Through the Milky Way

Synopsis: Mireille Bouquet is an assassin for hire who gets a mysterious job request from a Japanese school girl, Yumura Kirika. After a quick scuffle with agents from a shady organization, these two girls decide to join forces in order to uncover the truth of their attackers and of themselves. ~ Nihon

Genre: Action/Drama
Company: Bee Train/Victor Entertainment
Format: 26 episodes



Comment: I thought since my initial review (here) of Madlax has changed and I learned to actually love that anime that my opinion about Noir will change also. But I was wrong! So very wrong! I thought I'd give it a try but in the end I wasted 13hours (not at one sitting) of watching this anime...because I thought, hey maybe the next episode will be better, maybe they will reveal more, maybe...maybe...maybe. My opinion didn't change at all. It was boring, despite all the stunning action scenes and the very well-done choreography, the whole plot was boring! My favorite part in these "girls-with-guns" themes is when the lead roles point their guns at each other's heads, and it happened several times in this anime. A plus point for that.

The last few episodes have surprised me, though. I did like Kirika at the end because finally she was showing some emotions; she was showing anger, and she could scream! She yelled Mireille's name from the bottom of her lungs whenever Mireille, who keeps reminding Kirika that Mireille will kill her at the end, was in danger. Kirika has saved Mireille on several occasions, even missed her big chance opportunity to finally find out about her past just to save Mireille. Why I'm referring to something as trivial as "voices" here was because Kirika's low and quiet voice totally pi**ed me off at the beginning. Maybe because she reminds me too much of myself. lol Whatever...


Watch Noir online:
at AnimeFreak (dubbed) | watchanimeonline (dubbed)

Since the episode titles are in Japanese (or if you're lucky, and find one where they have this translated, good for you), here's the link to the Episode guide.


Images
(images from several sources)



























Reviews:

While the creators try to make Noir as realistic as possible, certain things are still glaring. The first thing that strikes is that while people are dying left, right, and center, there's hardly a drop of blood spilled. The wounds are all incredibly clean. The second is what I'd like to call the Rambo element - where there are 100 dudes all totting submachine guns but their bullets will never hit their targets while a single shot fired by our ladies will drop them immediately.

And much of the episodes do focus on the growing friendship/bond between Mireille and Kirika - two lonely girls who have this knack for avoiding death at all costs and who have never really trusted anyone before. That character development also plays out well in the final episodes.