Nora

Mayank Sep 16, 2019

3

Nora is one of the most awkward anime I may have watched so far. It was impossible for me to take anything about it seriously less than a few minutes in. The story is of an AI computer that goes rogue after a bad scientist tries to use it for his own evil purposes and the titular character, Nora comes in to save the day. The plot, to put it simply, is very straightforward and linear. However, it is so maladministered that it somewhat becomes unpredictable. There is a bit of fanservice scenes here and there. And sometimes it appears right in the middle of a plot-oriented scene. It is really laughable. Aside from that, the episode has too many plot-holes or logical failures to keep count of. The animation for normal movements was okay. The action sequences felt like they were missing a lot of frames at some points. There isn't much to say about the visuals concept wise. It is an 80's anime and has doesn't have much to compare with from that time. I would like to note that the animation was probably the only redeeming thing about this anime. Sound effects were at times too generic and other times, just dramatically out of place. The voice acting wasn't really good. The ending song just turns up the dial of cheeseyness by a handful of levels. Characters were thoroughly shallow with almost no character arc. I couldn't understand if Nora was supposed a smart goof or an outright fool. The evel scientist and the Rogue AI had such a drastic change in their respective stories, it was faster than throwing a switch. The name of the Ai itself is a huge meta spoiler of the story. But this isn't even the type of story anyone would mind being spoiled. The overall mood of this anime is very goofy. The writing is highly unisprired. By the last 20 minutes of the episode, you just know that the writing team gave up working on what little they could build up until that point.   All in all, this reminds me of the Hollywood cult hit The Room, but thankfully for the sake of anime as a medium Nora has stayed away from curious eyes (well not mine and those who I watched it with in a groupwatch).