Background
Nafrece is a tranquil European country apparently styled after France: for example, the Eiffel Tower that can be seen on multiple occasions, and in the official English translation (see Releases), the names of these two states are almost exact anagrams of each other. No details on the government or the social structure of Nafrece have been revealed on the series. Notably, no Nafrecian cities are ever explicitly referred by name within the series, either. The currency commonly used in Nafrece is the yul (ユール, yūru?), which should not be confused with Euro (ユーロ, Yūro?).
One of the world's biggest enterprises, Bookwald Industries (ブッグワルド, Bugguwarudo?), is based in Nafrece, and with several central characters being its employees, it plays an important role in the series. Bookwald officially invests into the world's key industries, but also covertly deals with weapons and is, in fact, a subsidiary of a powerful worldwide crime syndicate Enfant (アンファン, Anfan?), that controls every information channel on the planet. The leader of Enfant apparently has supernatural powers: he is seen as able to erase a person's memory and alter their personality. "Enfant" means "child" in French, wherein this organization parallels a similar one in Noir, called "Soldats" (French for "soldiers").
Enfant's headquarters are located in Gazth-Sonika, a country in south-western Asia, that has been plagued for twelve years by a civil war between a Royalist faction and an armed religious group named Galza (ガルザ, Garuza?). This country may have been inspired by or named after the Gaza Strip, since the syllables ga-za (ガザ?) in both Japanese: ガザ地区 (gaza chiku, "Gaza Strip") and Japanese: ガザッソニカ are written with the same kana. Gazth-Sonika is geographically separated into two zones: the combat and demilitarized one, with the city of Daman in the latter being the only city explicitly named in the series (it's unknown whether it has been inspired by Daman, India). The Nafrecian yur is used as a currency in Gazth-Sonika, as well, with 50 yur being considered a very large sum by the locals.
There are multiple general similarities between the real world and the fictional world of Madlax, as well, for example, the Darwin operating system appears throughout the story and the cat statuette that Madlax keeps in her apartment is a traditional Japanese good luck charm called Maneki Neko. Japan itself is mentioned early in the series, although it's the only real country to be so. Moreover, all firearms depicted in Madlax (as well as some vehicles, such as the ERC 90 Sagaie light tank) exist in the real world, for example, Madlax's favorite SIG 210-2 or Limelda Jorg's H&K PSG-1 sniper rifle.
Read more about this topic: Fictional Setting Of Madlax
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