Noein: Mô hitori no kimi he

GONZO did it again! Noein, which was created following the success of GONZO's retelling of Gankutsuou, is a truly mind-altering experience. Kazuki Akane is the creator, he is well-known for his directorial work on the brilliant Vision of Escaflowne series.

Noein is a beautiful series. The plot leans heavily upon principles of Quantum Physics. There are billions of versions of yourself in alternate dimensions. Haruka, a tween girl, finds herself pulled into a battle between the dimensions of Shangrila and Lacryma as Shangrila pursues the destruction of all existence and Lacryma tries to stop them. The key to this is the Dragon's Torque and it is Haruka's good fortune to find out that she's it. Emotions run high as characters meet future alternate versions of themselves as well as confronting images of themselves in the past.

I just can't hype this series enough. The music is beautiful... running from heavy chants for the battle scenes to light-hearted music for the children in the present day scenes. GONZO also pushed their animation to make some of the battles almost completely RAW in how the line work is animated. The characters are interesting in their realism in such unfortunate circumstances... but good as GONZO is, they always have that one blonde crazy guy like usual to entertain the viewer.

If you liked Gankutsuou you will like Noein as well... get the first DVD, you won't be disappointed!

I want to agree with the prior review wholeheartedly, but I have to point out that GONZO didn't have anything to do with this series (a notable omission from the staggering number of studios in the credits). The production company was Satelight.

"Noein" is an unconventional looking anime, but the story is rock solid all the way through, and it builds up from a slow beginning into something really wonderful and compelling and unique. It's rare these days to find a show that the creators obviously spent so much time and effort on. The quality of the production is staggering, especially the animation. Highly recommended.

I found this while searching Anime features on Crunchyroll for a long Holiday Weekend...and the short synopsis about a girl, her friends and Quantum Dimension travelers was so off the beaten track I had to give the first episode a try.

It blew me away. Other posters have noted the series delve into Quantum Theory and such, and while there is usually a bit of Handwavium science in most Sci-Fi anime, Noein differs from the usual in that it 'lightly' swings the viewer thru actual light Quantum Theory.

As for the Story itself, it's a Sci-Fi adventure that is one part young adult/Pre-teen coming of age that doesn't dive into the usual anime school age 'soap-opera' formulas. Light hearted and funny at times, and yet it can go into some of the dark raw issues of Growing-up. This part makes it very watchable for kids.

But what makes this story a masterpiece in my eyes, is how the story can appeal to adults. An Adult can watch this story and root for the kid characters while trying to understand where the other adult characters are coming from and why they are the way they are: Yuu's Mother is one poignant case in point. And last, there is the question of the Dimension Travelers themselves.

As for the rest of it, what makes this series work for me is the fact that I could NOT figure out what was going on. WHO were the Dimension Travelers? WHERE or WHEN do they come from? WHO or WHY are they fighting? And WHO is actually on WHOSE side? There is no Prologue explanatory of everything. The Viewer is given bits and glimpses of Who, Why and What as the story progresses, and the Viewer is tasked with putting the puzzle together as things move along. Because this story doesn't follow the usual anime tropes, even a jaded anime watcher can't run thru half an episode and say to themselves: "Okay, I already know what Happens from this point on..."

Oh...and just one artistic shout: The Theme Song/Sequence is simply Beautiful to watch.

This is an amazing story. Yes the artwork isn't all that much to my taste, though I got used to it after a few episodes, yes there are plot holes, yes it starts slow. I don't care about the above to be honest. The story is gripping, the characters really well developed, I cared for them, though I'm old and cynical. And there are more twists in the plot than in the local roads in county Kerry! Nearly all an entertaining surprise.

It's not a tale for cretins though, it can get nerdy and convoluted, and something which nobody mentioned, it's fairly deep philosophically as well. You can just watch the story and run away with it but there are questions all along the way, important questions. Who or what are we, what is reality, what is illusion, what is perception and what link has it on reality ....also there are great lessons in life: we CAN change, for the better or the worse, regretting the past or fearing the future will ruin your life, be brave, don't give up, so on. I have the feeling there are some references to Buddhism in there but I'm not familiar enough with it to say more. This series I thought was very intelligent, and is not necessarily aimed at teens, on the contrary there is something in it for every generation.

As usual I thought the American dubbing was a disgrace, (what I heard of it, I always watch in Japanese - excellent voice acting there, if clearly shaky subtitle translations) and only Crispin Freeman who dubs Karasu appears to make some sort of effort and have a clue on how it should be played. I'm not sure I could have stuck with more than one episode in English.

Oh yes, and the soundtrack is brilliant.

8 out of 10, and I will watch it again, knowing what I know now, I need to watch it again. Besides I miss the characters already. Minus some bad art IMO in places, this is one of the better series out there, right up with the better known usual ones. I can't recommend it enough if you like to use your brain while watching entertaining TV.

Plot: 8.5/10 -- Rich in detail and very complex. The idea of different universes existing for every choice, with the you in that universe going down a different path, is truly fascinating.

I have to mark it down a little because of the slow pacing and unexplained elements of the story. However, I'm sure someone who has a better understanding of quantum physics would add 0.5 to this rating.

Characters: 9.7/10 -- Watching the main characters develop in Noein is different than in any other anime I've watched. You see how they *possibly* look and act in the future throughout the show (sometimes even more than one possible future version), which creates thoughts and shows the characters from different angles.

My favourite characters were not the main two (Haruka and Yuu), my favourites instead being Ai and Isami. It's both funny and cute seeing them try to hide their feelings for each other as the series progresses, Ai being a fiery red/orange-head and Isami being your average male - Unable to pick-up on signals. Isami's character is probably my favourite due to the future versions of him shown.

The only real bad character point I can think of is Yuu's character - He gets quite annoying with his attitude. The annoyance is worsened by slow plot progression.

Art: 9.5/10, Animation: 9.5/10 -- I can't rate art and animation accurately since I know nothing about it.

Noein looked amazing and fairly unique to me from the moment I first saw it. The start of the show showed that it obviously had quite a big budget, combining CG with excellent art and animation. The show kept up the high quality visuals until the end, although the less important episodes didn't get the attention the more important ones did.

Sound: 9/10 -- I'm probably being quite harsh here - The soundtrack is outstanding. The the choral battle/action music really gets you excited, the dramatic music does its job, the cute/funny music is fun to listen to... It's all great. My only reason for not rating higher is because there aren't too many tracks I'd want to listen to when not watching the series.

Total: 9.2/10 -- All in all, an amazing series. This is a series every anime fan should watch.