Noein

[Velusion]

Noein

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Site Reviews: vivafruit
DVD Reviews: Volume 1 DVD ~ Volume 2 DVD ~ Volume 3 DVD ~ Volume 4 DVD

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Finding new anime to watch is a time consuming activity for me because I’m a pretty picky bastard. Looking for an interesting anime review/description, investigating what I might like and tracking it down is exhausting so I try to do my best when evaluating what might interest me. Did I happen to mention that I’m also a lazy bastard?

That’s why it’s always depressing when, within minutes of watching the first episode, I conclude that I am probably not the target audience the series was aiming for. What’s even more depressing is deciding after many more episodes that there is a good chance I actually am the intended target audience… *le sigh*

The Setup
It’s present day Japan and Haruka is an elementary school student about to enjoy her last summer before heading off to middle school with her friends. Haruka’s world seems almost utopian with the only exception being her best male friend Yuu, who is under intense pressure from his mother to pass some tough entrance tests so he can get into a premier middle school. It’s never too early to plan for college I suppose.

Many of the early episodes are filled with your typical pre-adolescent drama (e.g. boys noticing girls and vice versa) until there suddenly appears a group of menacing cloaked adults who seem to want to kidnap Haruka. This probably has something to do with the fancy gold necklace that would sometimes magically (and conveniently) appear around her neck.

Soon we learn these strangers aren’t exactly strangers but the same group of friends fifteen years older who are from an apocalyptic future. Apparently Haruka is unknowingly the Dragon Torque – some super-powerful time traveler. Her older friends from the future need her to save their world and the main super-villain, Noein, wants her to help him destroy the universe. Getting all that?

The series is mostly serialized with one large story arc. Most of the episodes flip between the future and the current time. The stories involved in the current time deal with the elementary school kids and their parents while shows featuring the war-ravaged future are all doom and gloom.

The Good
Some of the animation used here is rather unique – especially the combat scenes between the future friends who each have various superpowers. Fluid is an understatement as the action seems to break down into a wild flip-book style animation. The effect looks sort of cheap with an art retro coolness. I didn’t mind it but your mileage may vary.

The thought of actually meeting yourself from the future is actually sort of interesting to me. I enjoyed the scenes where Yuu and “future Yuu” interacted. How do you explain your tortured past to a young kid who will possibly experience it all in his own future?

I warmed up to the bleak future setting. The strange giant robot invaders looked interesting and the friends of the future had pretty cool powers and interesting (if underused) personalities. I really wish the series would have focused more on this world rather than the mundane present day which seemed to take center stage.

The kids are drawn super cute. Like sugar plums and gum drops. It’s rather charming for the first episode or two.

The Bad
So I was watching the first episode thinking to myself that his must be for the younger crowd – simply because of the youth-drama strewn throughout. Treasure your friends! Always try your best! Do the right thing! It’s a damn after school special.

Seriously, I can’t invest energy in kiddie drama, especially kiddie drama that isn’t even all that well done. For example here are some lessons I learned: “Apparently the only thing you need to do to make your mother less anal about your school work is to get her drunk!” Or “Having a mother that has no idea where you are half the time is great!”

Okay, I get it – this isn’t for me – I’m expecting too much…blah blah

But then the series starts to try to get serious. Much mumbo jumbo about time travel is thrown about. Deep scientific explanations on time travel are postulated. The narrators start to go into detail about how there are infinite future universes and how Noein will combine them into one. I start to feel like I’m sitting in a physics class… exactly what age group is this series aimed at again?!?

Now maybe there is some real science in there, but I guess you are just going to have to revoke my nerd membership card cause I about fell asleep. I wasn’t the least bit interested in hearing their overly technical explanation and I can’t imagine many in the younger crowd really care that much either. Better to just call it what it is: “Magic” and not try to impress me. A successful series with a completely ridiculous theme or motif (e.g. Death Note), won’t try to explain it to you - they will just get on with the story and expect you can take it on faith.

At the most basic level the underlying problem is that the series is just plain boring. The kiddie-drama was tiring and seemed endless. I could predict how everyone would act and I saw through the limp plot twists put before me. I won’t even go into the plot holes and the moral lessons were heavy handed and simplistic. Throwing on a time traveling theme and babbling about quantum physics simply wasn’t enough to elevate the material.

The opening/closing music is just your standard generic Japanese pop-rock ballads.

And lastly – a pet peeve. While I liked some of the animation the creators seemed way too proud of their protagonist’s CGI house (you can tell it is computer generated the instant you see it). Over and over they would display this CG residential house – spin it around – zoom in and out. Over and over and over. Cut scene after cut scene. Up and down. I get it… you made a decent looking fucking house. Please stop!

The Verdict
While Noein does have some interesting animation and an uncommon time travel theme, the story and characters were unremarkable and rather boring. Now I can enjoy a good series aimed at a younger crowd (e.g. Eureka Seven, Kenshin) but unfortunately Noein is simply yet another less-than-average shonen anime.

P.S. I couldn’t help but think of this corny cool music video from a-ha whenever when I watched the battle scenes from Noein.

P.P.S Bonus Link

Noein (4/10)

[aboumonkey]

I enjoy your reviews very much and while you justify your arguments quite strongly you seem to have a prejudice against shonen series why is that ? some of them can be pretty damn good like Fullmetal Alchemist and pretty witty like death note ...
I am not saying that the review was biased .No way .

[Velusion]

Originally Posted by aboumonkey

I enjoy your reviews very much and while you justify your arguments quite strongly you seem to have a prejudice against shonen series why is that ? some of them can be pretty damn good like Fullmetal Alchemist and pretty witty like death note ...
I am not saying that the review was biased .No way .

I don't really have a prejudice against shonen, just bad shonen :P. I probably overuse that classification anyway. It isn't the best label as it means different things to different people. The line between adult and youth oriented animes has also been blurred a lot lately (a good thing).

To me the shonen stuff I really don't like involves a couple aspects:

Bad shonen could revolve around simplistic moral messages (e.g. teamwork is great! Everyone wants to be remembered!) repeated over and over again or presented in a heavy-handed way.

Bad shonen could involve the same basic episodic plot repeated over and over again (e.g. Inuyasaha's "meet demon, fight demon" broken record).

Bad shonen often has rather one-dimensional characters - usually all good or all bad.

But I do like some of the better shonen series (as I mentioned in my conclusion). However I feel like I just came off a string of less than stellar ones (Solty Rei, D.Gray-man, Noein?).

P.S. As an example of the "blurring" lines I would disagree on Death Note being labeled as shonen...

[aboumonkey]

Again you justify your points and I completely agree with what you clarify as bad shonen . I try to avoid them ,too.

[evan1979]

i wish i would have read the review above me before making my purchase.

first of all this was written and directed by the same guy that directed and co-wrote the vision of escaflowne which to me was an outstanding and intelligent show.

sound-7
the music was sub par and seemed like a cheap knock off of yokko konnos escaflowne soundtrack. as for voices, outside of the kids, who are the only redeeming quality to the whole show, everyones voice acting is hollow and forced. though i must mention that the sound effects were fitting and unique though so an extra point for that.

Animation-8
again, the animation on the kids was very well done and unique, but this only makes the weakness in character design of their

future selves more pronouced