Story & Characters

Noir follows a very strict progression in its story: The audience starts out knowing absolutely zero about what is going on, and then it seeks to move on from there. At the very beginning, we discover that Mirelle and her ‘companion’ Kirika are assassins, but little else then that. The first episodes are used to expound on this role, while indirectly characterizing the main characters and slowly foreshadowing the major events that will take place in the later episodes. To spoil as little as possible, Kirika and Mirelle begin dealing with a shadowy organization known as the Soldats. (Similar to the Illuminati or the Freemasons in terms of scale) The story is a little confusing, but this was obviously intended to go hand in hand with the style of storytelling.

The quality of the story, once you finish it, is simply incredible- attachment towards the characters and the roles they play becomes very strong in the penultimate episodes. Yes, I admit it, at one point I did cry-and I’m not the sort to cry during movies. I assert that this show’s story and its characters go well beyond the required level of quality and up there into the stratospheric. In fact, if it were a novel, it would probably be on anyone's list of classics.

Character design was obviously an important thing to the designers of this story; Mirelle, Kirika, and the other main characters are designed to stand out from the stock characters and citizens that they interact with. Additionally, the empathy developed in Noir is masterful; the job done of showing the feelings of the characters is... have I said masterful yet? I think I'll say it again. Masterful. One wishes that such care to distinguish the traits of characters was as well done in other shows.

In fact, it was a lie to say that the stock characters didn't stand out, because they <i>do</i>; It seemed to be important to the producers to make the characters with low screen time extremely memorable and round. They are still blessed with a certain sense of the static, however, and this sets them well apart from the show's 'protagonists'. The main characters do actually change, and this change is so well-portrayed and inabrupt that I can't help but call it perfect. Just like everything else about the story.

Rating: 10

Art

The animation was quite good here (though at what I ascertain to be a slightly poor frame rate) and exceptionally swell during combat. Kirika and her crazy antics are portrayed with totally unrealistic awesomeness, and seeing her in action will be one of the things you will quite possibly be unable to forget. During some of the scenes, I couldn't help but get the feeling that I was seeing some kind of flicker, though...

Actual use of colors and backgrounds was quite something, I have to say. The favored pastel tones for scenery was contrasted by the more saturated tones of characters and everything was in agonizingly attractive detail. Should I have more to say about this? No. It was outstanding, but not really <i>memorably outstanding.</i>

Rating: 9

Sound

BEST SOUNDTRAK EVAR!!@

No. But very, very close. The soundtrack (I own OST 1) is incredibly varied in its choices of genre, varying from a crazed blast of liturgical techno to slow playing guitar themes. Not only will every living human being find something that they can listen too, they will probably find <i>two</i> things. The volume levels do an excellent job of keeping out of the way of the character's dialogue. Even better: The latter parts of the series feature remixed versions of the prior songs as background music, preventing the limited selection of tunes from becoming as overplayed as they might. However, this comes a little too late; Though Salva Nos is a really excellent song I found myself wishing that I didn't hear it <i>every</i> episode. That might not even be an exaggeration...

Voices here were very good, but not exceptional. Is it a valid complant to ask why they didn't sit everyone down in a room and teach them how 'Mireille Boquet' was pronounced? I usually don't have a problem with failure to speak English (In this case, French) without an accent, but for god's sake, she's a <i>main character</i>! ...Sorry, a pet peeve of mine. I found little to complain about for the voicing here; Chloe is the one who I mark as most memorable but this reflects the totally strange nature of her character. That was pretty cool, though.

If you're the sort that favors dubbing... The English voices were passable, and that's all I really ask for. No <u>Love Hina</u> style "LOOK AT THE WORDS THAT COME OUT OF MY MOUTH" here; ADV has a pretty good set of actors on their team and they do as good a job as English can do.

Rating: 9

Presentation

Noir draws its name from the French word for ‘black’; or more specifically the genre ‘film noir’ which was characterized by unusual camera angles, repetition of theme and dialogue, and stylized use of light—or more aptly, darkness. The anime Noir sought to translate this genre into animation; over the course of twenty six episodes its designers attempt to tell a very difficult tale with sparing use of fancy dialogue and scenery. So how did that work out, you ask?

Well, it went pretty well. Noir uses incredibly strange camera angles at times: There is one memorable bit where the camera is inside of the printer, though it has nothing to do with the plot. The lighting and overall drabness of colors is quite a nice change of pace from the conventionally bright colors of most anime; the other shows of this genre fail to correctly paint such a dispassionate picture. The art and sound come together extremely well here to form an incredible example of the 'Film Noir' genre in general.

I found Noir pretty much impossible to stop watching- The last eleven episodes went down during the same stretch, which didn't exactly coordinate with my sleep schedule. But that's only speaks wonders about its style of story presentation; You are forced to watch the next episode because you <i>have</i> to know what happens next. You <i>need</i> to find out what decisions they will make. It was a rarity to have absolutely zero idea what was going to happen next.

I have a complaint to register, however: The use of the same imagery and repeated was just a bit overdone here. I am not sure whether or not this was for budget concerns, but I mark this as unlikely... The show strives to build up tension this way but it's just irritating by the time you're halfway through it. Thankfully, the end of the series cuts down on this drastically, and additionally shows the <i>end</i> of these scenes-this transformation keeps the repetition from becoming unbearable.

The entire thing has a very minimalist feel to it; Unlike other shows you don't have a lot of dialogue between characters and many of the scenes are uncomfortably devoid of other people. Another nice thing is that the show severely lacks in 'filler' episodes; Though not every event's details are totally instrumental to the story its creators do make a bona fide attempt to use all twenty six episodes to advance the plot. One wonders, again, how much of the 'stock' animation was really vital...

Rating: 9

Final Verdict

9.3333 (very good)

Reviewed by Ezekiel, Jan 23, 2005

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