Noein: to Your Other Self is a fairly older anime from 2005-2006. Directed by Kazuki Akane and made by often collab scriptwriter Hiroshi Oonogi, I realized certain elements from Akane’s and Oonogi’s Birdy the Mighty: Decode and The Vision of Escaflowne (that one only was done by Akane.) All have used a sci-fi/fantasy background, incorporating genre-bending along with multi-layering story lines as well a somewhat simple premise that slowly builds up. Many themes are quite similar, but its focus is quite different. In Noein’s case, it focuses a lot more on its sci-fi concepts compared to the other two.
** It’s a clean anime devoid of a lot fan-service; just expect some standard shounen violence and some disturbing disfigurement. I believe that I need to explain some of its concept of quantum mechanics or else many ideas will blow over your head, especially in the middle of the series. So please bear with me with spoiling the techno babble. The technobabble is strong in this one. **
Characters, Concept, Story-
The concept revolves around a multiverse theory filled with limitless possibilities and dimensions, but this anime limits to three main dimensions: one called Shangri-la, another called La’cryma, and one on present-day Earth in the port of Hakodate located in Japan. There are also jumps to other dimensions, having variations here and there along with some manipulations of space-time (e.g. stopping time and reconstructing matter or energy called Reizu.)
However, what unfortunately happens is that the anime doesn’t go leaps and bounds to fully explain this to an audience without prior knowledge of quantum mechanics. While that also means it doesn’t hold the viewer's hands, it means that much of its well thought-out ideas do not come to fruition.
** It's not entirely necessary to enjoy this anime. But it might help in clarifying Schrodinger's cat .**
With that being said about its multiverse theory, it basically means that in one hypothetical situation, you can forget you to take out the trash in one dimension, and in another almost identical one, you actually go outside and take out the trash. Considering all the different factors that make our universe, there will be endless combinations and possibilities of dimensions with you just trying taking out the trash. However rather than these dimensions simply being a hypothetical “what if,” its existence becomes more tangible and practical because of the observer’s perspective who validates its existence. An “observer” - like you, myself or somebody else, for example. So much of the outcome is derived on how and what the "observer" witness, but before that happens, the event just becomes an uncertain possibility (either the trash is out or not or some random thing). This is basically more on the lines of a variation of Schrödinger’s cat.
tl;dr: Observers affect the outcome by seeing it. Otherwise what they don't see beforehand, are the other potential possibilities that could be true. (That's as simple as I can describe it.)
Things become a bit more complicated when there are “observers” from different dimensions, but the “illusion” is or the hypothetical “what if,” would be more likely to be the one separated from their original dimension. That's why the Dragon Calvary need to attach long cables tethered to their original dimension or else they would disappear. They can't exist in Hakodate for too long because they are an "illusion" of that dimension and shouldn't exist in children's world in the first place. However, the same thing would happen is true if one of the kids go to La'cryma. That's why from the Dragon Calvary's perceptive, when they traveled to the other world, they often call Hakodate and the children (especially Haruka) the "illusion."
In the case of this show, the power of the Dragon Torque becomes the ultimate observer. Because of this, it’s quite OP and used for many deus ex machina as it can travel to other dimensions and affects the outcome of reality, but it’s limited due to Haruka’s character.
Rather than solely geared to be another fighting shounen as shown in the first couple episodes, it displaces the concepts towards more slice-of-life factors. It becomes a refreshing take on our events on our everyday lives, and how it reflects our actions and beliefs in transforming our future selves. Also, the multi-layered usage of children and adults becomes an interesting manner that’s not presented in many anime, having children going through normal societal issues, such as having parental problems, caring for friends, and going to cram school, while also having some action pack scenes and more life-or-death situations from the Dragon Calvary. In fact, it can be quite endearing or gripping at many moments.
However, because of a large cast, the story collapses from its main objective, (boiled down to capturing Haruka) going on with various tangents, and bogged by its confusing concepts (that I hoped clarified). Also, don’t expect the big bad villain to be seen behind the shadows because he’s mostly there at the end when it sort of loses its end-game pieces. But overall, it executes the intertwining storylines quite well (albeit over-ambitiously).
Art, Animation, Sound-
Done by the animation studio, Satelight, the art style has been consistently inconsistent. Certain fights appear surrealistic when time stops and are more similar to the Naruto vs Pain fight. The Dragon Calvary wear long cloaks for obvious reasons to be animated easier but character designs are a bit blobby and are off model quite often. However if aren’t the one bashing your head from Naruto’s animation, you can actually notice that the attention in the background- studied to resemble the real Hakodate. CGI isn’t too jarring and fits surprisingly well probably because of the eccentric art style. Also, you can see the weight to some of its chaotic movements and energy blasts.
Just be more open-minded to it, especially when fights and visuals are more in the lines of experimental.
As for the sound, it is quite well done. Certain OST composed by Nanase Hikaru (Itou Masumi) are hauntingly beautiful and orchestral at times while some are a bit whimsical. The opening and ending are more polyphonic and quite cheerful, unlike its unreleased opening track. Voice acting from Karasu and Yuu, done by Cripsin Freemen and Yuri Lowenthal, respectively, from the English track, are a bit hard to get used to comparing to Kazuya Nakai’s (Roronoa Zoro) and Takimoto Fujiko’s (Suguru Misato) take in the Japanese voices.
One thing to note: I always hear the Dragon Calvary’s movements sound like some high pitch vinyl scratches. It wasn’t irritating as I described it but really grew on me and something to take note.
Personal Enjoyment
8/10 first 6 eps (Very Good)
10/10 next 14 ep (Outstanding)
8/10 last 4 eps (Very Good)
I will say straight off the bat, this is one of my favorite anime and that my enjoyment has been rooted since I saw this on Ani-Mondays from the SyFy channel (when it was called the “Sci-fi” channel almost a decade ago.) However, I watched it a lot more recently and still enjoyed the mixed genres and great tonal usage. For me, it was not whimsically juvenile, but never staunchly adult and knows how to treat their characters with more respect compared to other anime. It's a refreshing take that I usually don't see quite often with some truly heart-warming moments that so many other shows tend to discard. While the beginning was quite hard to grasp and the ending a bit anti-climatic, in-between, it knew how to build up slowly with its content.
Btw, Tobi is a boy. Just need to point that out if you're looking at subs. In the dubbed version he's a girl.
Overall, a high 7/10 (Good)
Or a mid 8/10 (Very Good)
It's structurally flawed but wonderfully done.
Given pacing issues, somewhat messily presented concepts (such as those seahorses), and a fairly non-centralized story, I will have to objectively give it a 7. However, if those problems were easily overlooked (which they can be), it goes well into an 8 in my book for implementing much of its unique concepts and its great usage of genre-bending that I’ve seen from Akane and Oonogi. If you brush up a bit on Schrodinger's cat and appreciate the inner working efforts taken for this anime, I highly recommend this hidden gem.
