Noir Recommended

Publisher
ADV
Director
Koichi Mashimo
Production
Production IG, TV Tokyo, Victor Entertainment
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2001

Noir Series Overview

By John Huxley
20th May 04

I must admit that I wasn't particularly looking forward to Noir. Call me shallow if you want, but the cover of the DVD and the blurb on the back just didn't grab me. No mechs? No swords? No magical girls? This doesn't look very exciting! Oh dear, how wrong I was.

At this early stage, the plot is minimal to say the least. We have two assassins, one whom sends an e-mail to the other to arrange a meeting in Japan. Travelling from Paris, Mireille meets with Kirika outside an abandoned construction site. There the two of them are set upon by hoodlums in black suits. The faceless assailants are swiftly dealt with by the two expert assassins, although Mireille is somewhat surprised by the young Kirika's natural talent for killing. Having dealt with the last of them, the two head off to Kirika's house to talk things over. There Kirika reveals that she has amnesia, her current identity is a hoax and the only clues to her real identity are her student ID card and a decorative pocket watch. This pocket watch appears to hold some meaning for Mireille, so she agrees to help Kirika on the proviso that she must kill the young amnesiac when their dealings are done. The two travel back to Paris and form Noir, assassins for hire.

And that's about all you'll know for the first 9 or so episodes. Every episode after the first gives a little information about Kirika and Mireille's mysterious pasts, but you never get the feeling that the story is actually progressing. Thankfully Noir doesn't rely on it's overarching plot. Each episode is a new assignment for Noir, and each comes with its own background, characters and storyline. These stories are generally well scripted and sometimes ingeniously devised, but all of them come and go within the space of 25 minutes. The director is also overly fond of flashbacks, which can eat away at those precious minutes (and also saves money). I'm sure that Noir will deliver a suitably engrossing storyline in good time. The characters may be a little deadpan, but they may yet open up with their past.

But all that doesn't matter. Infact, after viewing the first episode, I decided that the action is so good that I didn't much care if the plot was scribbled on the back of a fag packet. Mireille and Kirika are professional killing machines and their actions do their profession proud. Both move swiftly, shoot straight and, most importantly, act sensibly. Gun based action in anime is all too often 'burst in to the room and shoot everyone in a hail of bullets and blood' with little or no thought given to the feasability or consequences of such an action.

Not so with Noir. The girls think their way through situations, retreat when the odds are against them and take every advantage that comes their way. This reminded me of George A Romero's Night of the Living Dead film, in which several hapless innocents are trapped in a house surrounded by flesh eating zombies. This is one of the first horror films in which the heroes act in a sensible fashion: the board up the windows, arm themselves and, for the most part, work together against the odds. Noir is one of the first anime I've seen that lets it's heroines act in such a manner. Of course, it was more likely to be influenced by Golgo 13 than Night of the Living Dead. In Takao Saito's seminal manga/anime the central character spent more time researching and planning his assassinations than he did killing the targets. But the wait, the suspense, was half of what made the execution so exciting. Noir is much the same, although it does have more straight gunplay than Golgo 13 ever did.

Good action is rare without the animation and artwork to match. The art is not overly detailed but suits the style perfectly. Likewise, the animation is far from the best around, but it is more than good enough to handle the task. What really makes Noir stand out from the crowd is the lovingly rendered backgrounds. Unlike so many other anime, Noir travels all around the world, visiting many exotic locations outside of Tokyo. Paris is the central hub for our deadly duo, and it is wholly believable (if a little idealistic) as a location. Each country and city has it's own unique atmosphere and appears to painted in a different way from the last. Complementing this is an attention to detail in props and costumes that is relatively unheard of in animation. Think that Mireille will be wearing that miniskirt for every episode, just because it shows some leg? Think again - our heroines are treated to a change of costume for most locations, from bikinis in the sunny Ulgia to padded waistcoats in snowy Russia. Each is suited to the environment and looks (as far as I can tell) authentic. The same can be said for the guns and props used by both Noir and the supporting cast; they look authentic enough for me.

All this detail adds to the excitement of Noir. Where other anime 'wow' you with increasingly ridiculous powers and technology, Noir does the same with its realism. Thanks to the absence of anything fantastical it is possible to believe the action in Noir is just as realistic as the set designs or the guns they use.

If you've had your fill of giant mechs, ugly monsters and magical girls, Noir is just the thing you're looking for. It might not have the most engrossing storyline or even the most interesting characters (quite the opposite, really), but it does serve up some of the best action of its kind since Golgo 13. And as fans of that show will know, that's quite an achievement.

-- John Huxley 20th May 04

Noir Images