The basic premise is that Ami, a very athletic high school girl, has a brother, Yushie, who for an unexplained reason owed money to a school bully and his gang. Yushie and his best friend are killed by the gang, tossed out of a building to appear like suicide. The gang leader is the son of a Yakuza chief who tries to instill his "code of honor" on the son. The Yakuza leader has his hair curled up just enough to suggest devil's horns. Even more out of control is Yakuza mom, especially when she wears her steel killer driller bra. Early on, Ami tells Yushie that violence only begets more violence, and that point is literally hammered into the audience in bloody detail.

Even though the film is based on Iguchi's own screenplay, most of the characters have less depth than those found in a comic book or video game. It is probably very deliberate that when Ami shoots down ninja, school bullies and angry parents, that it is shot to resemble the point of view of someone playing a video game.

Returning to Williams' comment about pornography, the problem with The Machine Girl is that it so detailed in its presentation of gore that when the film tries to be satirical or black-humored, the desired effect is lost. Gags involving sushi or Ami's arm dipped in tempura batter end up simply being tasteless. The kind of scene in the Canadian thriller Cube, in which a character gets finely sliced and diced into multiple cubes, is disturbing. What was shocking in the earlier film becomes a cliche in the new film. Once one's expectations are sufficiently lowered, The Machine Girl is a reasonably entertaining trifle. What Iguchi perhaps unknowingly has demonstrated is that the best screen shocks, such as The Unknown, Psycho, and even the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre always left the scariest stuff to the imagination.