Synduality: Noir Part 2

Part 2 of Synduality: Noir - It's all about history, high stakes, and the Hidden Inventories that would object the fight against good and evil.

It's no secret that Bandai Namco's newest mixed-media project of Synduality has been quite the ride, starting with the anime, which focuses on the Type Zero Mage of Noir to get an idea of how the totality of the Synduality universe is like. And I've said it before in my review for Part 1, and I will say it again: despite the project's origin that's co-written by highly acclaimed novelist Hajime Kamoshida of Sakurasou and Seishun Buta Yarou fame, this pet ... project that's shared together with series composer Takashi Aoshima and 8-bit's in-house director Yuusuke Yamamoto, Synduality: Noir is nothing special in the vein of extensive mecha shows like it.

This begs the question: does Part 2 live up to whatever Part 1 was lacking back in Summer 2023? In one word: Yes. In more words: It's still a mixed bag.

The whole bit with discovering the true intent of the Type Zero Magus as a whole, Noir has been the sum of many troubles in relation to the people whom she belongs to. And this time, the plot thickens with Kanata and the Drifters discovering the root origin of her and her alter Magus of Mystere: a place known as Histoire, but that its location is fixed in space. And that has been the plot for the antagonists, under the Ideal group, which is commanded by Weisheit Blaurecht, the young man who doesn't believe in a future of Maguses. He built a reputation for himself that caused the divide in Histoire of either supporting or against a future where both humans and Maguses can co-exist, and sad to say that his objective of wiping out Maguses ended up being the reason why Ideal was created, and all of his followers, only tools to his ultimate plan.

It's the reason why Macht Ewigkeit and Licht Alter a.k.a Tokio were his only close friends who are fully aware of the travesty that he's about to do. And fate interwines that despite them having their respective Maguses (Macht with Schnee, and Licht with Mouton), one ended up having to defect against Weisheit because he couldn't care less about his plans, which is how both Drifter and Magus ended up in Rock Town, meeting Kanata and the gang and being a double spy for both parties. At the same time, Kanata solving the mysteries of Noir/Mystere, which got him into real trouble at the expense of playing the Hero, his sorry ass was a problem in Part 1, which was much improved in Part 2 to having a bone and a conviction to stop Ideal, and more importantly, Weisheit from seeing his dreams of an alternate only human world come true. Of course, everyone stays the same, but the Magus Ciel is Kanata's biggest benefactor especially in Part 2, driving home the reason of his purpose of fixing Noir to a proper Type Zero Magus, once and for all.

Everything else is kept consistent, from studio 8-bit's good production to the massive cast of characters all standing by for the biggest revelation of their lives, to save a best friend and his partner from harm. And even though Arcana Project and Stereo Dive Foundation exchanged places for the OP/ED pairing for Part 2, I feel that Part 1 had the better pairing resonance as a set-up for the series, paired by great songs than the decent try found here.

As a series, Synduality just never clicked with me, I guess. Mixed-media franchises are especially even tougher to pull off, especially for a game production house like Bandai Namco with its many IPs (see Scarlet Nexus as a fine example), and the tried-and-true foundation of mecha IPs over the years has been pretty tame, even with its anime counterpart as part of the push for the series' marketing. The same likewise with this one, and it just doesn't really show that much when the game itself (Synduality: Echo of Ada) is just releasing right after the anime series finished its run, even if on a completely different story context.

Despite that, I still think that you should give Synduality: Noir a chance if you're interested, it does have pretty good tried-and-true themes to its name. It's just not for me.