Forum - View topicThe Review of Noir is a Travisty!
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Tholomyes
Posts: 8 Location: Winfield, KS |
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OK, before I begin this rant, I should explain a few things. First, I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Furthermore, I believe that they should be free to express their opinion through a review. I also believe in my right to jump on a public forum and express my vehement opposition to certian views in said review. The review in question can be read here-
animenewsnetwork.com/reviews/display.php?id=387 It is my great fear that people will read the review of noir, and dismiss this increadable show as a "stereotypical anime of big eyes, big boobs and big guns." Granted, I have the benifit of having seen the entire series via fansub, and I know for a fact that there IS an engaging plot. But there are moments even within the first episodes of this series that justify buying the dvd. Calling the animation "subpar" is absolutly ludicris. The animation in this series is lush with contrasting use of color (many washed out pastels for some scenes, blending into cutting lines of color in the darker scenes.) As far as the "side mouth" animation, this never looked odd to me in context with the rest of the show. There have been some interesting questions about the dub, some of which were answered in an interview with the producer. It seems the Japanese was left in the background as Japanese 1.) to help identify the location and 2.) because that is how Mirelle would be hearing it. As far as the english on the computer screen- that is how it was in the orginal airing of the show. The reasoning being that Mirelle is an international assassin, and that english is the international laungage of business. Not to mention that the majority of Japanese citizens speak english. I will admit that the opening episodes seem to sidetrack a bit from the story. With out the context of the later episodes, they may seem pointless, and without plot. I would like to personally assure those thinking about buying/watching noir to give it its fair due- the early episodes are absolutly neccesary to set up the relationshi between Mirelle and Kirika that makes the plot and drama in the later episodes intense. Also, if you take every show on face value, each show has an engaging plot of its own. Anime fans are spoiled by shows that run virtually end to end, as one solid story line. This show took advantage of the fact that it was shown weekly to develop stories within episodes, while still mainting a running plot. Rest assured, as the series moves forward there will be episodes that will satisfy your lust for an end to end storyline. In anycase, I have ranted long enough. It is obvious that I enjoy this show, and the review seemed to me almost slander... but everyone is entilted to their opinion. Just expect me to pipe up with mine. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10463 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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You are absolutely right in every one of those items. Reviewers are obviously subjective, but at the same time, the goal is to give a somewhat objective idea of what the show in question is like. For example, I might hate a particualr Anime, review it, and give you the information you need to know that you'll love the show...
I can only comment to a limited extent, as I am neither the author, nor the editor of the review. However, when Josh complained that the writting in the shops and on the computer screen was in English, I don't believe that his complaint was aimed at ADV. It was aimed at whoever was responsible for putting English there in the first place. As a French citizen, I can quite clearly tell you that English is not commonplace on French signs or computers. Even in business. Therefore, regardless of who is responsible for putting the English there (ADV or the original creators) is is a ligitimate complaint about a real mistake in detail. Now whether it was important or not... well, that's up to the reader to decide.
Minor point, animation and art are not one and the same. Coloring is an art aspect, not animation. To be honest, I don't particularly remember the same complaints from the animation that Josh mentionned. I do remember that the coloring were nice, and that the animation wasn't amazing, but I wasn't watching with a critical eye or keeping track. I do know that my end impression of the show was somewhat better than his, but not much... Perhaps one of our other reviewers will add a second review to the title... |
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Tholomyes
Posts: 8 Location: Winfield, KS |
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I should add that this show seems to be a little devicive- people seem to really love it, or not care for it much at all. I am not suggesting that this show has universal appeal. However, I do feel it deserves a fair shake. There are some anime that don't seem worth the disc they were burned on ( although in recent years the number of those that reach the US seems to be shrinking)- this is not one of those shows. Whether you like or dislike the content of this show is a matter of opinion. That the show can stand outside of content issues as a well prodeced series seems to me to be self evident, but I will conceed is still a matter of opinon. More than anything, I feel it would be a loss to many people who could enjoy this show to pass up watching it based on the review.
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Aya Reiko
 Posts: 166 Location: Nowhere and Somewhere |
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I'll agree with Tholomyes and I'll take it a step further. This review isn't worth the diskspace it's stored on. The second sentence alone proves it.
"However, on deeper inspection it is the stereotypical anime of big eyes, big boobs and big guns." Big eyes... uh-huh... even though they're about the same size as normal anime eyes. big boobs... uh-huh... I'm pretty sure they're at least average in size if not smaller. big guns... uh-huh... The is the big one. Outside of about one instance where Kirika uses a machine gun, they always use pistols. Big guns indeed. Personally, I think this reviewer was biased from the beginning, and I think this so-called "review" should be deleted. I seriously doubt this "review" was remotely close to fair. Almost three-quarters of the "review" consists of nothing but some of the most banal nitpicking I have ever seen. Hell, of the entire "review", only one paragraph is used for the series itself. Some "review". Edit: Here's the review from AnimeOnDVD.com: http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews2/disc_reviews/1769.php Even though AnimeOnDVD.com tends to give positive reviews, the fact they acknowledge this is a "love it or hate it" series scores mucho brownie points from me (that, and they go into much more detail about the disc also.) |
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Grive
Posts: 21 Location: Monterrey, México |
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Indeed, everything is subjective. However, I feel this review was poorly written - and in several places incorrect.
The reviewer makes it seem Noir's plor and story is left in the background for pretty bang bang. But the plot does have a big, big importance. Critcizing it when you haven't seen it all is wrong. While I won't enter a debate on whether or not reviews should be done per DVD or per series, in the first case plot shouldn't be taken into account until the last DVD - otherwise, it's the exact same thing as making a review off the first part of a movie. What I gathered from the review was that Noir has a good premise but leaves it behind in favor of action. It's not true.
Gee. The writers apparently want to make a anime with deep roots in mystery... mysterious. I wonder who was the idiot with such an idea? Seriously though: It is the beginning of the anime. the first episodes. They're setting the scene up. Of course they're telling you there's a secret. That's not a clue for the secret... the writers are just assuming that the people who were watching this on TV don't have "the summary on the box"... and they're actually correct on that assumption. Yes, an anime with mystery elements is introducing the characters and their professions with leisure, while opening up the main point of the plot -The mystery to be unraveled- without hastening anything, which is the #1 no-no for mystery movies. About the use of english... indeed, they used a lot of english in there, but I think this isn't really such a big problem... and in the latter episodes, you see letters, signs, etc. in italian, english, french and their correct language. Plus... is it such a big problem? does it really matter enough to be called a "plot hole"? About the computers... er... my computer is completely in english, and I don't live in the US of A, so I don't see why there's a problem with a computer in english in france. I usually have no problem with a review's score or conclusion: If you were to give FLCL a "F", I wouldn't mind. The problem is the arguments that led to the grade, and in this review, I found them to be deeply flawed. |
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garry
Former ANN Editor
 Posts: 120 |
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Reviews are subjective. He didn't like the show. You want the review deleted because he didn't like your pet anime? Mine would have been much shorter.
The show should be titled "serial experiments Bebop". You have your generic emotionless lolita type, your generic bad girl type, and generic MIB badguys. There's a lot of whispering the background and lackluster action sequences. Three episodes did me in. And for the love of God, don't hit me with "you need to see more to understand it". If a work doesn't have me in the first hour, it's not going to get me. I have things to take care of, and can't be bothered to watch ten episodes of an anime that bores me to get to "the good part". Reviews are biased. Reviewers have opinions. This is why we read them. We want to know if a show is crap or not. |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10463 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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But he didn't say thathe didn't like it...
A C is average, not poor. A B is better than average. Most reviews will get a C. As I said above, I liked it a bit more, but I'm not sure if I'd give it a B. And as for the love it or hate it... I tend to disagree. I neither loved it nor hated it... I liked it. And if the reviewer had hated it... he would have said so. But Given the controversy on this review I will get another reviewer to add a complete review. I've already decided which reviewer, and I have no idea if this reviewer will like it or not (no, I am not going to send the title to a reviewer I know will love/hate it.) As well, all our reviewers are welcome to add second opinions. -t |
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Tholomyes
Posts: 8 Location: Winfield, KS |
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tempest- I would like to thank you for asking someone else to do a review- but I would ask that you leave the current review up. In starting this thread, it was never my intention that the review be removed- far from it. As I said in my first post, the reviewer has full rights to his opinion. Deleting the review would be an act of censorship- somthing we must avoid at all costs. If I can not convince people to give this show a try through a well thought out rebuttell, then perhaps the flaws in the show have more merit than I give them credit for. I myay disagree with Josh's opinion, but I will do everything in my power to protect his ability to express it. After all, if we supress his opoinion, whats to keep someone from supressing mine?
Gary- Admitantly, this show is not for evryone. If the first three episodes did you in, probably watching the rest of the series WOULD be a bore for you, at least until around episode 20. By then, you're so jaded against it, you can't really get into that much anyway. I think the reviewer on animeondvd has it right, this show might be viewed more effectivly one episode at a time, as it does focus so much on intra-episode deleopmant as opposed to inter-episode development. As I said in the first post, I just don't want people who might enjoy this series to miss it, just because one person doesn't like it. This show is not crap, and its not a simple ripoff of other series- the characters grow and arc, the plot twists, the art and music create an atmosphere that interacts seemlessly with the rest of the show. This show is well crafted- it just appeals to some peoples tastes to a much larger degree than others. |
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Aya Reiko
Posts: 166 Location: Nowhere and Somewhere |
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It wouldn't be censorship if it were a review. But it isn't. Much of the article is spent nitpicking on the periphery and little is spent on the show itself. And, as some of us have pointed out, there are many glaring flaws too. I feel the editor should have ordered a rewrite. More concrete details and more specifics. All we get here are rather broad (and sometimes incorrect and/or misleading) generalizations.
Opinions are okay, but you need substance to back them up (especially in this business). This article has almost no substance whatsoever. Edit: P.S. I've fished this article out to another board I frequent to get "A Review of the Review". Don't worry, there are about as many Noir fans as there are who didn't like the series over there. Last edited by Aya Reiko on Sat Jan 25, 2003 2:00 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10463 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Don't worry about that. There was never any possibility of me removing the review 
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 2460 Location: Do not contact me for support. |
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I posted a page-long retort citing the sheer lack of anything even slightly original in the series.. then deleted it. Maybe I should've kept it. Oh well. Yeah, it struck me as: Cowboy Bebop + (Brigadoon + Strange Dawn / 2 [for musical inspiration]) + Rei.. I hadn't thought of Lain, but that's another good one to throw in the mix. Noir just picked a bunch of "safe" ideas and topics, things that had proven popular in the past, and put them together into a single series. It's not highly original, and being so devoid of emotion, I simply cannot find it entertaining either. C+ sounds about right; it's good eye-candy (more or less), and the music's worth a listen.. but if you're looking for an intriguing story that you can't guess the plot right away, you're going to have to look elsewhere.. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15594 |
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I only saw the trailer for Noir on a dvd, but I gotta say that any anime advertisement which emphasizes the opening over the actual content has got to suck to some extent. And I find it interesting that people are comparing it to Bebop, since Bebop was basically Lupin in Space, and Noir seems like Siamese Neko in France.
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Ataru
 Posts: 2328 Location: Missouri (Strikeman) |
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Who here drink Sprit? If do or don't, don't go let other people tell you what to drink or watch, just drink or watch it to see if you like it. Reviews are just there to let people know what they they think of the series. Oh and I drink Pepsi.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I would like someone to point out to me what exactly the similarities are between Cowboy Bebop and Noir.
Cowboy Bebop is about bounty hunters in space who track down criminals in exotic sci-fi locations and in the meantime explore their own personal demons and have individual adventures. This is the main storyline of the show. Noir is about an assassin for hire who meets a strange, quiet girl who feels no remorse when she kills someone and can't remember much about her past. The assassin takes her in and they work together, and slowly the girl's identity and past are revealed. Aside from the "work for hire" aspect of both shows, where the heck are the similarities here? I'm certainly not saying that Noir isn't derivative, but I just don't see the Bebop connection. People have a tendency to say that EVERYTHING rips off Bebop, without really thinking about it. Having music during action sequences that isn't "action" music (IE jazz, etc) is not an invention of Cowboy Bebop and wasn't the first anime to do such a thing, so you can't credit it with that (not to mention that Noir doesn't really have non-action style music during its action sequences.). Furthermore, I don't really even see the similarities between Lupin and Bebop. Lupin is about a master thief who, with a little help from his cast of friends (who are sometimes there and sometimes not), steals things and usually helps someone in the process, while being chased by a Keystone-style cop. Aside from the fact that Spike and Lupin wear similar shoes and Faye is a little like Fujiko, again, where are the really substantial story/plot/concept similarities (enough to actually say that the show is just "Lupin in Space"?)? I don't see them. I see some minor visual similarities and the occasional thing in a storyline or character that is reminiscient of Lupin but Bebop is, in no way, a rip-off of Lupin. In fact, it isn't a rip-off of anything; it pays homage to American action movies made in the 60's with a knowing wink, which prevents it from being a rip-off. Noir.. well, Noir is a different story. People have a way of writing descriptions of shows that make them all sound exactly like eachother. You could do this quite easily with Bebop and Lupin, but you could also do it with Bebop and Chobits, two series that share almost nothing in common, and nearly every other series available on the market. Here's an example: Cowboy Bebop is about a man who goes on a journey, overcomes obstacles, and eventually battles his inner demons, overcoming them in the end. Chobits is about a man who goes on a journey, overcomes obstacles, and eventually battles his inner demons, overcoming them in the end. I just described the "story" of Cowboy Bebop and Chobits, and they sound exactly alike, right? I could do the same thing with any anime series. That's because most every form of media follows the basic "storyline" that a hero overcomes obstacles, goes on a journey, etc and so on. They used to also follow the "stranger comes to town" story, but that died along with westerns a long time ago (wherein the main character is actually the town that the stranger comes to). The "plot", or sequence of events, is what makes everything very different. The story is told over and over again, but in a million different ways. Anime fans tend to ignore this (not to mention misunderstand the difference between "plot" and "story" and how important that difference is) and when they're trying to prove that something is a rip-off, they do what I just did above, which is ignore the only thing that makes any show unique and just describe the story. It's an invalid argument and an inaccurate way to describe the show; if we went by that logic, everything is ripping off everything else all the time and, logically, we just shouldn't watch anything ever again, since rip-offs are bad and we want original stuff all the time. I suppose my point is that anime fans will see any small similarity, or a handful of small similarities, and cry "rip-off!" at the tops of their lungs. Usually this isn't the case, and they're making a mountain out of a molehill. Remember a few years back when anyone who did anything with sunglasses or helicopters or people wearing stylish clothes was instantly labeled a "Matrix rip-off"? Notice how that died down when people slowly (very slowly) realized how completely ridiculous it is to call EVERYTHING a rip-off just because it shares one or two small things in common with another film/tv show/comic book? Anime fans still do this (Gatsu, I'm looking at you here. No offense, but you don't seem to have figured out that everything has to be derivative in one fashion or another. One movie having a blade of grass in it does not make it a rip off of a movie made a year earlier that also has a blade of grass in it.) to a ridiculous extent. Time to get some perspective and sense, I think. -Zac Last edited by Zac on Sat Jan 25, 2003 11:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Animeg3282
Posts: 5 |
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Please do not water down your reviews to go with popular opinion, there are plenty of sites who give A+++ to anything with big eyes and a Japanese voice cast. |
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