Norn9: Norn+Nonet

In a futuristic era, "The World" is a peace-bringing entity. Though no one knows its location, it has watched over Earth for so long that war has become merely a fable. The airship Norn's task is to deliver nine ability users to The World.

After collecting the last person, Norn takes off. Included onboard are eight men and three women—Koharu, who has finally escaped her loneliness and detests her destructive power; Mikoto Kuga, born to a noble family, who uses her barrier skill to protect the Norn and those it carries; and Nanami Shiranui, whose ability only brings pain, and who wishes to die for a past sin she has committed. While en route, suspicions arise amongst the passengers when they realize there are too many people onboard.

As they try to determine who has snuck aboard, the ship is attacked by an unknown assailant aiming to stop the Norn's progress at all costs. From this chaos arises questions: why were they granted powers, and what must they do once they reach The World?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

Sentai Filmworks has licensed Norn9: Norn+Nonet for the North American market.

Edit

Related Anime

Adaptation:	Norn9: Norn+Nonet
Summary:	Norn9: Norn+Nonet - Unmei no Megami

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Yuiga, Kakeru

Main

Kaji, Yuuki
Japanese

Azuma, Natsuhiko

Main

Ono, Daisuke
Japanese

Ichinose, Senri

Main

Shimono, Hiro
Japanese

Shukuri, Akito

Main

Sugiyama, Noriaki
Japanese

Kuga, Mikoto

Main

Takagaki, Ayahi
Japanese

Koharu

Main

Fujimura, Ayumi
Japanese

Kagami, Itsuki

Main

Yusa, Kouji
Japanese

Nijou, Sakuya

Main

Saiga, Mitsuki
Japanese

Shiranui, Nanami

Main

Seto, Asami
Japanese

Muroboshi, Ron

Main

Sugita, Tomokazu
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Kaneko, Hirotaka

Producer

Ogura, Mitsutoshi

Producer

Yamazaki, Asuka

Producer

Kanemitsu, Kazuhiro

Producer

Edit

Opening Theme

"Kazakiri (カザキリ)" by Nagi Yanagi (eps 1-11)

Edit

Ending Theme

	1: "Vid en Horisont" by Maria Andersson (eps 1)
	2: "Zero Tokei (ゼロトケイ)" by Kaori Oda (eps 2-12)

Reviews

Aug 30, 2021

RESOLVING_POWER

Recommended

I watched Norn9: Norn+Nonet, which is an anime adaptation of an otome game. Here are my thoughts:

Cheap animation. Visually, the anime appears low budget and sloppy. Sometimes the background setting looks good, but the character animations themselves are consistently poor. Art style and colour palette are also fairly bland. Character designs are okay. There are occasionally some scenes where the visuals are nice, but the anime is very inconsistent, and on average weak, in this regard.

Fantastic soundtrack. Truly exceptional. I actually started listening to the OST long before I watched the anime itself. I even put it on my portable music device. It has some ... amazing tracks. The OST is by Kevin Penkin, who more recently made the wonderful Made in Abyss soundtrack. Voice acting is okay -- the three lead female characters all do a good job.

Interesting sort-of-steampunk sci-fi setting with sky ships and things of that nature. Very little is explained but it's still lightyears better than your typical school environment.

The main character, for lack of a better phrase, is a complete autist. She is very awkward, shy, naive, and has zero social skills. Some people might find this tiresome but I thought it was kind of endearing. I'm so used to seeing males as the socially unskilled character that it's refreshing to have a female lead character fill that role. Actually there was a general trend within the entire cast of the female characters being introverted or strange in some way, whereas the male characters were comparatively more normal. Otome media typically focus on one main female character, but in Norn9 there were multiple female characters each of whom had their own character arc; I quite liked this aspect of the show, although I think a longer runtime was needed to comfortably accommodate each character arc.

Both the plot as a whole and the scene-by-scene drama felt ham-fisted to me. This is a common quality among VN adaptations. It's not necessarily a bad thing; it can be enjoyable as long as you expect it. That said, from early in the series it felt like a ton of plot strings and individual character arcs were introduced at once, and this made the viewing experience somewhat perplexing, particularly during the earlier episodes. Similarly, although character development is implemented frequently, it's not enough to compensate for such a large cast of characters, most of whom were introduced early in the series. However, character development among the core main characters was handled alright.

Romance is a strong aspect of the show, despite it sometimes being as ham-fisted as everything else. Most episodes have at least one decent romantic scene. There are also multiple romantic pairings that are developed, which is something I enjoy in romance-focused series. The use of multiple different couples among a unique set of characters creates variety in terms of character interaction and the chemistry of the romance itself. This anime really delivered on the romance front, in my opinion. It frequently made me feel warm fuzzies within myself while viewing.

My overall rating: 7/10
I enjoyed watching it, but it would have been much better if it wasn't so unpolished. It was good, however there was still a lot of unrealized potential. Norn9 does romance really well, has an amazing soundtrack and a unique setting. However, it also has serious direction problems.

I really want to rate this higher but I can't ignore the fact that I spent a considerable amount of the viewing time feeling confused about what was happening. I'm not sure if the intended audience for the anime was someone already acquainted with the VN. Apparently the VN is way longer and more elaborate than the content of this adaptation. I have not read the VN and my critique does not apply to the VN. I would like to read it though, and then rewatch this anime with a better understanding of the story. I wish the anime itself was much longer because there is clearly so much more to the story than was included in this single cour. In fact, trying to adapt the VN into a mere 12 episodes is probably a major cause of this anime's problems. Someone truly interested in this franchise is probably better off reading the VN before watching the anime.

I would only recommend watching this to someone who enjoys shoujo-ish romance, or to someone interested in seeing an otome story implemented in a sci-fi setting. However, even if this anime doesn't appeal to you, the soundtrack itself is worth a listen. Kevin Penkin is very talented.

I'd also really like to read the manga associated with this.

My favourite character was Nanami.

Open

Gift

Apr 15, 2023

micsss

Mixed Feelings

Before even telling what I think of Norn9, I want to make clear that this anime is based on a videogame, it means that it can almost be considered as part of a genre of its own: these kind of anime are often a bit bumbling, they may skip some passages that could make the story clearer, they frequently have plain characters, and for some reasons the animation is always on point.

With this being said, I can tell you I didn't expect much from this show; whilst the plot seemed very interesting, I knew that this type of anime is almost always plain. Nevertheless, I ...

Open

Gift

Nov 15, 2023

Wildflower3

Not Recommended

Let me first tell you that I absolutely love the visual novel game Norn9 (despite its flaws it’s one of my favorite games, specifically for the atmosphere and music). So my rating is entirely based on how well it is adapted into an anime (Spoiler alert: it isn’t!).

Story 2/10
It’s been a while since I watched this so I don’t remember all the details but since I know the story well let me start with the aspect I actually enjoyed… which was seeing the Norn and the beautiful setting in animated/in action. That’s basically everything to like about it. And while I see people ... criticizing even the game’s writing because of some flaws, it never bothered me because personally I like the world-building (and I know it’s further explained in the fandisk). But since we are talking about the anime… The writing is completely all over the place. If I would have watched this without knowledge about the lore I’d have drop it after the first half. What bothers me the most, however, is how dirty they did some of the characters (or rather their storyline – like for real?!).

Characters 4/10
(Note: for once I’m not rating the characters themselves but rather their representation in this anime. Except for Kakeru. He’ll always be a 0/10 for me).
I’m a huge fan of Natsuhiko’s character (in the game). In fact, after the first episode of this anime (which was promising to be honest) I low-key put this anime on-hold until after I finished playing and bought the game just BECAUSE OF HIM (yes, I admit the anime adaptation is the reason I played the game) – and I still ended up liking him but somehow Sakuya’s character won me over. That’s why I feel personally attacked how much they screwed up both with their half-baked writing. While the other MCs got their hand-picked LIs, the writers decided it would be a good idea to mix them. Starting with Sakuya’s route just for Mikoto to end up falling in love with Natsuhiko. Are you kidding me? I’d have been the last person to mind if they would have picked Natsuhiko as her love interest right from the start and making it clear to Mikoto Sakuya is just her childhood friend. Because like I said, I still love Natsuhiko. But the fact they had to mess with my boy Sakuya just makes me feel insanely mad and frustrated. He didn’t deserve this! Not to mention how they took one specific scene of Sakuya’s route and didn’t manage to explain it which made his character seem unlikable to some extent. What’s wrong with the writers here? Among the MCs Mikoto is my favorite. Unfortunately, the way it was written in the anime it just seems like she was developing feelings for Sakuya until she suddenly loved Natsuhiko. Great. That’s the problem with most otome game adaptations because most of the time the writers want to include multiple romances at once but that’s the result. I’d rather have them focusing on one of the characters as romantic interest (even if it’s not my personal favorite). 8And yes, the opening made it pretty clear but it was still a horrible writing decision).

They choose just one LI each for both of the other MCs and I was pretty happy they choose Nanami and Akito to pair up together. Which might have been the best aspect when it comes to characters and relationships. However, that they had to put Koharu as MC in focus was a decision I wasn’t fond of either. I don’t dislike her character but to me she’s the most stereotype MC among the three. So I would have preferred one of the other two. I would have been happy if they would have ended up using Nanami as MC because we don’t get many MCs like her in animes. But nope, they decided for the most dreadful pairing and if I say “dreadful” it’s an understatement because Kakeru is very high on my list of most disliked characters of all time (even in the game). I just can’t stand him so the fact they had most screentime almost made it insufferable to watch.

Animation 4/10
The setting looked very neat but the character design was rather bad (says the person who bought the game after seeing Natsuhiko’s character design). Let’s just say some of the characters were better than others.

Music 8/10
That’s the one thing they did pretty good. And you can’t do anything wrong with Nagi Yanagi for the opening and even as Aion’s voice. Also the OST is amazing (I already loved the OST from the game and it might be my favorite). But the reason the music isn’t a 10/10 is simply because I couldn’t enjoy it as much when there were so many other things bothering me about this anime.

Overall 3/10
Unfortunately it’s among the worst visual novel game adaptations I’ve ever watched and I wish it would have been different because I have so much love and nostalgia for this game. Especially since I think they have the tsundere MC but done right (plus childhood friend trope done perfectly right). If this anime did one thing I’d need to be grateful for, it’s for the fact it made me play the game. But other than this it’s an awful adaptation, not even coming close to its source material. And while in the game there are aspects I don’t like either, it’s overall much, much better. Regardless of whether someone played the game or not it’s an anime I wouldn’t recommend. Rather I’d encourage you to play the games because it’s really worth it in my opinion.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

💻🎮 Otome and BL Games 🎮💻

by Destinesia

38 Entries · 21 Restacks

Music by Kevin Penkin

by KikiSohma

20 Entries · 3 Restacks

reverse harem paradise

by zehwpai

30 Entries · 72 Restacks

More recommendations

Recommendations

View All

More news

Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for June

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for June Week 1: June 6 - 12 Anime Releases Ajin (incl. Part 1: Shoudou) Blu-ray & DVD Combo Limited Editi...read more

Jun 5, 2017 11:01 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (12 comments)

Q2 2016 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 6/15]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of anime and manga licensed in the second quarter (Apr-Jun) of 2016. Winter anime which were licensed before th...read more

Mar 31, 2016 12:20 PM by Snow | Discuss (76 comments)

More discussions

Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Norn9: Norn+Nonet Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jan 7, 2016	163 replies	by Beatnik »» Feb 25, 2:21 PM
Poll: Best Couple Uchiha_Risma - Jul 14, 2021	0 replies	by Uchiha_Risma »» Jul 14, 2021 9:39 PM
So Romance, what about the romance here? samsann - Dec 24, 2018	1 replies	by Sakurashoujo »» Dec 27, 2018 4:32 PM
Norn9: Norn + Nonet iMaUtIsTiC - Jan 28, 2018	2 replies	by removed-user »» Jan 28, 2018 2:16 AM
Poll: Norn9: Norn+Nonet Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Mar 31, 2016	69 replies	by aboghost_ghosst »» Dec 2, 2017 1:34 AM

Norn9: Norn+Nonet

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Yuiga, Kakeru

Azuma, Natsuhiko

Ichinose, Senri

Shukuri, Akito

Kuga, Mikoto

Koharu

Kagami, Itsuki

Nijou, Sakuya

Shiranui, Nanami

Muroboshi, Ron

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Norn9: Norn+Nonet

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-