Noein: To Your Other Self

I briefly considered starting this review by summarizing the show's plot, but it's my opinion that Noein should win an award for “hardest plot to summarize,” so at the risk of making an idiot of myself, I decided against it. I then considered describing the concept in popular science that is behind Noein's plot, but that's almost as complicated as the plot. I'll spare myself some embarrassment. Noein definitely has a unique look to it, albeit one that's fraught with inconsistency. The character designs are far from typical, being thinner and slightly more realistically proportioned than the norm. Although it eventually becomes clear that action wasnot intended to be the core of the series, the animation does have some strong moments, and, particularly in the first half, there's no shortage of creative futuristic combat. It's also a CGI-heavy show, with the invading ships from Shangri-La as well as many of the backgrounds being the most noticeable examples. The CGI looks good in general, but there are some painful hiccups. In particular, the model for Haruka's house sticks out like a sore thumb. In fact, it's pretty clear that visual quality control is a big issue across the board for Noein—when everything's working and the show is at its best, it looks fantastic, but the art quality varies on an almost minute-to-minute basis, and at its worst, it looks absolutely dreadful. When I think of the show's lovely backgrounds and its unusual use of deep, electric reds and blues in its color palette, I want to sing its praises...but then I recall a couple of action sequences that are reduced to stuttering gray messes by lapses in art and animation, and a multitude of moments where the character designs fall noticeably in quality, and it makes me think twice. The music is acceptable, though lacking finesse. Noein's plot is an amalgamation of everyday content (like going to school and messing around with friends) and epic sci-fi content (like preventing the universe from disappearing), and the soundtrack strains to accommodate both of these aspects. The former is usually accompanied by tracks in which a recorder is used as the lead instrument, providing a distinctly childish and carefree sound that works well in this context. The more serious content is normally paired with fast-paced orchestral songs and chanted vocals. Both sides of the soundtrack are guilty of going a little over the top at times, and none of the individual songs are particularly memorable, but within the show the score suffices to build the mood. When it comes to audio track language, I'd choose whatever your preference is, as they're both more than passable. The English dub contains a nice array of veteran voice actors. Crispin Freeman in particular sounds right at home as the haunted Karasu, his voice carrying his trademark dark edge of emotion and power, but that's not to leave some others out—Richard Epcar lends a genuinely creepy touch to Noein's booming, disembodied voice, and Melissa Fahn plays Haruka with conviction. Some secondary characters are not handled quite as well, with some unnatural sounding line deliveries being present. The dub's script also inexplicably changes a supporting cast member's gender from male to female, though that's more of a head-scratcher than a genuine problem. Overall, it's a very serviceable dub. The Japanese audio doesn't have a single hiccup that I can note, and if forced to choose at gunpoint I'd probably say that it's the better track, but it's a close enough race that you should be fine whether you go with the sub or the dub. Despite all of the elements of sci-fi and action, it's evident that character drama is a little closer to the heart of the series. The main cast consists of Haruka, Yuu, and Karasu (who is Yuu, fifteen years in the future). Haruka is the kind of protagonist that's easy to get behind—kind, level-headed, trustworthy and above all, balanced, not leaning towards any extreme. She's a pretty open book, not written with a whole lot of complexity, but she projects enough likeability and believability to scrape by with a pass from me. The same can't be said of the male lead, Yuu, who is neither complexly written nor likeable. He spends most of the series switching schizophrenically between impotently wallowing in self-pity, and courageously risking his life to try to protect Haruka, and his changes in mood aren't very tactful—you never really know if the Yuu onscreen is the brave, devoted Yuu or the woe-is-me Yuu. Even worse, we don't know anything about his motivation for going to such great lengths to protect Haruka. A few flashbacks show that the two were childhood friends, but it's not elaborated on to any significant degree; the show presents their history in the visual equivalent of about three sentences, which makes it tough to give them a lot of thought as a couple, much less the couple that is supposed to be the centerpiece of the show. Much to its detriment, Noein also has a colossal number of supporting characters. It has a habit of casting one of them into the spotlight for a portion of an episode, then discarding them and never mentioning them or the importance of their actions again. The show struggles to explain even the basic motivations of some of the characters—we never do learn what exactly drives antagonist Atori's deep hatred of Karasu, why the kids' elementary school teacher is cool with their dangerous encounters with futuristic beings, or the purpose of the awkwardly introduced love triangle between three members of the Dragon Cavalry. Most of these characters' pasts and personalities ultimately end up being explained away with a brief flashback detailing a traumatic moment in their lives, and there's simply no excuse for that. The cast could have been halved, and not only would the series not lose anything, it would probably be better off. The story, while good on paper, ends up dragging on, and on, and on. I watched intently, but to be honest, that was completely unwarranted; I could probably have slept through a third of the series and still understood the overarching plot, which says a lot about the lack of stringency in the writing. Much as with the characters, the sheer number of subplots that have, at best, a tenuous connection to the story is rather staggering. The show is dangerously lacking in focus, and to quantify that statement a little, I'll point out that Noein contains no less than two doomsday plots and four love stories, which are all occurring simultaneously in three different dimensions. Sadly, all of those dimensions feel like empty stages rather than worlds worth caring about. In theory, it could be done, but it's a tall order that the writers here just couldn't fill, and Noein all but implodes under the workload. The story still has enough interesting content and continuity to be deemed acceptable, but the way that it's organized and presented is decidedly less than good. Perhaps the worst side effect of this is that some great ideas end up getting buried. I think that a character drama in which children encounter their future selves is a superb concept, but many of the cast's “future selves” end up being throwaways—one small aspect of a massive conglomeration of plots. To give credit where it's due, I actually think that, taken as a whole, Noein is a little bit closer to succeeding than it is to completely failing, and given the amount of elements that it tries to patch together, that's a pretty big compliment. By all indications, Noein should be an utter disaster, but it isn't. It's just not everything that it could have been. In addition, the show feels genuine, and while that's a pretty vague thing to say, I have to imagine that it counts for something. Though it doesn't stand up very well to close inspection, Noein has real heart, a lot of outward likeability, and a lot of ambition. It might be a bit of a mess, but it's definitely not lacking in creativity or artistic vision, and it has at least a couple of powerful moments. So if any aspect of the show interests you, I'd give it the benefit of the doubt and try out a couple of episodes. If you end up disliking it, at least you'll have satisfied your curiosity, and there's always the chance you might get more out of it than I did.

Overall, I thought this anime was really good. It's fairly hard (for me anyway) to find an anime I really like, to where I start watching the first ep, and before I know it the suns rising and I just finished the last ep. This anime was one of the few. It's very hard to try and review this anime and not spill out any spoilers, but I will. Story - 8 I found the story in Noein to be very entertaining, maybe thats because I just love the concept of separate dimensions, different futures with time, and quantum theories in general. This anime revolves a lotaround that, and it does it quite well. Art - 7 The art style is fairly nice, at first its kind of like "man, this stuff looks quite sloppy" but once you learn the purpose of the drawing style you will understand. I found some of the house models to be a bit too FMVish at times, but they did blend in really well. Sound - 9 The soundtrack of Noein is really good. The music goes in well with whats going on screen, and it blends into the anime really well. Sound effects weren't bad, and voices weren't too low, just right. Character - 10 Character development in Noein is really good, in order not to spoil a single thing, thats all I can really say. Enjoyment - 10 Noein really had me sucked in the entire series, and I really feel bad for the people who watched this anime weekly. If you're a sci-fi lover who likes different time-space dimensions chances are you'll love Noein. If you're someone who likes good action with a good storyline to support it, chances are you'll love Noein. If you're someone who likes character growth and watching characters change due to the storyline, chances are you'll like Noein. Overall I slap a 9 onto this anime. It has its moments, and its definitely worth a look into if you fit into any of the categories above.

Just like most anime series with a weird concept, this anime is very confusing to begin with. It starts of with an amazing action-sequence, in some weird world, and then it goes to the sort of world we are all familiar with, which is where most of the story takes place. The story follows a group kids and also some adults, which are related to those kids in some way. The characters of the story are pretty stale with only a few decent ones however the main bad point is how easily the character's personalities change. There isn't much that is clearly explained and it isn'tuntil a couple episodes into this series that anyone watching this will have some idea. The pace that the story develops is fairly slow, for a series with only 23 episodes and it would have been better if it developed faster. Just like the concept for this show's plot, the animation concept is pretty weird and wonderful as it mixes CG with drawn characters. It's odd how so much detail is put into the CG but the characters have the "Fooly Cooly" look, which doesn't suit. Overall the animation is great however a lot of corners were cut, in the character designs, especially during the action sequences. The music for the show is fairly decent with an okay amount of symphonic tunes, unlike in some great anime series with music that you simple can't forget, Noein doesn't really have memorable tunes. Although during the action sequences the music does make it all more exciting to watch, with the help of the incredible Sound FX. Overall this is a steadily paced anime with a confusing yet interesting plot about infinite futures, time spaces and quantum physics however the main emphasis of the story is to do with friendship and bonds. The show did do well in gaining some momentum, halfway into the series but it didn't do much with that, which led to a not so great ending. There could have been ways to make the show end better but the show was forced to end in an unrealistic and lacklustre way. So this anime is meant for the open-minded anime fan. ^_^

I just finished watching this series so I figured I'd write a review while it's all still fresh in my mind... Story: Noein's story revolves around a 12 year old girl and her friends and their role in the future(s) of the universe and its many dimensions. The main dimension involved in the story is set in present-day Japan, and all seems relatively normal for the kids until strangers from the future show up. There's a great deal of traveling through space and time involved here. You could say that it's an apocalyptic series--you have your villain out to destroy the universe--but Iwon't get into it because I don't want to give anything away. At times the plot can be a bit confusing, but once we reach the end there are no major holes to be filled [just plenty of interesting twists]. The idea of innumerable dimensions where we live out every possible future is something that appeals to me personally, and the idea is explored in this series in a very intelligent and relatively easy to understand manner. To take such a complex idea revolving around quantum physics and to manage to not turn it into something hokey and dumbed down or something too confusing to relate to is quite the feat. The story becomes very convincing and vivid and I couldn't imagine a more compelling plot or conclusion. Good stuff=] Art: I guess I can understand what might turn some people off to the animation, but this is one of my favorite things about the series. The character designs are pretty original, and even though they may look a bit rough or scratchy at times [same goes for the battle scenes] it flows so well with the feel of the series that I honestly couldn't imagine it any other way. In one scene the details will be incredibly rich and fluid and in another scene the animation might look a bit on the simple side. But trust me on this one, it just plain works for Noein. The battle scenes especially. They remind me of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. They seriously hold your attention and sometimes it reminds me of comic art.. really similar to Gainax stuff--and it rocks!! If you can get past the fact that the characters aren't animated in your typical neat and clean and cute anime fashion then you just might love it as much as I do. Sound: Nothing in particular stands out, but there was absolutely nothing I disliked. The opening and closing tracks worked just fine for the series. The soundtrack throughout was very fitting, eerie when it needed to be and nostalgic when the story called for it. The sound effects are also pretty sweet--your ideal futuristic noises I suppose. I especially liked the music during the intense scenes--some of it reminded me of Escaflowne's soundtrack [that Gregorian chanting stuff that gives me chills]. Character: There's nothing better than a series that doesn't skimp on character development. I can't stand it when characters are neglected and you end a series with that empty feeling--when you know they could have done so much more with a character and their relationships. Noein does a perfect job of rounding out the characters and making them memorable, and all of this without fillers to drag down the story. Everything was well-paced and I never once felt that I couldn't relate to the characters. There isn't a ton of comic relief, but the series has some very amusing characters and enough light-hearted scenes to keep you from being too upset by the sad parts. The entire thing is well-rounded: characters, story, pacing, the works. And for those of you looking for the love stories, yes there's plenty of that as well. The relationships are very believable though--so no cheesy love scenes to be had, thank god. You will definitely become attached to these characters--I know I did. Enjoyment: Uh.. what can I say? I enjoyed the hell out of it. watch this one!! onegai<3