Noir (2001– )

Two beautiful female assassins travel the world accepting assignments to kill various culprits, and at the same time, having deadly traps set against them by their own employer.

Stars:

Houko Kuwashima, Kotono Mitsuishi, Shelley Calene-Black

Cast

Series cast summary:
Houko Kuwashima	...	Kirika Yumura (26 episodes, 2001)
Kotono Mitsuishi	...	Mireille Bouquet (26 episodes, 2001)
Shelley Calene-Black	...	Mireille Bouquet (26 episodes, 2001)
Monica Rial	...	Kirika Yumura (26 episodes, 2001)
Jason Douglas	...	Additional Voices (26 episodes, 2001)
Aya Hisakawa	...	Chloe (12 episodes, 2001)
Hilary Haag	...	Chloe (12 episodes, 2001)
Tarako	...	Altena (11 episodes, 2001)
Tiffany Grant	...	Altena (11 episodes, 2001)

Storyline

Noir is a tale of assassins, in particular one named Mireille Bouquet, a contract killer who receives a message from a young girl with no memory about herself, but is an incredibly efficient killing machine. The story takes us on a pilgrimage to the pasts of both girls, which leads them to Paris, France, and someone is trying to stop them...

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Plot Keywords:

france | assassin | anime | amnesia | corsica | 

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Genres:

Action | Animation | Thriller | Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Official Sites:

DVD Vision Japan review VICTOR ENTERTAINMENT INC. [Japan] (japanese)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese English

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bee Train, Victor Entertainment, ADV Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

25 min 25 min (26 episodes)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

At the beginning of Episode 2, "Daily Bread", during the brief scene when Mireille and Kirika are window shopping, one of the stores has the name "Bee-Train". Bee Train is the name of one of the companies that produces the show.

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Goofs

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.

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Quotes

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

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Connections

Featured in JesuOtaku Anime Reviews: Madoka Magica (2012)

User Reviews

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.