Noir - Vol. 1 - Episodes 1-5 (Animated) (Dubbed and Subtitled) (DVD)

A regular guilty pleasure, Noir is 26 episodes of um, err… well, girls with guns. Well, not exactly, this is, of course, why it works. Like so much anime you have to work within generic conventions and Noir is no exception. On the surface you expect this volume, being the first five of twenty-six twenty-five minute episodes, to be full of dubious fan-service (a term applying to the use of rather gratuitous flashes of sex / nudity, etc., I quote: ...
...also women - and thus Noir is an all female affair.

First we meet Mireille as goes about her daily business in Paris, buying baguettes and vegetables before returning home to check her email. The face of a young Japanese school girl appears and the words "make a pilgrimage for the past with me" flashes upon her screen. Mireille makes to close the email but it then plays a small lullaby that stops her dead, it is clear that ... more

A regular guilty pleasure, Noir is 26 episodes of um, err… well, girls with guns. Well, not exactly, this is, of course, why it works. Like so much anime you have to work within generic conventions and Noir is no exception. On the surface you expect this volume, being the first five of twenty-six twenty-five minute episodes, to be full of dubious fan-service (a term applying to the use of rather gratuitous flashes of sex / nudity, etc., I quote: "unnecessary to a storyline, but designed to amuse or excite the audience"). Noir, thankfully, manages to avoid all this and instead hooks the audience through vertiginous plotting, depth of characterisation and the ability to immediately intrigue the viewer. It also has a fantastic soundtrack!

Unusually for an anime series the cast is minimal - there are only really four characters of any great importance and in the first five episodes we meet but two, the "…two maidens who govern death…" (though melodramatic the statement makes sense as the series progresses). These two are the emotional core of the story: Mireille Bouquet and Kirika Yūmura. The remaining pair, who we will not meet in these five opening episodes are also women - and thus Noir is an all female affair.

First we meet Mireille as goes about her daily business in Paris, buying baguettes and vegetables before returning home to check her email. The face of a young Japanese school girl appears and the words "make a pilgrimage for the past with me" flashes upon her screen. Mireille makes to close the email but it then plays a small lullaby that stops her dead, it is clear that the small ditty has great emotional value. Immediately, she books a plane to Japan. What is great here is that the director, Kouichi Mashimo, is plunging us immediately into a mystery. Without a false start and barely two minutes into the first episode and he has set up the story, practically. The lullaby becomes a recurring motif signifying past events for both characters and though we don't exactly know this immediately, it is clear that the music has great meaning and will signify future or past events in the narrative. Equally, we are intrigued, aware as we are that Mireille is an assassin of merit, why she would care about a Japanese schoolgirl and a child's lullaby seems inexplicable.

Drawn further into curiosity, we meet Kirika, alone at school, clearly something of a lost kitten (being the name of a future episode, with, literally, a lost kitten but it is clear this also refers to Kirika). Walking home, Mireille follows Kirikia and begins to confront her but we find ourselves in the midst of a short flashback. Kirika remembers a moment from her past, a fractured event, suited men chasing her, attempting to kill her in a wood. Only it becomes Kirika who is the hunter and outfoxes and kills the three men approaching her.

So now exactly what is going on? we ask ourselves.

And such immediately we ask the question and immediately, the unspoken enemy that will come to manipulate both Mireille's and Kirika's life enters and we find just how otherworldly and skilled Kirika also is at killing - though, as is made clear, this is not something she likes or approves of. A five odd minute display of rather restrained gunplay occurs, and like so much of any violence in the series the violence, the gunfights, are not really the point. Though action sequences it is not action for action's sake. Much of the excitement in them derives from the score - the soundtrack skilfully weaves unusual sources and sounds, combining pounding techno with sacred vocal work in one track through to spiralling electronics similar to some of David Sylvian's work to the aforementioned lullaby to haunting piano work. Rather it is the effect the violence has on the characters that is important. As Mireille and Kirika have despatched their nameless attackers Kirika is more worried by her inability to feel remorse for what she has done, though it makes her cry. Violence and the effects of violence are at the very emotional core of the story, as is the characters reaction to it. Each of the four main characters is shaped by acts of violence, even if we are not yet aware quite how. Thus Noir is not a celebration of violence but instead uses it to tell a sophisticated story and explore the characters' psychology.

Having explored Mireille a little exposition regarding Kirika appears, discovering she is an amnesiac with no idea who she is, living alone and finding in her possession nothing but clothes, an identity card with a name she adopts as her own, a pistol and a pocket watch. Upon opening the pocket watch it plays the lullaby. Thus the two characters are linked. What is impressive is the amount of backstory that is brought out in the first episode though it is never heavy handed at all. As Noir progresses backstory is teased out to the audience in a series of small flashbacks and occasional glimpses of the past through other characters or actions. Thus immediately the structure is set into place. And so Noir is a fully formed piece of work straight from the off.

We finish with a pact between Mireille and Kirika to make the pilgrimage for the past, only once they know, Mireille vows to kill Kirika, as Kirika knows both who she is and what she does and this Mireille cannot allow. They return to Paris and set themselves up into business as Noir, a name that they do not fully understand the meaning of. At least, not yet.

The remaining four episodes begin to flesh out the characters and story. Again what is impressive is how information is brought across to the audience, in Daily Bread and The Assassination Play, the relationship between Mireille and Kirika is further explored and also the story is slowly allowed to develop so that by the end of The Assassination Play we are aware of something in the background, some force who are manipulating our two protagonists but who are what they are cannot be fully understood. Equally, The Sound of Waves leads us further into the mystery and these three episodes could so easily be fillers, displaying titillating action sequences but, though there is quite a lot of 'action', again it is the effect on the characters that is important. Kirika is shown to be the far more skilled assassin and Mireille's reaction is to continually refer to her skills as undignified and crude. We are being shown Mireille's neuroses little by little, as well as her uncertainty that runs under the veneer she wears. Equally, Kirika's curious passivity is displayed.

Finally, in the last episode, Mireille and Kirika sure now that some power is behind them, watching them, testing them (but to what purpose?) they have a name "Les Soldats" (French for The Soldiers). But who these people are, we know as much and as little as to Mireille and Kirika.

And so the first five episodes leave us in a pleasant state of knowledgeablility and uncertainty as to the mystery that is before the two protagonists. We catch occasional glimpses of their pasts and another place, a long vineyard in a forgotten place and the occasional silhouette of one of the remaining two characters of importance, even if we do not yet know who she is. This could be tacky and cliché but it works. It works because it is a hint, and the pacing is right. We get enough to keep us hooked and not too much backstory that the narrative becomes bogged down in exposition.

I think a good way of revealing the depth of the series is that it is considered to be based in part, or at least in spirit, on Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. And having read the book you can understand why. But I'll say no more on that.

Certainly, it is a superior piece of television, regardless of origin; Yuki Kajiura's music perfectly matches the mood of the series; sometimes pulsating, often melancholy, it adds that extra element of class.

My only comment: do not watch this in an English dub but subtitled. As usually, the dub is pretty average and somehow American accents just don't work for me in anime (not that English ones do either, for that matter!). Stick to the original.

As for extras there's but a few. Clean opening and closing sequences (which is worth it for watching the fabulous opening credits); production sketches; Japanese promos and the obligatory trailers. There's an easter egg in there somewhere but it tells you all about that on the web somewhere.

When I first watched Noir I wasn't really ready for its unusual depth of story and psychological complexity of character. These are not things people readily associate with anime but nevertheless Noir is a perfect example of it, where generic expectations are undermined by character psychology, plot and mood. It has an inherent sophistication that makes a mockery of expectation. For this reason I keep coming back to it and recommend it without exception.
 

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