Noein ~ Mou Hitori no Kimi e

Title:Noein ~ Mou Hitori no Kimi e
Noein ~Toward Another You~
ノエイン もうひとりの君へ (Japanese)
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Media Factory
CHIBA Saeko
FUJIWARA Keiji
KUDOU Haruka
MIYAKE Kenta
MIYATA Kouki
NAKAHARA Mai
NAKAI Kazuya
NAZUKA Kaori
OHARA Sayaka
OKAMURA Akemi
R1 License - Manga Entertainment
SHIRAISHI Ryoko
SUZUMURA Kenichi
TAKIMOTO Fujiko
TANAKA Atsuko
The remaining survivors of the Dimension of Lacrima are in a loosing war with the Dimension Shangrila. They have put all their hopes in finding and recovering a theoretical device called the Dragon Torque and are sending their elite warriors, the Dragon Knights, into the infinite probabilities and dimensions of the temporal and quantum timespaces in a desperate search. One of the warriors, Karasu encounters the Dragon Torque in the form of a young teenaged girl named Haruka. She looks just like his Haruka, his beloved whom he lost some ten years ago in the war. Defending the Dragon Torque is the boy Yuu, the incarnation of Karasu in that timespace. Karasu still feels the loss of his Haruka and is troubled at how he was unable to keep his promise to protect her. But can Karasu carry out his mission and risk the life of Haruka to bring her back in time to save Lacrima?


24 TV Episodes
Animation by Satelight & Media Works

R1 license by Manga Entertainment
Scheduled to aire on the (US-cable) SciFi channel.
Episode Details 
1, 2
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 10 10 10 10 10 10 Violet D [series:1159#1393]
Ever now and than I check something out at my library. I saw this and decided to check it out. It is interesting how Jan-Chan says it reminds of Razephon. I felt the same way when I watched it. That combining of dimensions and how they have to stop it before everyone disappears. I thought it pretty amazing to watch. Especially those monsters who started showing up when the dimensions were comming together. Same concept in Razephon.

Last updated Tuesday, June 22 2010. Created Tuesday, June 22 2010.
Unevaluated Stretch [series:1159#628]
(13 episodes watched):

The character designs seem rather crude relative to everything else, which is annoying; they even seemed laughable at times. It's hard to make aliens--at least at first I thought they were aliens--look bizarre when the humans themselves are verging on superdeformed status. I guess there's an assumption on my part that the more realistic the character designs, the more seriously the story should be taken. Early on there was talk about the fantastic differences between dimensions like LaCryma and our own, but there's not really much to show for it; a mere 15 years into the future isn't all that mind blowing. I guess it's a problem with any show (not just this one) which hopes to portray radical differences between alternate worlds that these new ones have to be kept understandable to the viewers, which has the effect of limiting how many changes can be made. For instance, you can't fool around with time and space themselves to any great extent, because the viewer would have no idea what to make of it. Or maybe I should say that you can't (or shouldn't) do this unless you have some really superb storytelling talent which would be capable of making this sort of stuff understandable, and that's always in short supply. So far, I have little idea what's going on or urge to figure it out. Not until episode 11 is a semi-understandable explanation of Quantum Physics, which is what makes the interdimensional travel possible, offered. In these sort of shows I find that I tend to have more interest in the here-and-now people than in the ones from parallel universes or whatever. Even so, some things aren't making sense: Haruka keeps running into freaky guys from another world--she was almost killed once--yet she's more interested in fixing up a misunderstanding with a friend? Even though somebody is clearly out to get her, she cheerfully ignores the danger until the people appear right in front of her face yet again. Where is this going?

What really frustrates me is the "Dragon Torque": what is it, why is it important, and how did Haruka wind up with it? But no explanation is offered (so far), instead it's just a strange piece of jewelry that sometimes materializes around Haruka's neck and causes weird stuff to happen. This seems especially discordant with the attempt to portray time travel as some sort of highly technical process which might be possible someday. The right science will allow you to travel between parallel universes--so that you can look for a magical necklace!

Actually, with episode nine the show takes a turn towards being more entertaining with the resolution of a quarrel which had seemed shallow and annoying up until now. It was probably when a skeptical adult discovered that all this interdimensional travel wasn't nonsense after all that the show seemed to become much more intriguing; perhaps this was the first time that a plot twist seriously surprised me. I start to care how things will work out for the characters even if the metaphysics still don't make much sense. Haruka's friends meeting Karasu was fun too. Having to explain extremely weird things is much more fun than just keeping them secret. It has taken awhile, but Noein has gotten genuinely interesting.

In the next-to-last episode, the thought occured to me that maybe the explanation for the bizarre Dragon Torque would be nothing more than this: since an infinite number of parallel universes supposedly exist, one for every possible chain of events, then no matter how unlikely, every event would take place somewhere--and who's to say that this isn't the universe where this strange occurence comes about? Though I hope there's more to the story than this, it was an interesting thought.

Correction, that wasn't the "next-to-last" episode after all--because I had been thinking that this was a one season, 13 episode show when in fact it seems to have 24. That would explain a lot, since I noticed a lack of mounting tensions in episode 13 which would suggest an impending climax. On the other hand, one of the reasons I began watching this in the first place was because I wanted something relatively brief! Episode 13 was more a matter of determining whether a certain character would survive injuries sustained in the previous one. An odd thing was that neither of the main characters determined the outcome.

Last updated Tuesday, March 10 2009. Created Thursday, February 05 2009.
Buy 9 10 7 8 8 8 Ggultra2764 [series:1159#1552]
Noein was quite a unique series for me. The use of quantum mechanics as a sci-fi element will be an acquired taste for some viewers with this series since they may interpret the explanations of the science from people like Tobi and Ryoko to be "techno-babble." But for me, this added a sense of complexity for the series as I was curious over how the theories and technology used in this science were being used in the world of Noein.

The plot development adds enough complexity to keep pushing events moving forward in the series. There is a clear connection between our reality, Shangri'la, and Lacrima that the series delves into, especially with the mysterious antagonist, Noein, who is trying to push events into his favor. Most of the main cast gets a good amount of development as I got a sense of how these characters think, their backgrounds, and how they feel towards each other, especially with the developments in the bonds with Karasu, Yuu, and Haruka. However, there are some characters who felt a bit underdeveloped like Ryoko. Another problem is the lack of development of some aspects of Noein. Even as I knew more about him as the series reached its finale, it doesn't make clear how he acquired his powers and created his army.

In terms of visuals, this series excels with artwork and animation. Backgrounds had a cel-shaded look to them making them look quite vivid and detailed. Computer effects were used to render the shifts in reality that the characters in future realities go through which looked quite slick. The battle scenes shown at some points of Noein looked intense as movements were fast and fluid making me one giddy reviewer. However, character designs were the weakest part of the visual package as they looked simple and even ugly at some points, especially with facial designs.

Despite some glaring issues with character designs and character depth, I enjoyed watching Noein. With the complex focus on plot developments between the three realities of the story, this is one sci-fi series that will pique your interest if you're into the heavy talks on quantum theories.

Last updated Thursday, December 18 2008. Created Thursday, December 18 2008.
Buy 9 9 8 8 9 9 Dreamer [series:1159#2279]
This is definitely an acquired taste. But once you acquire it, you really love it.

Art, Animation & Character Design
Excellent art and animation. This is for sure above the norm and with a very smooth framerate... most times. Some of the scenes are really eye-catching and at times surreal and it's this that makes this anime visually beautiful. However a complaint in this department are the character designs. At times it seems poorly done and other times it's down right ugly.

Music
The music great but bearable. The theme song is alright... though not my taste. However, throughout the series, there are elements of dramatic choir-type songs and chants which really and dramatically bring out the suspense in many of the scenes. Awesome!

Series and Episode Stories
This plot was short of amazing! The story transcends time and space by going through various "dimensions" or "alternate universes". At times the story seems light-hearted and at times, most times, it's quite serious and dark. The whole of the series throws a serious question at the viewer; "Who do you save? You and everything you know, or someone else"? As the story progresses, there's some interesting twists and plots that keep you coming back for more. Another thing I really enjoyed was how some of the "bad guys" or at least characters you would thing are bad are really not. Just acting out according to what they feel is right. A matter of opinion really. The end was one of the better endings I've seen in an anime in a looooong while. I loved how.... well, I shouldn't spoil it.

Overall, it's a must Buy. Nearly everything about it was really good. One of the better ones I've seen in a while.

Last updated Sunday, November 30 2008. Created Sunday, November 30 2008.
Unevaluated Jan-Chan [series:1159#967]
Hummmm … After some thought, I can only share the comment – NOEIN is a very unique series! Shinsen has recently released (as a fansub) episode 23 (of a total of 24 in this series). I tried to watch this series at least twice – and I just could not get past the first episode. There was something about this series that really bothered me. I have included some snaps of episodes one and two just for contrast, but I don’t think that they will be enough to convey what my problems or issues are... so .....

What turned me off about this series (especially in the first episode) is the animation style of the characters! They are presented in an almost primitive and simplistic manner, but I noticed that the backdrops in all the scenes are always very lavish and complex.

After hanging in there and watching a few episodes, I am beginning to understand a bit more. I called this series unique because the creators are willing to risk being criticized for ‘cheap animation’ as an artistic approach to tell a complex story. After some thought, I think that that the best term that could be applied to this series is - advant-guard!

NOEIN is a sci-fi adventure story (on par with Rahxephon or Argento Soma,) which involves trans-dimensional and time travel. The intentional use of simplistic character styles as storyline tense-identifiers can be a bit bothersome, but it is an interesting way of telling the story. Without giving away too much, the futurist Karasu travels back in time and to another dimension to encounter Haruka, an incarnation of a childhood friend that he lost so many years ago.

This is very complex dramatic story which involves a lot of quantum physics techno babble (which Shinsen does a great job of trying to explain), but the storywriters really work hard to keep the storyline and sci-fi content consistent with our current time/space/dimensional understandings of this field.

More later

Episode Titles

01 Blue Snow
02 Leaving Home
03 Ending
04 Friends
05 And then...
06 Dimension of Tears
07 Important Person
08 Secret
09 Cross over Time
10 Stormy Night
11 Passing Each Other
12 Fight
13 Wish
14 Memory
15 Shangri-la
16 Repetition
17 Doubt
18 Bad Dream
19 Recollections
20 Once More
21 Illusion
22 To The Future
23 The End
24 Beginning



Last updated Sunday, July 09 2006. Created Saturday, July 08 2006.


Other Sites
NameURL
Official Japanese Series Web Site http://www.noein.jp/
Manga Entertainment R1-English Web Site http://www.manga.com/
More info on Manga Entertainment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga_Entertainment
Wikipedia entry on series (English) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noein

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