Anime: Noir

Noir is the first of a long line of chicks with guns series, most of which are made by Studio Bee Train. It made some sensation when it first came out (like most new anime do) but it was pretty much shoved to the side more and more with each new similar anime before eventually being almost forgotten after Requiem for the Phantom came out (which is the best of this sort of shows). Most anime that are regarded to be the first in a field are usually labeled as all time classics and remain known to most (examples of which are Astro Boy, Hokuto no Ken, and Urusei Yatsura) but this is not the case with this show. Why? Simple; its context was so simple, it got rehashed right away in later shows with gradually better directing. That didn’t happen with the shows I mention above; they still feel unique even decades after they were made. So to give you a simple comparison, it’s like watching five seasons of Pokemon. The visuals may be improving but they are otherwise THE EXACT SAME THING!

Let’s now focus a bit on the technicals of the show. The artwork is ok for its time, not too detailed but not too shabby either. The character figures are generic, especially when it comes to the mass produced Men In Black baddies. The animation is rather standard, with people mostly standing still and talking, while action sequences are basically the girls doing some really impossible acrobatics while their enemies are standing frozen for several seconds. Meaning, although the battles seem impressive on a superficial level, it all boils down to a few girls killing a dozen men with a six pistol, while miraculously evading a hundred bullets with fancy aerobics and hitting their opponents easily because they are standing still. Hey, I can only suspend my disbelief for a few episodes before it gets repetitive and the stupidity of the whole thing surfaces. THE MOOKS DON’T EVEN BLEED!

The music is very good if you are fans of lyric music full of ambience. I personally have nothing against it and it holds out as a fine soundtrack to bye. The dialogues also have some maturity in them for going for some deep psychological or mysterious issues from time to time. Other than that, the overall simple context of the whole series will most likely make them feel like they are repeating pointlessly. Thus it is the music and not the talking that keeps you interested. Sound effects, meh, nothing special to comment.

The story and characters are A MESS! Trying to stretch a simplistic premise to last a full season can only be accomplished by slow pace, repeating flashbacks, going in circles, and throwing in lots of battles with easily defeated baddies. It tries to be mature and mysterious but eventually the ending is one big WTF and you are left wondering the point of the whole show. Ancient secrets and emo chicks that shoot anything that moves; it’s just not working. The main characters DO develop though. And by main, I mean only the girls since the male genre in this series is just an army of clones, identical weaklings without a face or personality. It’s all about the girls and their emo pasts. There is some interesting chemistry amongst them (hem, yuri, hem) but the whole thing happens so slow and repeats a lot before eventually going for some magical nonsense in the finale. Yeah ok, lol and move along.

There is no value in this anime, since as I said Requiem for the Phantom is its nth remake and the best of its kind (although I am no fan of emo chicks with guns and by no means fan of that series). As one described it, such Bee Train shows are basically long moody music videos and not good action/mystery series. So no, I don’t recommend it. Hear the soundtrack and skip the rest.

And now for some excused scorings.
[/spoiler]

Note: This review is based on zx fansubs.



Originally composed by Tsukimura Ryoue (El Hazard) and directed by Mashimo Kouichi (Madlax) Noir[/b] is a show about gunfights and assassins and martial arts; and, you know the deal. It is centered on a female assassin for hire, Mireille, who due to some circumstances happens to team up with an amnesiac killing machine teenage girl, Kirika. It appears the two girls share a common link as both of them have a recollection of a bizarre melody which is bound to play whenever bad things happen and something named Noir, whatever it is, is involved. The show follows its story in a very gushy washy way which is prone to leave its viewers wondering if something is really happening or not, but it does indeed, albeit slowly, move into one direction and even offers a full fledged ending.

My opinion about Noir is mixed to say the least. There is some nice potential in the plot, yet it's marred down by lame direction and unnecessary gunfight fillers. The permanent cast of characters consists of only four women, and though they are relatively well fleshed out, neither of them is particularly likable, nor particularly memorable (I did like Chloe though). Musical score, though slightly repetitive, is awesome, unfortunately gunfights it usually follows are awkwardly animated (particularly when you consider the fact that there is not a speck of blood in the whole show which IS centered on assassins). Frankly, I tried my best to enjoy this show, but after the twentieth plot hole instigated facepalm I had no choice but to write it down as average. I also had trouble taking the last episodes seriously, which actually turned out to be quite good; ending up discarding many serious moments in yeah, yeah, right fashion. Nonetheless I did have fun with Noir and though the middle of the show could have been much better I was never particularly bored with it (kudos to the great OST there). You will most likely like it if you are into 'girl assassins in deus ex machina driven dance-like gunfights' type of shows...

Animation: 6/10

Animation produced by Bee Train is... in many ways awkward, but not particularly bad when you look at technicals. Well, backgrounds are pretty boring. There are barely any notable sights (you can still notice some nice pan outs at European cityscapes sometimes) with most of the screen usually being taken by blandly colored walls when characters are on screen. On the other hand, you are also treated to some nice ancient ruins and church-like backgrounds to liven the show's mood up near the end. It would also be pretty nice if somebody could tell Mr.Mashimo Kouichi that people bleed when they are shot because apparently he doesn't know it. While overall character designs are pretty average on detail and are attractive to an extent, their shapes as well as the complete absence of blood makes them look as if they are made out of gum or something. This gummy feeling seems to plague all Bee Train works which might be the reason why I have trouble taking them seriously I guess. It's not like people are badly drawn (Chloe is cute and facial reactions always do their job), it's just... it's sometimes hard to believe the people on screen are really supposed to be humans. Oh yeah, and don't even bother trying to distinguish generic guys in black suits, all those damn bastards look the same.

Years have taken their toll and fluidity of animation doesn't feel as good as it did a couple of years ago. You can notice people going choppy here and there, still frames at awkward moments, and most importantly, the lack of focus on action (sometimes all you see is Kirika's face getting illuminated by gunfire and then the battle's over). Still, though plagued by the lack of blood and a number of still frames I still found some gunfights engrossing... to an extent. Personally, I quite liked the fact that the shoot-outs are animated like dances. At the same time, however, it also makes them very unrealistic. I mean, the girls don't even look at what they are shooting at and they never miss. Generic guys on the other hand miss all the time even if they are shooting from one meter range (they don't dance though). Apart from dances though there is little evidence of distinguishable direction.

Sound: 9/10

By now Kajiura Yuki (.hack//Sign, Cossette no Shouzou) is one my favourite anime composers, and you bet, she doesn't hold back in Noir, which also happens to be her debut show. Her trademark of relatively loud music with vocals (in Noir sounding like an upbeat church chore) is very well implemented and, frankly, I can't count how many times music alone was enough to keep my interest in the show. I have Noir's OST in my winamp playlist, and even though its playback number doesn't compare to .hack//Sign's, it still is quite a sight to behold. Either way, my point is, music is great, so good actually it alone make this show worthwhile to be checked out. OP Coppelia no Hitsugi by Ali Project is also a very good song (one of my personal favourite OPs actually) and is followed by a really nice artful animation. Heh, it sure raised my expectations for Noir way too high for it to reach. ED, on the other hand, is nowhere near as involving as its OP counterpart, so I tended to skip it a lot.

Voice-acting is up-par for the most part, Mireille having herself fleshed by the veteran Mitsuishi Kotono and other two female leads having the voices of the experienced Kuwashima Houko and Hisakawa Aya. Personally I found Hisakawa Aya's performance of Chloe the most memorable, maybe because her soft voice managed to sound at the same time both awkward and very fitting coming out from a cloaked assassin.

Story: 6/10

It seems it's a trademark of Mashimo Kouichi to take up a plot with potential, screw it up as much as possible in the middle with some irrelevant crap and then wrap it up in a, while not particularly epic, good ending. In other words, his shows are 100% facepalm material; I literally bit my lip when Noir was wrapped in such a nice and to an extent dramatic fashion only to fail to touch me because I was overfed with crap and didn't have the guts to trust it anymore. If you've ever seen Madlax you are sure to know what I'm talking about.

Either way, the first half of Noir is filled with many gunfights and killin' (without blood) and it takes the appearance of Chloe somewhere in the middle of the show to finally put the plot to some sensible direction. Chloe disappears soon after and from then it goes, well, three minutes of something regarding the plot and fifteen minutes of action or irrelevant dialogues or flashbacks to fill the space. Then somewhere near the end the show finally dedicates itself wholly to the big picture with Chloe's long-awaited addition to permanent cast. Then it goes okay for the few last episodes and is wrapped up in a nice fashion. Some details of the story (like Kirika's life before meeting Mireille) are left hanging in the air, but their significance to the plot is not particularly critical. Anyway, the bigger half of the show with random assassinations can easily be enjoyed due to great music work and the last few episodes are quite enjoyable story-wise... if you have any will left to take them seriously that is. Mystery behind what exactly Noir is also gives this show quite enough suspense to keep you from dropping it.

Characters: 6/10

As I have mentioned before there are only four characters in this show, and, Mireille, who supposedly is the main heroine is also the least interesting of the bunch. Well, neither is Altena a particularly engrossing character appearing near the very end of the show and having nearly no screen-time. Anyway, while Mireille acts as a mediator, narrator and a voice of common sense to, usually, make you yawn; lightly schizophrenic Kirika is more interesting, particularly due to the fact that she can't quite recall why she can easily kill ten people in a blink of an eye. Personally, I found Chloe my favourite character in the show, probably because unlike the other two leads she didn't have 20 episodes of irrelevant dialogues to make herself boring followed by the fact that she is the only girl who comes off as a genuine killer out of the three. Nonetheless characters are neither particularly multi-dimensionally deep, nor particularly attractive; more like... average deep and slightly attractive, heh. There is some development going and it seems it achieves what it sets out to do, but observing it is not particularly interesting either. There is also a problem with individuality of characters as, if you have/will see Madlax, everyone, save for Chloe, are bound to overlap with someone in your memories. Seems Mashimo Kouichi is not particularly creative in the ways to deal with his characters. To sum it up, Noir's cast is your average gathering of slightly attractive characters which though not memorable will make you interested in the show for, at least, most of its running length.

Myers-Briggs personality type indicator:

Chloe - INFP (C)
Altena - INTJ (E)
Yuumura Kirika - ISFP (D)
Mireille Bouquet - ESFJ (D)

Show Spoiler

Value: 6/10

The episodic nature of the bigger half of the show certainly scares me away from a re-watch. And while I wouldn't mind seeing some nice massacres carried out by the dancing-like girls, particularly due to the awesome BGM, I still doubt I will ever gather the courage to watch this show as a whole again. Nonetheless, I will certainly keep Noir in my collection; never know when I will get an impulse to listen to some Canta Per Me musical killing, hehe.

1. Conclusion:[/b] Noir is your average action flick with some awkward shortcomings (lack of blood, laid back direction, boring lead) and some unexpected strengths (mystery, engrossing OST, Chloe); which in the end cancel each other out and still make it an average show. If you are into the 'girls with guns' shows, or are a person to enjoy vocal BGMs, you might as well give this show a shot with low expectations. It's not particularly good, it's right here on the middle, but while its shortcomings are glaring, you might as well notice some stuff you like (and I did). If you've liked Noir you might be also interested in Madlax and El Cazador, which are very similar. Black Lagoon is slightly different, but also offers some nice 'chicks with guns' action.

[/ol]

Hey AniDB...
Noir, noir... where do we begin? 15 reviews at the time of this writing, how do we say what hasn't been said? Well... we'll need a different approach I guess... so here's my idea. I'm gonna give you my two cents, written out exactly how I would say it if I were sitting next to you right now and we hit "random" on the AniDB main site and this anime popped up and you asked me if I've seen it, and I have, and I don't wanna take more then three minutes of your time, so let's try that...

Animation
"Hey Chozo, how's this one look?"
For a 2001 release it's sub-par my friend. Suffers from an inexcusable amount of reusing the same animation... I'm talking flashbacks galore. And not with new revelations or camera angles or anything in them... it's the same scenes... unedited, over and over again. Every episode. I mean, if you don't mind fast forwarding through it, yeh... the rest is alright, but very stiff.... lots of still frames, I'd say the average frame rate of this sucka is like 3 frames per second. It's a bit painful.
• Looks/Visuals : 5/10

Sound
"Says it won Best Soundtrack"
Yeh, that must've been a slow year for anime haha. No, actually the OST is very good, but in the show for whatever reasons they play the same few songs a dozen times over and a few others only once in the entire series. I dunno, definitely check out the soundtrack if you can. It's great, and you don't need to see the anime to enjoy it. The voice acting by the way, woah, don't watch the English dub, it's freakin' dry.
• Score/Voice Acting : 7/10

Story
"Girls with guns, underworld, action... how's the story?"
Story? Dude, no. This one tries and fails miserably to have a serious story. It's about two girls who come off dumb as bricks, somehow kill swarms of hundreds of faceless men, take random assassination jobs that do like nothing for the plot, get pursued by a mysterious organization and just I dunno, waste time. No lie. You'd think it'd be sexy and dark and gritty, but no, no blood, no boobs, plot loop holes outta control, and no sense of satisfaction or big pay off at the end. First 12 episodes you can completely skip, starts developing a bit afterwards, really only one cool moment all the way in episode 20... had it had any meaning behind that cool scene I'd say it was "epic" but they kinda undo it... maybe one more cool part in the last episode.
• Story : 4/10

Character
"Well, what about the strong female lead"?
You're smoking some powerful stuff... hey, to call the characters in this series cardboard thin would be to insult a useful packaging material. Terrible terrible development, terrible choices, terrible dialog. One character (Chloe) introduced towards the middle and not seen near often enough has some potential... she's hard not to like, but just not in it enough. Maybe that's why she's the only good one though.
• Characters : 6/10

Value
"So I mean, is it worth watching?"
Well, depends I guess... if you've absolutely nothing better to do and seen everything else, or if you're fine with fast forwarding through an anime yeh, it's alright I guess. Every episode has a gun fight, but they're pretty run of the mill... a few have cool moments in them though and maybe throughout it all six or so interesting kills. They're good for a smile. I guess if this anime was re-written into a more fast paced 12 episode OVA and made better use of that awesome soundtrack it'd be a real winner... but there's just not enough meat here to spread out over 26 episodes ya know?
• Value : 5/10

Enjoyment
"So you did you enjoy it?"
Nah, not really. I saw AniDB said it was "underrated" so I forced myself though those horrible repetitive moments to see what it's all about, but "over-rated" is what is should've said... there's much better stuff out there... if they redo it like I said, I'd be interested, but hold off on this one. What else do we got?
• Enjoyment : 5/10

Overall : 5

If you read it, please rate it
Thanks!

Ok, this is my first review, and probably my only one; this is in response to the low, totally undeserved ratings for Noir.[br][br]Animation - The animation, while overall decent, could've been better. The numerous still frames within the show, do tend to get annoying after a while. However, considering this was seven years ago, my guess is the production values for the animation. had to be, for Bee Train's first independent project, rather reasonable, and not so much of high quality, so, it was just ok.[br][br]Sound - The Music of Noir is sublime, to say the least; the musical tones range from the suspenseful, to the melancholic, and Yuki Kajiura does a fantastic job, setting the mood(s) throughout the series.[br][br]Story - By far, Noir's strongest area. While the story starts out rather delicately paced, by the middle of the series, it really tends to slow down, rather annoyingly. However, the characters and and the plot develop so artfully, that by the latter half of the series, the time spent watching the earlier episodes becomes well worth the effort. The show is slow, but the story/characters are intriguing enough, to disregard the slow pacing of the series.[br][br]Value - I'd definitely watch the series again and again, b/c the story and philosophical undertones are so complex. Now, I won't spoil anything, but any viewer, young and old, will have a good grasp of the underlying story of the series. However, the spiritual/metaphysical aspects of the series, will intrigue you enough to make several attempts to wholly understand Noir's themes.[br][br]Enjoyment - I truly believe Noir exemplifies what anime should be. Bee Train produced a fine series, unsullied by scenes of fanservice, and an incoherent plot and characters. Noir is the first series of a "spiritual trilogy", produced by Bee Train, the others being Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja. I've viewed the other series, and, while Noir is as close to perfection being a girls-with-guns anime, Bee Train, in my opinion, screwed the formula with the other two shows. Watch Noir, it's superb. 'nuff said.[br]

If you are reading this review, you probably have too much free time=), or you've already seen Noir, and really liked it, and don't need this review. Well, anyway, I'm writing this because I want to. Sorry for possible mistakes, I'm not native English speaker.

Despite of all that have beed said in above reviews, I'd say that Noir is actually a story about 3 female asassins, although the third appears lately in series. The first two, Mireille and Kirika, meet in the 1st episode. Kirika lost all her memories and Mireille agrees to help her, because Kirika is connected to her own childhood tragedy somehow. So, together they begin a piligrimage to the past, pursued by some mysterious powerful organization. The story develops slowly, and episodes are filled with flashbacks, each of which uncovers a bit more. The good thing that there are no "side" episodes. Almost all of them connected to the main plot directly, and in every episode characters and their relationship develops further. In fact, characters and story development are inseparable here. Chloe (not an accidental name, as you can suppose) is the third of Noir kind, and it is a pity that her true personality bares only in the last part. All the other personages are just in-and-out. I really like that there is not a single line of sexual implication. And no jokes. Drama, action and a bit of mystery. Nothing more. The last episodes aren't a mess (as it happens often in anime), they are real culmination of the story.

Animation looks good, sometimes excellent (well, it was released in 2001, after all). Well drawn characters, great backgrounds with brilliant soundtracks, which are very suitable. I can't say much about background sounds, because my attention was centered on the great music. Voices are nice, either.
Fighting scenes are mostly good (and even mostly believable=)), but they could have been better (hate to say that, but melee combat scenes do suck. Fortunately, there are very few of them). Although every episode involves killing, there is almost no blood (actually, I didn't even notice it before reading all the reviews. It just drawn in the way that doesn't focus attention on blood and all that stuff).
Despite of that, Noir has more common sense than any other anime I've ever seen. They reload guns, bandage their wounds, plan assaults, practice in shooting, and even check the information they get from clients.

I watched Noir in a whole piece, with all openings and endings (they aren't something special, though), and didn't regret it. Overall, I liked it very, very much and definitely will watch it again.

Well, looks like the only thing left to say is that Noir is my number 1 anime.

Noir is one of my favorite animes of all time; the main characters, Mireille and Kirika, both have great depth and are very engaging characters. While the story may have a few minor flaws, the sheer amount of style woven into this anime reminds me of Cowboy Beebop and makes it a very enjoyable watch.

Some may not like the rather ambiguous ending, but to me it seemed a fitting way to end the series.

The animation is also superb, and the music is not only well-placed but extremely catching, and you will find that just hearing the music will be able to get you excited about the upcoming scene.

The action in the series is also well-paced and interesting, and serves a purpose rather than being thoughtless violence. The way the fight scenes are choreographed, it is almost as if Mirielle and Kirika are dancing while fighting, and Kirika's hand-to-hand combat moves especially are very graceful and awe-inspiring. These gun battles are truly unique among the gun battles of the anime world.


The interaction between Kirika and Mireille is, to me, the highlight of this series. Their relationship faces conflicts both physical and mental, both between each other and between outside forces, and each character develops and grows while becoming more familiar with her partner as well. Side characters like Altena and Chloe also provide depth and conflict to this relationship.

I have re-watched this series over 10 times now, and each time I love it more than the last and become more familiar with the characters. I would reccomend this anime to all types of anime and movie fans.