Synduality: Noir – 02 – The Contract

After Kanata and Noir’s first battle together, their mech (they call them coffins, but that’s a bit macabre) is toast. Maria helpfully offers some spare parts, and also suggests they head back to the ruins to see if they can find Noir’s coffin, and possibly her memories.

It’s a solid premise for a second episode: offer up an adventure beyond the confines of the admittedly cool-as-hell city while also peeling back the mystery of Noir a bit.

In the ruins, they encounter a kind of Air & Space Museum where Maria locates Noir’s coffin. Unfortunately, the mech’s memory is wiped clean. But in its cockpit is an old-fashioned camera, which Kanata starts to believe could help Noir get her memory groove back.

The simple search for Who She Is is then interrupted—crashed, if you will—by Range and Dolce, two villains straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

But never mind, at least for the moment: Kanata is a Drifter now, and Tokio wants to celebrate at the bar. Kanata is eager to repair his and Noir’s coffins, but relents and goes with Tokio, leaving Noir with Tokio’s Magus, Mouton.

While Mouton tidies up the place (his elegant catch of both Noir and camera is brilliant), Ellie and Ange have eye’s on Range’s punked-out Magus and lieutenant, Dolce. There’s just something beautiful and hilarious about watching her eat ruinously expensive fresh vegetables while everyone stares resentfully.

At least according to Tokio’s memory, Dolce was once a simple farm girl, but look at her now: right hand to an elite Drifter we learn (rather some fairly clunky exposition) was kicked out of Rock Town by Michael for stalking Maria.

These guys have a lot of history together, adding to the lived in feel of the setting and its characters. When Range sees Kanata, he lays into him for having failed the Aventure entrance test, something Ellie never knew.

While Michael scares Range and Dolce away (much more bark than bite, those two) Kanata skulks away, much to Ellie’s dismay. That said, his mood improves appreciably when Noir and Mouton welcome him home and the latter assists him with repairs to the coffin.

Noir falls asleep watching, and an exhausted-from-work Kanata isn’t far behind. How could you not love these archetypal dorks?

I find my appreciation for Ellie growing all the while. Yes, she’s the lonely corner of the love triangle, but the fact that she cares about Kanata more than being with him means she avoids being your standard jealous third wheel character.

More than pining for him, she’s a good person who doesn’t want others to suffer, even if she has to hear him whining about whether Noir wanted to board Range’s carrier, as caught by a neighborhood eye in the sky.

When Ellie visits Kanata, Noir has gone missing, and she offers to help him track her down. Unfortunately, Range and Dolce get to her first, and in her current state, she is easily manipulated into boarding his rig with a promise of fixing her camera that will never be fulfilled.

The one who fixes it is Ciel, a fellow captive Magus who is introduced singing beautifully. Before Noir can inspect the now-charged camera, Kanata and Tokio arrive, their coffins riding one of Maria’s rockets.

The constant mugging from Range and Dolce, the fact their pursuers are strapped to a rocket like Wile E. Coyote, Noir discovering she can exude electricity like Ciel and uses it to aid her effortlessly cool escape and dive into the rear of the coffin to interface with Kanata…there’s a lot going on and it’s all goofy and fun as hell.

Suffice it to say, with Noir by his side, Kanata is able not only to hold his own against Range and Dolce, but force them to abandon their rig and run home with their tail between their legs.

With the princess successfully rescued from her devious kidnappers, it’s time to cap the victory with a kiss. But what follows isn’t a kiss of lips, but Kanata’s thumb kissing the little panel on Noir’s neck. All Magus have them, and when pressed, the presser forms a contract with that Magus.

You could say that Noir and Kanata are now officially a couple, though that depends on how his relationship with her will unfold. I’m not sure if Ellie is resigned or defiant as she watches the contract be made—maybe both. In any case, her beloved Kanata has a new friend like her, and is now a Drifter like her.

Knowing what we know about Ellie thus far, I imagine both of those things make her happy…and she won’t give up the fight. As for Noir, we’ll see if the contract changes her personality like it did Maria’s newest Magus. In any case, I’m ready for the next crowd-pleasing maximalist pulpy adventure.

Masamune-kun’s Revenge R – 03 – Le deuxième enfant

Everyone’s back in Japan, and Yoshino is confined to the mansion when not at school, a punishment her sister says could have been far stricter. While at school, she meets with Masamune, and says she’ll try to smooth things over with a stress-eating Aki. Then she crosses paths with a smug Kanetsugu. Neko also notices something off with Masamune, and asks if he can accompany her somewhere after school.

That somewhere turns out to be the hospital for some routine checks, after which Neko and Masamune go for a stroll by the river. When he gives her the gist of what happened, she asks if revenge is still his goal, to which he says of course: Once Aki falls in love with him he’ll dump her. Neko decides to be bold and hug him from behind.

If he’s only pursuing Aki for revenge, it wouldn’t be cheating if he fell for Neko. The hug is interrupted by Muriel’s brother’s goons. After a brief chase, her bro pulls out not a handgun, but Muriel’s manuscript, which starts with Aki and Masamune’s story and has an original, happy ending that makes Masamune wonder why things couldn’t turn out that way.

Masamune’s sister Chinatsu greets him with a jump kick to the spine, as she suspects him of going through her laundry, having seen someone through her window. But when their mom says she was the one folding their clean laundry, Chinatsu has to recant and apologize.

Meanwhile, Aki goes to a family restaurant with Kanetsugu and her three-girl fan club, who go over the photos of Aki from Paris. When Kanetsugu says most of Aki’s free time was spent with Masamune, the girls are upset, but when they press Aki for info she lashes out, then excuses herself.

While she’s gone, we get a compressed version of the genesis of Kanetsugu’s scheme to empty the Adagaki coffers, using an official document he found among his late gramps’ stuff which he’ll use to betrothe himself (really herself) to Aki. As for the money, he primarily wants it to help his little sister, who is always in and out of the hospital.

His interactions throughout the afternoon having planted an idea in his head, Masamune arrives at the mansion to meet with Yoshino. He notes how much smaller the courtyard feels compared to when he was little. As for his idea: “Pig’s Foot” was the nickname he thought Aki gave him when she did nothing to stop the bullies from beating him up in that very courtyard.

But Aki forgot that nickname. That means the only ones who know it are him, the bullies…and a second girl in the mansion. At the time, Masamune didn’t know about her, but Aki said someone was confined to their room with Chickenpox. It now occurs to him it might not have been Aki’s voice calling him Pig’s Foot and rejecting him from the window, but that second girl: Yoshino.

The question he has for her is, how does she know that nickname? The answer is revealed in the last shot of the episode, as a young Yoshino removes a black wig. Now it’s official: she was the one who rejected Masamune back then and prevented Muriel’s happy ending from occurring. My question for Yoshino is, since what has been done cannot be undone, how willing is she to sort things out with Aki and Masamune?