Japan on 21 May 2005 by Hobby Japan. Aside from illustrations and artworks for the series, it contains interviews with its authors and voice actors, as well as diverse additional information about the show in Japanese. The artbook has never been published outside Japan. Since the word "Bible" is derived from , meaning "holy books", it is likely that the artbook's title is a reference to the Holy Books that play an important role in the series' plot. Merchandise A resin model kit known as "Madlax with Guns" has been produced, featuring a figurine of Madlax dual wielding her signature SIG P210s. A polystone figurine entitled simply "Madlax", was launched in August 2007. In Japan, a T-shirt with Madlax logo has been added to the limited edition of the first DVD volume, and the "first press" of the OST albums came with logotype mousepads. Light novel A light novel spin-off of the series, titled , has been published on 1 June 2011 by Hobby Japan. Written by Seiya Fujiwara and illustrated by Shunsuke Tagami (neither of whom had been involved in the production of the original TV series), the book focuses on Elenore Baker as the main character in a setting somewhat different from that of the anime. In this continuity, Elenore is a combat-trained maid traveling across the war-torn Gazth-Sonika, looking for the lost Margaret and, along the way, helping the weary locals with their struggles. Reception Madlax was often accused of being secondary and reusing Noir stylistic solutions, such as the story premise, the two heroines' appearance, and the musical style. Nevertheless, some sources praised the story for being more monolithic and consequent than its predecessor's, owing to all its episodes and subplots being tightly intertwined and held together by the primary plot. The majority of reviewers perceived the early episodes of Madlax as boring and too slow-paced, but some of the same critics later remarked that the prolonged exposition is crucial to the unusual finale of the series, which fully establishes the series' own identity and sets it apart from other works. According to them, after the initial volume, the story gets better and better with every new episode, though some have been dissatisfied with its "pseudo-existentialistic" ending. Erica Friedman, the president of Yuricon, highly praised Kuroda's script, naming it "the best writing that Bee Train has done". Professional reviewers welcomed the increased number of sympathetic characters,