"Nowâru" (2001) TV series

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Seasons:

1

Genre:

Action | Animation | Thriller | Crime | Drama

Plot:

Noir is a tale of assassins, in particular one named Mireiyu Buke, a contract killer who receives a...

Plot Keywords:

Assassin | Anime | Amnesia | Good Versus Evil | Fable

Cast

Jason Douglas

...

Additional Voices / ... (26 episodes, 2001)

Also Known As:

"Noir" (USA)

Runtime:

25 min (26 episodes)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Certification:

UK:12 (some epiosodes) | UK:PG | Australia:M (DVD rating) | Germany:16 | USA:TV-PG

Company:

ADV Films

Trivia:

Koichi Mashimo was developing this project at the same time he was developing ".hack//SIGN" (2002)

Goofs:

Continuity: On a few occasions, when Mireille reads something, she reads from left to right. But when Kirika reads the same thing, she reads from right to left - even when it is shown that the text she's reading is in western writing.

Quotes:

Altena: If love can kill a person, surely hatred can save them.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Yuki Kajiura Live (2008) (V)

Good, but has its flaws.

This is a decent show, lets just get that out of the way. Its crisp, stylish and occasionally beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed it, however whats frustrating is there are a few simple things it could have done to make it excellent. The basic story is that of Mirielle and Kiryka, a young woman and a teenager who are highly trained assassins. Kiryka, the teenager, has severe amnesia and cannot remember anything about herself, her past or how she can kill so easily. The only thing she know is the name Noir. She tracks down Mirielle and finds she has some connection to her from her past. They agree to team up until the figure out Kiryka's past as the assassin team known as Noir.

The fight scenes are excellent technically, the animation is crisp and top notch and the things these two women can do with a simple handgun is astonishing. However the major problem I have with the fights is the utter lack of blood. Now I don't need blood to enjoy a movie, but the complete lack of blood throughout the entire series (save one seen that the repeatedly flash back to) makes the gunplay seem almost sterile. Just a little blood here and there would give the gunfights a more visceral dangerous feeling. Also some people might take issue with the fact that the gunfight are very James Bond-esque, meaning the protagonists fire 3 shots and you swear 5 people fall, while the so called crack troops the often come up against can't seem to hit anything but air. However if you are able to suspend your disbelief as is necessary when watching anime you probably won't find much of a problem with it.

Another problem I had with this series is the constant use of flashbacks. I don't mind flashbacks when they are important to the story but do we really need to watch the same scene six times? It gets to the point when the director must have been a few minutes short on the episode so they decide to flashback to the same scene again. Also sometimes during the middle of the series it begins to drag a bit. There are times when its slightly boring and slow moving but its not that bad. The English dubbing is fairly good for the most part though some of the English voices seem slightly sedated. The music is haunting and beautiful if somewhat overplayed. All in all its an entertaining series though not on the same level of style as Cowboy Bebop or the same level emotionally as Evangelion.