Noir

I initially approached this anime tentatively, having heard mixed opinions on it. Well, I'm glad I gave it a chance. Noir starts out pretty slowly, but episode by episode the plot picks up pace. The story revolves around two young women assassins, one with amnesia and the other with a troubled past, who together are journeying to find out more about their childhoods. Though I feel like it's a mixture of many plots I have seen before, somehow Noir seems to roll them all up and make it interesting all over again. Once the plot picked up pace it kept me engrossed, and I was onthe edge of my seat until the end. I found myself very attached to the main characters. Initially Kirika struck me as very bland, as she rarely talked at the beginning, but I think that made it all the more enjoyable to watch as she slowly emerged from her shell, and developed a personality as the series progressed. I liked Mirielle as well, for she put up a front of being a no-nonsense and callous assassin who didn't need anyone in her life, but before she knew it was happening found that she had formed an emotional bond with Kirika, whether she wanted to or not. The interaction between the two of them is very interesting, for they balance each other out. Mirielle is outgoing and professional, while Kirika is quiet and very observant. Somehow the two of them really fit together. To me the art appeared to be alternately gorgeous and a bit off. Some episodes are better animated than others. However, on the whole I thought it was beautiful, and I was able to overlook the bad bits. As a whole, I thought that the actions scenes were excellent. The art really reflects the mood of the series, and I think the style suits it perfectly. The music is really what I felt pulled the series together. It's really gorgeous, and it really creates the mood of the scene. The only thing I ever had a problem with was that the melody from the watch eventually got tiresome after it was repeated many times. On the whole, though, I was blown away by the beauty of the sound. One of the only things I have to complain about is that I felt that some characters were a little bit lacking. Chloe, for example, felt really out of place in the series. She was the only person that seemed to really stick out in a bad way. I know she was supposed to stand out, but somehow...the character design just looks wrong. Her clothing looked silly as compared to the more realistic or european style of the others. However, personality-wise she is very interesting. Also, the lack of skilled male adversaries was odd, but I don't think it really stood out enough to irk me. Another thing that annoyed me was that in the beginning was the constant flashbacks. Seriously, I thought I'd kill myself if I had to see that scene with Mirielle as a kid one more time. Some of the plot was a bit unclear at times, but it was very good as a whole. I'd recommend this series to anyone who likes a mysterious plot with lots of action, and alternately a slower paced, more casual atmosphere, as well as a great soundtrack.

Noir is another girls-with-guns anime with somewhat of an interesting plot about an ancient fate, however this is overshadowed by the slow development of the show and also the dull and lifeless action sequences. Mireille Bouquet is a top class assassin and Kirika Yumura is a mysterious Japanese schoolgirl who woke up with no memory at all. This is an action anime about two female assassins, who happened to encounter each other by fate. After the exciting action packed first episode, not much is explained about this show. Throughout the first half, all there is to go by are the subtle hints and surreal introhowever there’s only one word that can describe this show as it begins, “boring”. It was so boring that people hoping for some form of development, may not be able to continue watching this anime however for those who are patient can enjoy the better half of the show. It is the second half that is somewhat interesting, with a lot of things finally being revealed, like the secret organization behind everything. Though it is interesting it never becomes truly captivating. The animation style resembles that of “Cowboy Bebop” with the same artistry and fluid animation. This tries to give a little extra by being widescreen format and beautifully drawn characters, nonetheless it losses its greatness once the action kicks in. It isn’t long before you’ll quickly notice the incredibly useless enemies they are up against and the lack of blood. This isn’t an important thing for anime, when it comes to a “Bang! Bang! Shoot-em-up” gunshot wounds are essential and that isn’t found here. The music is exceptionally great especially when it gets to the action or when it’s building up to it. On the other hand the music lacks variety so it gets tiring to hear the same tunes other and other but what really is annoying is the high pitch watch melody that will pierce through your ear drums whenever you listen to it. This had the potential of being a great anime, but it took so long for anything about the plot to be revealed that only the second half of the show was enjoyable to watch. This is the major downfall of this, plus other little annoyances like time wasting techniques and the constant, pointless flashbacks. This anime was predominantly filled with gun-battles which were usually great but it didn’t change the fact that the enemies they faced were so rubbish, with a gun, that they couldn’t even hit a parked car. It’s only till the finally 2 episodes when something spectacular happens, but by then this decent show is over, with a BANG! If you enjoy the odd action packed anime and don’t mind censorship, then by all means check this out. ^_^

An excellent, stylish anime but strangley lacking in blood considering the subject matter. PLOT: Noir has a very well worked out plotline. The 1st half of the series is quite slow, episodic and ‘assassination of the week’ orientated, but this is necessary in order to properly flesh out the personalities of Mireille & Kirika and develop their relationship to a point were the viewer actually cares about these two assassins. The second half of the series is much quicker paced as Mireille & Kirika delve further into their connected pasts and become entangled with the shadowy organisation Les Soldats. Light viewing Noir is not, as thetruth that the two girls seek to find is determined to remain hidden – the viewer is required to think as much as Mireille & Kirika, as we are not given much more information than they are at any one time. The character development is superb and all the named characters introduced are all needed to progress the plot. Noir is an impressive piece of storytelling – not what I was expecting from BEE TRAIN at all. ANIMATION: Really nice very stylish animation, gorgeous realistic backgrounds accurately depict the various locales that the characters travel to to carry out their missions. The gunfight action is extremely well choreographed and exciting to watch and there is excellent use of lighting effects, unusual camera angles and cuts. Character designs are quite nice, but sometimes there is a lack of proper emotion in the faces in close up shots. The major criticism I have is the completely bloodless violence. You will be hard pressed to find more than a single drop of blood in this entire series! Mireille & Kirika do not hold back on their missions and the death toll is massive, but no one really seems to bleed – all wounds are very clean. It’s irritating as everything else is quite realistically done – a bit more blood would have heightened the drama. Also there’s a bit of James Bond style shooting going on – the girls can stroll through a crowd of machine-gun wielding SPs and never get hit and dispatch their enemies with a single shot from a handgun! But hey they’re the main characters its to be expected, and they look really cool when doing so! MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: The score deserved especial praise – an absolutely beautiful and very memorable soundtrack. I really like Kajiura Yuki’s work and Noir is no exception – grand sweeping melodies, great use of haunting choral pieces, classical scores and thrumming electro perfectly matches the action and intensifies the emotional drama, and all without drowning out the dialogue. The OP is by Ali Project and is quite similar to most of their other songs, but I quite liked it after listening to it a few times (despite the fact I utterly despise Ali Project!), the ED is a nice calm ballad. Voice acting is excellent throughout – a small cast but all are great in their roles. Overall an extremely good series – highly recommended. Looses a point because of the slow start and the bloodless violence.

Warning does contain Episode 1 spoilers Story (3/10) The initial premise of the story is actually very good, Kirika wakes up one day not knowing anything apart from a name - Noir, a pocket watch, a , and a school uniform and ID. Oh and a great skill in assassination. She contacts Mirelle, another assassin with whom she makes a pact to find out who this Noir is and what has been controlling their lives. Being a big fan of mafia and spy movies, the premise sounds great, but from an early stage I could feel this early promise slipping through some horrific sub-plots and plot gaps.For example the first thing that Mirelle asks Kirika is about how she found out about her (With Kirika being in what I'm guessing is Japan and Mirelle working in Paris it’s a fair question) to which an answer is never given, thinking we will overlook this as Kirika has amnesia and probably knew in the past I let this first one go. Secondly, Mirelle promises to kill Kirika when she's done helping her find out about her past since she knows her face, a huge matter of importance for an assassin. However this secret identity swiftly goes out the window by the third episode which has the pair assassinating a crime boss in broad daylight at a party with hundreds of guests without a disguise. Then a couple of episodes later they are worried about a crime boss having seen their face again, consistency is something that this anime is severely lacking in. Thirdly, I guess I should clear up that this is most definitely a girls with guns anime, not anything realistic or assassin related, men in this anime are confined to the same fate as the red shirts in the original star trek, even when the pair are in a position where it seems unlikely that they could at least not be injured, the incompetent men seem to be able to spray everything around them, even after just taking out their previous target with some nifty sharp shooting. This left any conflict in the anime a joke, you could have scripted in generic mass of men with guns, somehow surround/capture one of our heroines, other heroine kills everyone without breaking a sweat. All this is actually quite sad, because once you get past the dull storylines and into the proper story (about episode 18), the story suddenly begins to live up to itself. The last 8 episodes merit a much higher score on their own than when included with the previous 17 episodes, with the story actually getting down to the nitty gritty stuff and making headway. Unfortunately this comes far too late in the anime, with over half of the episodes done very poorly, the scoring has to be way down. This could have made an excellent 12 episode anime, with the events until the 18th episode could be summed up in at most 4 episodes in terms of any actual story and scene setting. Animation (7/10) The animation is pretty good actually, the backgrounds are especially impressive, Paris looks like Paris and Corsica looks like Corsica. The animation style is typical early 00's so looks slightly dated now, but there’s no problem with that, as it does not hinder the story telling. My main gripe with the animation is the lack of blood in the anime, not that I think any anime should be smeared in huge amounts of blood, but it does look bizarre when someone is injured and holding there arm like its bleeding, only it’s not... also anyone killed just seems like they are having a lie down, this is further impressed by Mirelle’s flashbacks from her childhood which contains characters with blood, it seems odd to have it there for one scene and then not for the rest of the anime, again consistency is the main problem. Sound (9/10) The sound is another very good part, the soundtrack has won the composer some acclaim, and the title track is really good, however a slight few of the scores really grated on me, especially the tata one (you’ll know it when you hear it), managing to be the most irritating noise in the animation and usually came on in scenes which really would have benefited from the same excellent music in the rest of the anime. Apart from that gripe, the characters are often silent through thought and the music played at these times usually does well to add to the mood of these scenes and enhance the understanding of the characters. The other good point with the sound, is the pronunciation of the French and Italian words in the animation, which is spot on. Recently I have cringed at Japanese attempts at English (Revy in Black Lagoon's English for example), and it’s really refreshing to hear them get it spot on. Characters (8/10) I only consider Mirelle and Kirika to be main characters in this anime rarely do any of the other characters which are introduced last more than one episode. The exception to this being Chloe and Altena, of whom I consider to be main supporting as they do not get enough character development on the whole to consider them main characters. Both of the main characters are well written, and the way in which both of the characters feelings are portrayed throughout the anime, lets you into the characters well and you can actually see their pain about what has happened to them. My main criticism on this point is again going back to consistency, with some of the characters reactions to various situations changing throughout the course of the anime where there has been no character development which would influence them in these situations. Both the main and supporting main characters could also perhaps have done with a greater look into their pasts, for Kirika – what happened before she got amnesia and ended up in Japan with Mirelle – what she did between leaving Corsica and living in Paris (although this is briefly touched on). For there to be such a small group of main character in a long anime series, it would be expected to investigate all the major time periods that build up the characters into who they eventually are in the present time, which is done to an extent, but at the end I was still looking for more answers about the characters. Enjoyment (3/10) Unfortunately this ended up a bit of a slog to watch. The story telling for the first episodes was terrible, and it also took me a while to connect with the characters and by the time I did understand them more, the bland scripting of the first episodes had reduced me to not really caring too much what happened to them and eventually, it was a case of watching because I had started. Overall (6/10) There is a very good anime here screaming to get out, the decision to run for 26 episodes was a huge mistake in my opinion, with more than half the episodes being below par in terms of storytelling and enjoyment. As put in the story section, this would make a great 12 episode series, without detracting anything from the story itself. However if you like girls with guns, don’t mind a bit of Character Shielding and can put up with some crass storylines, you’ll be treated to a very good closing sequence with an ending which is the envy of much better told stories.