| PRODUCT DETAILS | | Noir: The Complete Collection |  | |
Noir: The Complete Collection
The Female Is The Deadlier Of The Species… A cryptic message. A mysterious organization. A girl with a missing past. These are triggers that launch professional hit woman Mireille Bouquet into the ultimate odyssey of death and vengeance. Joining forces with Yuumura Kirika, a young girl with deadly skills and a forgotten identity, Mireille finds herself thrust into a secret world where the only law is kill or be killed, and where your closest friend could turn out to be your worst enemy. Two female assassins embark on a journey through the ultimate darkness, in the acclaimed animation masterpiece NOIR! Available now for the first time in this complete collectors edition!
Manufacturer: Adv Films
Price Range: $24.00 - $89.98
 Noir: The Complete Collection
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| User Reviews |  | A cut above most!
rating: 5
The story centers around two main characters, a professional assassin and a young girl who has lost her memory. She also happens to be a professional assassin. The young girl has sought out Mariel with hopes that she wil help her recover her lost memory as she seems to be intricately tied to her by certain events. The story leading up to the truth is what is told over the course of the series and it is action packed and mysterious every step of the way. Not only are the story and action scenes throughout the series captive, the music is also very fitting from a few choir led scenes and the prevailing techno type dance music played throughout the series. This series is worth every penny and every second you will invest in it andif you are fan of anime you owe it to yoursel fto see it.
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The Man Within the Man, The Sin Within the Sin...
rating: 5
The Good Things
*Good action scenes. Every episode contains at least one good fight scene.
*Excellent animation quality; motions are mostly fluid and artwork is splendid. Settings are very detailed and distinctive.
*The story is continuously intruiging. It may not make sense at first, but once the mystery is unravelled, it's interesting. Repeated viewings reveal more details, too.
*Aside from the main story arc, there are also a number of good stand-alone episodes with good stories.
*Characters are very well-developed. They have a large number of subtleties, backgrounds, and issues that make them very memorable.
*Great emotional impact (although this could also be seen as sappy).
*Bloodless action and implied sexuality makes the show edgy without being too graphic (rated 15+).
*Excellent music.
The Bad Things
*Slow pacing may be too tedious for some people.
*Flashbacks are repeated throughout, and can be seen as annoying.
The Questionable Things
*Some parts are really silly when you think about it (like Chloe's fascination with a fork, or the fact that Kirika stands in the line of fire and never gets hit, or the part where she gets shot in the head and lives without a scratch...).
*Strange ending (still don't know why Mirielle didn't shoot Altena, but it all worked out in the end anyway).
It's a slow, emotional, character-driven European drama, but still has a lot of slick action. Once I got into it, it was very immersive and fascinating, and has become one of my absolute favorite anime shows. Highly reccomended to anybody who has the patience.
DVDs have good video and audio quality, and contain a number of interviews. Episode 21 has a hilarious easter egg (push up, down, left, and right on the remote during the second eye-catch to see an 8-minute sock puppet video!).
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A mysterious and action packed tale of two Assassins!
rating: 4
I wasn't really sure what to think of this Anime at first, the description was very intriguing and the reviews were great. Then I started watching it and things moved pretty slowly, I figured that was to play up the intrigue factor since it was about secretive assassins. Although they're more of the independent contractor type and not really working for anyone. Anyway, I did get into this show pretty good eventually. It really pulled me in around disc four when I really started to wonder what was going on and wanted more answers. However, I still don't totally get that first episode, ah well, I should go back and watch it again now that I finished the series.
Noir takes place in France, primarily Paris, which is a breath of fresh air for me and all the Japan based Anime I've been watching lately. I have nothing at all against that location and it makes obvious sense as to why most creators would set it in that location, but I really am impressed to see someone create something outside the box. On that note, let me say how impressed I was with how they managed to capture that atmosphere. It does have a very good French and, especially, Parisian atmosphere, you could say. The whole premise of the show just worked perfectly in that location! Anyway, I'm getting side tracked. Noir is about two assassins that seemingly meet at random, but they could be connected. The main character Mireille is a professional assassin that's being brought deeper into a world of intrigue where she will meet her destiny and find out who she truly is. The strange enigma of Kirika Yumura seems to find her way into Mireille, but one can only wonder how "accidental" this meeting was. Kirika shows very adept skills at killing people, even better than the professional Mireille can boast! However, a major secret society and force in the world has taken notice of the two (or have they always been watching?) and the two seem to share a tragic, yet self realizing fate.
Noir is a story of essentially super assassin's and Kirika and Mireille will have to triumph over all the hardships thrown at them. I loved the onset of the secret society quietly controlling the world and how the two main characters had to deal with this seemingly indomitable foe. It has a very "Templar" styled concept you could say, but without it having a downfall on Friday the 13th via the Catholic Church. Keeping with French style there are heavy religious overtones, but they speak in different and jaded terms. They say words like "Sin" and "Salvation", but the meanings are inherently different and more akin to that of secret society concepts.
As you can see this is a very serious Anime, there really is no comedy in here and it's a very dark and tragic Anime as well. I really liked that change of pace, even in some of the more serious Anime there will be at least a couple humorous situations, in this one there are basically none. The characters are complex and sometimes far removed from reality and in their own world, so they can be hard to identify with, but that's the whole point. You're not supposed to be able to identify with them, they don't really live in our world, they are physically here, but mentally they are elsewhere. The one thing that really annoyed me about this show was the flashbacks and the over repetition of scenes. The flashbacks were only half useful and they seriously had flashbacks that were way too long and the same thing too much. It was just unnecessary, it's not like I forgot what happened in the flashback in episode 20 when I'm watching episode 21. It really just got to the point where it was tedious and I would have rather they had 20 episodes and less flash backs. Maybe the writers thought the story was too complex? I don't know, all I know is that my memory is better than they apparently think most peoples are.
I was originally going to give this a 3, but the overall story line towards the end pushed this into a 3.5 (would be a solid 4 without the constant flashbacks) with rounding to a 4. All this comes in a neat box set with seven slim pack DVD's, that feature interviews and sketches as bonus features. The way they generated the mystery with the characters was quite admirable and I ended up really getting into them quite a bit. The ending is very tragic, to me at least, because it didn't end the way I expected or really wanted it to. However, I do see why they decided to end on that note and I think it's a good ending, especially since it wasn't predictable for me. However, the build up to the mystery of Marielle's parents became pretty obvious after a while and when they're about to reveal the answer it got frustrating because they drew it out for a long time! (That's not a bad note, just a humorous one on my part.) Anyway, if you're looking for a good serious Anime with very dark themes, then this is definitely the way to go. I think its funny how all the super assassin's are all female as well, I don't know why, it was just weird to not have them fight at least one highly trained male character. Instead every single henchman was male and they were all slaughtered, so expect a lot of high gear action sequences. Noir is more than just action and girls though; this is also a thinking person's Anime and has a lot of elements for people to get into.
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Waste of time
rating: 1
Noir does some things good. There is some amount of character development that seems believable. Music is good and played appropriately. Lighting and animation is also good at times.
Noir does a lot of things bad. There is a high body count in almost every episode. It's really tedious and makes every episode basically the same story. Sure there is some ebb and flow in the relationship between Mireille and Kirika, but the story is really predictable. The connection between Noir and the Italian mafia mob is largely pointless. Things really go downhill with the final confrontation.
Noir is a nice wrapper with a good animation framework, but the plot is lacking.
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Anime does not get any better. . . .
rating: 5
As other reviewers have indicated, "Noir" is the fascinating tale of two star-crossed female assassins linked by a tragic past and struggling to make sense of that history along with present-day surroundings. What gives "Noir" its pungency is the core of feeling that develops between the two nihilists, who slowly discover that they are but pawns in a game controlled by a ruthless syndicate. It is their shared sense of mistrust and loneliness that draws them together. "Noir" (a code-name for their professional partnership) is essentially a female-driven action drama, with the male characters largely relegated to the sidelines.
The only glaring lapses occur when a third female character attempts to--and nearly succeeds--in breaking their bond. Indeed, once the central mystery is revealed over the course of volumes 5-7, "Noir" loses some of its power and impact (i.e., the chases are far more interesting than the actual conquest). Nevertheless, the series is helped along by crisp, vivid imagery, an assortment of memorable, even heartfelt, characters and, perhaps best of all, an imaginative soundtrack that is by turns pulsating, gorgeous and richly introspective (the music careens from Japanese-influenced pop to jazz piano to African-influenced percussion arrangements). In fact, the music drives the suspense and deepens the story's multiple meanings. I stumbled upon "Noir" while channel surfing and was immediately captivated. "Noir" was my introduction to Anime and I don't think I am alone when I say that it will be very difficult to find a more impressive conception in this genre.
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Noir: The Complete Collection
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