory in any appreciable way.
* ShoutOutThemeNaming: [[Literature/AliceInWonderland Tweedledee, Tweedledum, Humpty-Dumpty]], the [[Literature/{{Jabberwocky}} Bandersnatch]] Company as well as ''[[Literature/TheHuntingOfTheSnark snark]]''... and Charles Ludwig sounds awfully [[Creator/LewisCarroll familiar]].
%% * SissyVillain: Rare the Hair, and Flesh the Pike to a lesser extent.
%% * SmugSnake: Shell.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Aside from Balot and Bell Wing, all main and secondary characters are male.
* SomeKindOfForceField: Boiled's GravityMaster powers can generate a nearly impenetrable personal shield.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Snarc/Snark, Flesh/Fresh, Bell/Belle.
* SpyCatsuit: One of the forms Œufcoque can assume, which Balot later modifies to be more {{Stripperiffic}} because it wasn't "cute" enough.
%% * TheStoic: Boiled.
* SuperReflexes: Balot can ''snark'' her own body to react at the speed of her SuperSenses, and block out pain.
* SuperSenses: Balot's new skin, on top of affording her incredible [[{{Technopath}} technopathic]] ability, gives her a spatial perception that affords her total awareness of her immediate surroundings in a 360 degree radius.
%% ** The Bandersnatch Company's cybernetic eyes, and mental network is another example of this.
%% * TakingYouWithMe: Rare attempts to do this to Rune via internal explosives.
%% * {{Technopath}}: Rune [[spoiler:and Boiled to a ''much'' lesser extent.]]
%% * TooManyBelts: Balot is fond of adding extra belts to her outfits.
%% * TraumaticHaircut: In the anime and the novel, Rune's hair is incinerated, and when the Doctor grows it back, it is much shorter.
* TronLines: Glowing patterns appear on Boiled's forehead when he activates his PGF in the film's interpretation.
%% * UpliftedAnimal: Œufcoque, Tweedledum, and the Cherubim.
* VehicularThemeNaming: The book and chapter titles are all related to the internal combustion engine.
%%* VillainousBreakdown: Shell seems to go through a constant one throughout the series.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Œufcoque is implied to be able to literally Turn into ''almost'' anything, though he insists he could never become a human, and seems restricted to inanimate objects.
* VomitIndiscretionShot: After Rune's abuse of Œufcoque's powers late in the first movie, he vomits in her hands.
* WeCanRebuildHim: Rune is reborn as a cyber-being after "dying" in an exploding car.
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: It's never specified where in the future Mardock City is, aside from that it's within a area called the "Commonwealth", and that the Commonwealth was once at war with the "Continent". It's mentioned to have a coastal district, and the novel refers to Central Park, Times Square, and Trump Tower, all of which suggests it could be a future version of New York City, but it remains ambiguous.
%% * WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Boiled's past is tragic. Balot skirts this trope herself.
* WorfHadTheFlu: Normally Balot is nigh-unstoppable unless against monsters like Boiled. [[spoiler:However, during her second fight against Medium in the manga she lacked Œufcoque, and thus all his weaponry and battle-suit. While her personal powers were still available, she was nearly powerless to inflict harm on a military-grade cyborg like Medium and was forced to retreat.]]
%% * YoureDrinkingBreastMilk: Flesh certainly is. His own.