Noein - to your other self

Noein (ノエイン もうひとりの君へ) is an original 24 episode sci-fi anime written by Onogi Hiroshi.  The series originally aired in Japan between 2005 and 2006.

 

     The story revolves around a girl named Haruka, her friend/love interest Yu and their friends. They live in Japan in modern times and wile away their normal student lives. One night Yu is trying to run away from home, as he and Haruka had planned on previously. Haruka is resistant and Yu is filled with angst at his mother’s strict ways. During an argument, between Haruka and Yu, time freezes and only Haruka is unaffected. She is approached by a mysterious cloaked man. When he reaches his hand out to her a mystical necklace appears around her neck. He recognizes it as the artifact he and his companions have been searching for known as the "Dragon Torque". He disappears and time returns to normal but Haruka remembers the event. The man is named Karasu (Crow) and he is part of a group called the "Dragon Cavalry" who are from a different dimension. They are traveling through the many alternate dimensions in search of the "Dragon Torque" in order to use it to fight against a horrid enemy known as "Shangri-la", which threatens all of the dimensions. Haruka, Yu and their friends have strange connections with the "Dragon Cavalry" and the fight is on to use the "Dragon Torque" to save all of reality.

    With the Dragon Torque having been located the Dragon Cavalry must protect it from the Shangri-la and figure out how to use it against them. Kurasu and a few other members stay in Haruka’s dimension to help protect her and figure out how to use the artifact. At the same time other factions within the Dragon Cavalry are rebelling and trying to do things their own way, which leads to some long standing rivalries flaring. On top of that the children all living around Haruka, have to deal with their own problems, not only involving the inter-dimensional beings but their daily lives. As the threat to all reality becomes more pronounced the secrets behind the Dragon Cavalry, Shangri-la and the Dragon Torque are revealed leading up to a spectacular climax. 

 

    I was turned onto this series near the end of its run in Japan by a couple of my friends and was a little bit leery in the beginning. I watched the first episode then it took me a couple of weeks to watch the second one, partly because of all the other things I was watching. I was initially intrigued, particularly due to the opening sequence, but the art style was a bit too weird for me at first. The opening sequence is with a few of the Dragon Cavalry fighting against an invading Shangri-la. The Shangri-la are gigantic bio-mechanical representations of Buddhist styled statues. They have incredible power and are very large. As stated their goal is to destroy all of reality. The Dragon Cavalry end up facing a Sangril-la in their own dimension.  Karasu ultimately defeats it, but ends up being blown out of his own reality and inadvertently sent to Haruka's reality. The Dragon Cavalry track him, show up to retrieve him and investigate signals the Dragon Torque is giving off.

 

    My only complaint with the series, as, stated, is the animation. The adult female characters are the most bothersome; they all have big puffy lips with bright lipstick...especially Haruka's mother. The characters are simply drawn, sometimes to the point of being bad. I got over this quirk and just enjoyed the series without analyzing it too much. The story is in-depth and deals a bit with quantum mechanics and chaos theory, which hits a soft spot in my heart. They even have a little nod towards Schrödinger’s Cat. The story flows well, keeps you guessing throughout and ends well. All in all I would say this is a very good series and recommend it to anyone who enjoys action packed sci-fi titles. 

 

    It is available outside of Japan in it’s entirety and even ran on TV in America.  Various disc releases are available from FUNimation.