So, it's been a while, hasn't it? Some of the feedback I get concerning AA is good. Some of it is not good. Sometimes people even like to yell at me. I've even been accused of being biased. Biased? Who, me? Naaaah, couldn't be! Noir is something I watched a few months ago... the first five episodes at least. It took me three days to get through those five episodes because, above all else, Noir is a boring series. Watching five episodes in one sitting is generally not a problem with me. After all, that's only a little over two hours... about the length of a feature film. But parts of Noir literally put me to sleep. As in, I would jostle awake, see Noir still on the TV, and think "Well great, I slept through part of that episode too. Now I have to re-watch it," followed immediately by "Ah, screw it."
In the end, what I've got here is a collection of fuzzy memories of the first five episodes of a series I only kind of half-watched. Not quite enough for a review, one would think. But then, AA isn't your typical review site. So, here we go...
Characters:
The blonde's name is Mireille. She's French, as I recall. And she is Noir -- at least at first. Miereille is a highly skilled killer who receives anonymous jobs to end human life. She has a dark and mysterious past, the key to which seems to be a pocketwatch and the slow, sad music-box-like song it plays
The younger girl's name is Kirika, and she's Japanese. I think. Kirika is a highly skilled killer who wakes up in a strange house and absolutely no memory. She contacts Mireille and asks to become her partner, receiving anonymous jobs to end human life. She has a dark and mysterious past, the key to which seems to be a pocketwatch and the slow, sad music-box-like song it plays while open. The extent of Mireille and Kirika's relationship seems to be that they both very obviously share the same dark mysterious secrets and that together they are very good and efficient at killing people. I remember being completely disinterested in both of these characters, and I remember getting the very strong feeling that they were being portrayed as interesting and deep plot constructs without actually being so. Sort of like how a car body with no engine will look and feel just like a real car, but won't do anything when you try to turn on the ignition. So how am I supposed to score this? I guess I'll give one hamham to each of the cookie-cutter dark assassin ladies and call it a day. That sounds pretty fair to me.
Story:
The second (and more probable) scenario is that Noir's story is nothing special at all, and in fact utterly forgettable. Indeed, there didn't seem to be much story in the first five episodes to speak of. Most of what might pass for "story" in this series manifests itself as murky flashbacks. Both of the main characters are amnesiacs, after all; just one far more removed from her blank past than the other. A quick summary: Mireille receives a message from a Japanese girl who wants to take a "pilgrimage to the past". When she drops in to investigate she gets caught up in an ambush at a construction site, in which several men in suits are effortlessly slaughtered. Finally meeting up with the sender of the message reveals Kirika, who woke up in a nice lavish house with a gun, a musical pocketwatch, and absolutely no clue how she wound up there. And thus does Noir embark on their journey to uncover their past, find out who is trying to kill them, etc etc etc. Mireille tolerates Kirika's presence with the understanding that one of them will kill the other when everything is over. Whether or not this actually ends up happening is anyone's guess, but I don't see how it could improve the situation any. Death as a plot device (especially as an ending) can be a very effective tool, but this is a series about death. Seems like it'd be just a bit trite, doesn't it?
Animation:
It occurs to me that I used to be much more lenient on what would get a good animation score. I think a lot of what factors into it these days is style as well as quality. It isn't enough that the cake looks tasty, but now it has to look different from any other cake I've seen. In that respect Noir fails wholeheartedly. I mean, you can't just go up to someone and ask "Hey, did you see the one with that hot blonde chick shooting people?" It just doesn't fly. This visual material has been done before, and done before, and done before. Of course, lacking the ability to visualize things that don't already exist, it's not like I have any suggestions for future anime artists who want to draw a hot blonde chick that shoots people. But, fortunately, it isn't my job to make suggestions, only to dole out hamsters based on my opinion of their content.
Culture Shock:
In other words, Culture Shock might be Noir's highest score, but that doesn't mean it's anything to get worked up over. Being generic and uninteresting almost guarantees a high Culture Shock score. C-SPAN2 would get a high score from me in this area too, but that doesn't mean I'd recommend watching it.
So maybe it's unfair of me to review something I watched eons ago. And maybe some of the information found in this review is incorrect, thanks to the fallibility of my memory. And really, maybe I should have re-watched Noir before writing this short, ambiguous and all-around
But, the fact that I remembered enough to not want to re-watch it speaks volumes, doesn't it?
Overall Rating:
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Of all the reasons I can think of to not watch Noir, I can think of at least two reasons why you should.
This is Kirika. She's... um... hanging from some guy's necktie.
Uh-oh! Silver hair! This must be a villain!
"So I'll sneak around back with my Desert Eagle while you hack into the mainframe and-- oh! Look! Handbags!"
Learn to love this flashback, since it comprises about 65% of the total screentime.
