Review of Noein: To Your Other Self - Vol. 1

Introduction

The absence of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex is something of a gaping wound in the release schedules. If anything could be called a flagship title, it would be that one. Now Manga Entertainment have the unenviable task of finding a series which will push just the same buttons in anime customers, appealing to just as wide a fan base. It looks as if this spring Manga will have three bites of the cherry, debuting three new series not long after their US releases. We have two excursions into the supernatural realm to look forward to in the forthcoming Tokko and Tactics, but we begin with the anime genre that strikes the strongest chord with most Western fans, sci-fi. Noein - To Your Other Self has something of an X-Files feel to it with a soupcon of Sliders, all set against the coming of age drama of a group of school friends in the seaside town of Hakodate during summer.

For friends Haruka, Yu, Miho, Ai and Isami, the hardest question has to be what to do over the summer. That, and Yu is stressing over being forced into university by his overbearing mother. Rumours of ghostly apparitions inspire Miho to suggest a `fright night`, but no one is prepared for what phantoms they will see. The gateway across time and dimensions is opening up, and wraith like figures are coming through searching for the Dragon Torque. They need to retrieve it to save their own world, but the Dragon Torque just happens to be embodied in Haruka. The weird thing is that Haruka finds one of the strangers, Karasu to be oddly familiar. The first five episodes of Noein are presented in this two-disc set. It`s a twenty-four episode series, so it looks as if Manga will be easing the burden on wallets slightly by releasing the show in five volumes.

1. Blue Snow
The hot topic in school on the last day of term is ghosts, and just who has seen one. For five friends it seems a perfect opportunity to go ghost hunting. Except Yu has been introverted of late, his mother is determined to see him in university, and he has to attend cram school to improve his grades. The stress is certainly getting to him. Haruka wants to help, and goes to see him after class, but a shower of electric blue snow interrupts them. This is the herald for something bizarre, as the world fades out and a dark cloaked figure appears, reaching for the Dragon Torque, Haruka.

2. Runaway
The Dragon Knights come from the world of La`Cryma, and they need the Dragon Torque to save their own ravaged world. They`ve been searching through dimensions to locate it, and when they finally do, it`s in human form. They are oddly familiar too, as Karasu, the first to find Haruka, claims to be an older version of Yu. Internal bickering among the knights renders the portal unstable, and they vanish before they can get hold of Haruka. The stress gets too much for Yu, who later storms out of his house stating that he doesn`t want to study, and doesn`t want to go to university. He`s going to run away, and Haruka decides to join him, just as she once promised. They spend the day on an observation deck overlooking the town, but that night, they share a vision of their past selves, before a giant blue wheel arcs across the night sky.

3. Hunted
Haruka and Yu are confronted by one of the Knights. Atori is unbalanced though, and his hatred of Karasu makes him forget the Dragon Torque in favour of taking out his aggressions on Yu. At the last minute Karasu shows up and battle commences. Yet the next day, there`s no evidence that there was ever an earth shaking fight at the top of the hill. Everything seems back to normal, with Yu back under his mother`s yoke, and his friends trying to ease his burden. Then Haruka finds herself in one of her childhood haunts, where Karasu is currently hiding.

4. Friends
Faced by all of the Dragon Knights, Haruka finally realises that it is her that they are after. But at the last minute, another portal opens, one to yet another dimension, and a mask Karasu recognises as Noein comes forth to rescue her. When she tells her friends, she doesn`t get much of a reaction, as Miho and Ai are more concerned with whom she`s going out with. Meanwhile, Karasu pays Yu a visit when he should be studying.

5. And Then…
Miho is intent on getting to the bottom of Haruka`s experiences, so the girls get together for a Q&A session with a ouija board. Meanwhile in La`Cryma, Atori has gone rogue, gathering other knights to his banner as he sets out on a warped quest to destroy the Dragon Torque.

Video

Noein is one gorgeous looking anime, one of the prettiest I have seen. It gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer on these discs, and the image is clear, sharp and unblemished. Made by the same company that created Heat Guy J, Noein takes the blending of 3D CG and traditional 2D animation one step further. The character designs are a step removed from traditional anime, and in that respect the show establishes a style of its own. It has a bright, hazy feel to it, appropriate to the summertime setting, and the animation is fluid and expansive. It looks like a theatrical animation at times. On rare occasions the characters do revert to a more minimalist feel, but that seems to be a conscious creative decision, rather than a lack of budget. The action and effects are also astounding, as the opening sequence of the first episode so graphically demonstrates.

Audio

Dubtitles! Just thought I`d get that out of the way first. Purists will no doubt be gnashing their teeth at the presence of subtitles that correspond to the English dub, instead of translated subtitles. Actually, the only moment that annoyed me was early on in the first episode, where some background English dialogue had been recorded, where no Japanese dialogue was originally, leading to some irrelevant captions appearing. Otherwise the dub seems pretty close to the original Japanese track, and other than the occasional colloquialism feels pretty accurate. It`s certainly nothing to gnash one`s teeth about.

It`s a two disc set, which means that Manga have included the full range of soundtracks once again. Disc one offers DD 2.0 and 5.1 English and Japanese, while Disc 2 offers DD 2.0 English, as well as DTS English and Japanese tracks. As usual I went for the original language. Noein is a show with plenty of action packed moments, which are well represented in the surround track. The music also has a singular style that adds to the quirky individuality of the show. The incidental music has an almost mediaeval feel to it, while the arrival of the Dragon Knights is usually heralded by some ominous choral music. There are no problems with the English dub either, as the voices suit the characters well (although Atori sounds a little stereotypical), and the dialogue flows naturally.

Features

The discs come with psychedelic animated menus, with the wormhole motif of many a dimension warping sci-fi show. You can choose from the five episodes from the main menu, but there is no play all option, something that Manga continue to omit from their discs.

Disc 1`s major offering is the On Location featurette, which sees Director Akane Kazuki and Voice Actress Kudo Haruka (voice of Haruka) visit the seaside town of Hakodate in Hokkaido. It`s a graphic demonstration of why the anime looks so splendid, as the major locations are all taken from real life. It`s impressive just how accurate the anime is, while pervading the story with a fantasy feel.

You`ll also find two alternate openings, a selection of Japanese promos for the show and soundtrack, and the textless credit sequences.

Disc 2 houses the usual Manga trailers, this time for Karas, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig, Naruto, Robotech and Tactics.

Conclusion

I look back at the story description and the episode synopses that I wrote and I see something of an incoherent mess. Not surprising really, as with these five episodes, Noein makes a rather similar impression. It`s disjointed, uncertain in tone, unsure of what it wants to be, while being jam packed with ideas and concepts, thick with narrative, and heavy on the worlds building. Did I mention that I thoroughly enjoyed it?

We begin with an explosion of eye-candy, an aerial battle in a strange otherworld, with these dark cloaked figures doing battle with a giant dual head, a sort of animated Zardoz. At the last minute, Karasu vanishes in a blaze of light, and we switch to a nice domestic scene with Haruka getting ready for school. This sort of cutting to and fro underlies the structure of the anime, and we are expected to deduce the context for ourselves. There isn`t a lot of help here. Similarly, when we learn that Haruka is the Dragon Torque, something indicated by a golden necklace that appears around her neck when something odd is about to happen, we have no idea what that means, and no way of knowing if she is responsible for the odd occurrences or whether she is a victim of them.

Perhaps the most negative aspect of the show is the collision of the strange with the mundane, which isn`t handled at all well. One night, Haruka and Yu are confronted by these odd cloaked figures, who can alter the flow of time, apparently appear and disappear at will, and hold strange powers at their command. The next day, the friends are back to worrying about University, or who is going out with who, with little concern about the bizarre events of the previous night. It`s an added dose of unreality in an already far-fetched story, which leaves little to anchor it with.

But the pace of the show is swift, and the episodes are jam packed with narrative. This isn`t a story that hands out information piecemeal, and the torrent of detail that we do get in the first five episodes is even a little overwhelming. Not just one, but two worlds are developed here, several characters, and a good deal of mythology. It practically invites a second watch straight away in order to make some sense of it. By the end of this disc, you`ll have a good handle on La`Cryma and the Dragon Knights, as well as a passing familiarity with the Dragon Torque. In fact the only aspect that really lacks development is Noein, who just makes a brief appearance on this disc.

Incidentally, the X Files parallels are immediately obvious, as there are a couple of investigators looking into the strange occurrences in Hakodate. Kooriyama is a tall, lean, stubbly slob of a man, while Uchida is an elegant and technically minded woman. The resemblance to Mulder and Scully is immediately apparent.

The wayward narrative and rather incoherent melange of concepts holds sway over the first four episodes, and I would have been less committal because of that. But the fifth episode really begins to tie things together, and it finds a rhythm and sense of narrative purpose that the earlier episodes lack. There is really a build up and increasing level of tension through that final episode, and it`s no surprise that it ends on a cliffhanger, which leaves you desperate to find out what happens next.

I really am enjoying how this series is panning out so far. The characters are almost all likeable and interesting. That`s with the exception of Atori who is a rather stereotypical nutcase villain, not helped by the English dub voice. But Karasu is far more ambiguous and intriguing. The idea that La`Cryma is the inevitable future of Haruka`s world tantalises, and it`s interesting to see the similarities between Karasu and the younger Yu. The five childhood friends are utterly charming, and well written. The character art and world design has a singular style that makes this anime stand out. It`s also helped in that respect by the music. I`m giving this first volume a tentative high mark just because of the considerable promise it offers. Whether the series can maintain that depends on whether it can weave the threads of narrative together in the next volume, or if it provides more of the same stream of consciousness storytelling that typified the first four episodes. I`m hoping for the former.