Synduality: Noir – 24 (Fin) – Forward Together

Noir is the only Magus not shut down by Wiesheit’s order because she’s technically not a Magus, and never was. First inhabiting Mystere’s body and now the late Ciel’s, Noir was little more than data with no body of her own. But now she embraces her status as neither human or Magus, but … just Noir. And she’s not going to let Weisheit win.

Noir leads Kanata to where Mystere is located, and Tokio and Macht switch to manual mode to keep Weisheit busy. When he does manage to get a lase blast off, Mystere puts up a shield that protects Daisyogre, then shows up inside the cockpit to join the Dud and the Hack and complain about being woken up and then having to save their sorry asses.

Noir and Mystere team up, with the latter guiding the former to sense all of the nanomachines Weisheit has launched, and use them for their own purposes. A Dual Magus Skill ensues, firing off a beam that’s bigger and stronger than Weisheit’s Magus-less coffin can withstand. He’s first pinned to the wall of Histoire, then falls through it to float free into space.

Weisheit asks Histoire if civilization can be restored without Magus, and it replies that it can. However, when Weisheit calls Magus “unnecessary”, Histoire takes exception. Whether Magus are necessary or unnecessary is up to the choices humanity makes. In the grand scheme of things, Histoire makes clear that humanity can achieve a more efficient recovery with Magus by their side.

This is apparently a world Weisheit doesn’t want to live in anymore, so he drifts off and waits for his oxygen to run out, and remembers when Ciel first sang to him. For a brief time before his ideals became twisted and prejudiced, he didn’t seem to mind her as his Magus.

Mystere sends Kanata and Noir back down to earth in an escape pod, insisting she stay behind to send the signal to reactivate all Magus on earth, as well as to fulfill her master’s dream. Now that she’s here in Histoire, there’s much to do, but she has all the time in the world. Both Kanata and Noir promise they’ll return to her someday. Back down on earth, Ange, Dolce, and all the other Magus wake up, much to their partners’ relief.

With that, things return more or less to the status quo in Rock Town. Maria continues to test rockets of her own design while Ellie and Ange look on. Claudia and Flamme pay their respects to Mystere’s master, Pascale. Macht and Schnee become Drifters, rescuing Range and Dolce from certain death. Tokio travels the world with Mouton, confident the next generation of Drifters will pick up where they leave off.

And then there’s Kanata and Noir, who search for the materials needed to build another spacecraft that get take them back to Histoire and their friend Mystere. They were able to defeat Weisheit’s backwards, solitary, ultimately self-defeating philosophy. Kanata continues to strive to be the best damned Drifter he can be, while Noir is now aware of who and what she is and determined to stick by Kanata’s side.

Just a couple of bright-eyed dreamers, fixing their gaze to the starry sky, keen to return there and be reunited with their friend. Truly a Eureka Seven for the 2020s in style and scope, Synduality: Noir provided steady, consistent, slick-looking sci-fi entertainment brimming with heart and optimism. Not a bad deal at all.

Synduality: Noir – 05 – Marital Blitz

In a distressing cold open, a Drifter is surrounded by sinister black coffins who take his Magus captive. So of course I feared Noir would meet a similar fate later in the episode. That’s especially true when Kanata and Noir encounter Claudia and Flamme in the Rock Town market, selling the crystal they took for themselves.

All Claudie can offer them is lunch and some advice: if they want to get better at “becoming one” as a Drifter-Magus pair, she recommends they visit the maze at Fes, which is almost certainly a trap. In the meantime, Noir is determined to “become one” with Kanata, culminating in her declaring that they are “husband and wife”.

The two start eating, drinking, even brushing their teeth in unison in hopes that they’ll become a better tuned duo on the battlefield. Noir wants to take a shower with Kanata, but he forbids it. And when Noir wants to sleep in his hammock with him, he finally relents, only for the weight of the both of them to break said hammock.

Nevertheless, they fall asleep on the floor, and that’s where a very confused and outraged Ellie finds them. She’s even more distressed when Noir says they’re husband and wife, and asks if love is even necessary in a marriage. Clearly, they’ve been sold another bill of goods by Claudia.

As expected, the maze is indeed a trap, and Claudia sold Kanata and Noir out for a payday, earning her some more villainess brownie points. Fortunately Tokio knows something is up, since Mouton reported the Type Zero Magus abductions like the one we saw in the cold open.

No sooner do Kanata and Noir enter the maze of Fes than they are surrounded by the same sinister black coffins, which are launched from flying carriers. Kanata is able to evade them for a few blocks, but eventually they’re surrounded.

Before one of the black coffins can pry open the rear bay where Noir is, Tokio’s coffin arrives and knocks a couple of the coffins away. He’s joined by Ellie and Michael, and even Claudia shows up, albeit just to make sure Kanata isn’t hurt.

She explains that her client was looking for a certain Type Zero—even Flamme was checked out—they have deep pockets, and Flamme ain’t cheap to maintain, so she had no choice but to take the job. But not unreasonably, Kanata wants payback for being played the fool not once but twice now.

Claudia doesn’t make it easy at first, as she uses smoke bombs and shadow clones to confuse her opponent. However, once Kanata and Noir are on the same page, he maintains evasive maneuvers while Noir locks on to the weak spot on Claudia’s coffin that she hasn’t gotten around to fixing. With one shot, her coffin is disabled, and she’s at Kanata’s mercy.

However, having won the fight, all Kanata does is recommend a cheap and eager tinkerer to maintain her Type Zero: Ellie’s sister Maria, specifically. That way, perhaps Claudia won’t have to resort to betraying him again in the future. I won’t hold my breath, but if she were truly heartless she wouldn’t have come to check on him, so who knows.

As for Kanata and Noir, to Ellie’s relief they were unable to complete the maze of Fes, which is akin to a lovers’ trial. That said, even though she’s able to work up the courage to ask Kanata to go through the maze with her, they’re not able to as the maze has been ruined by the battle with the black coffins. Poor Ellie…never any luck…

Synduality: Noir – 04 – Drifter University

Kanata has the Coffin (i.e. mech) and the Magus (i.e. copilot), but is eager to gain Drifter experience, so he endures the japes from more seasoned drifters to ask Ma’am for a job. She has one to offer, and Kanata is determined to carry it out by himself.

He even insists Noir simply provide navigation support, not fight the battle for him. However, his first battle “on his own” doesn’t go so well, and avoids becoming a total disaster because the Mini-Enders he fights are so weak, and he’s bailed out by a new Drifter.

This Drifter and her pyrophilic Magus assumed Kanata was in real trouble and intervened, as is the Drifter’s Way. However, when he gets out to meet and thank the pilot, she puts him in a headlock and then teases him with her ample bosom.

Her name is Claudia, and her Magus, a Type Zero like Noir, is named Flamme. Flamme is your typical bubbly loli who nicknames everyone, but Claudia is a cool as she is hot, and she has a job for a newbie like Kanata if he wants to gain some Drifter XP.

The mission is simple: one Coffin will carefully mine a gigantic AO Crystal Claudia has isolated, while another will defend it from the Enders that are sure to be attracted to said crystal once the green shield is down. Kanata wants to be the defender, and is ready to risk his life, so Claudia agrees.

When asked why not just mine the whole area, Claudia says she wants to leave the beautiful, sprawling daisy field intact, for Flamme’s sake. Flamme runs into the field with Noir and makes her a crown of daisies, which symbolize purity and innocence.

When Flamme has a rare dark moment when she says she’ll never “get it back”—presumably referring to her innocence—she walks it back as a joke, saying she can always update her memory. Upon hearing this, Noir gets a flash from before her memory was purged, and the elderly tinkerer/Drifter who last interacted with her before Kanata found her.

I’m sure Noir will keep getting little flashes of her memories, and I wonder how that will affect both her personality (which remains extremely slight due to the amnesia) and her relationship to Kanata (who isn’t exactly Mr. Personality either).

That said, Kanata is good at fixing Coffins, and gets a peck on the cheek from Claudia for doing maintenance on her Coffin. She also warns him that Type Zero Maguses like Noir and Flamme cost a pretty penny to maintain, and there are unsavory types out there who would try to steal her—indeed this has already happened once.

Unlike his first battle, Kanata is able to stay calm and collected and take down one Mini-Ender at a time until he has six kills to his name. However there’s a seventh Mini plus one Intermediate that gives him problems. That’s when Tokio swoops in and rides the large, wheel-like Intermediate and blows it up from the inside.

Kanata is a little miffed he had to be rescued again, but failure is the greatest teacher, and he’ll need less help as he gets better with time. He also learns a valuable lesson about trusting strangers when Claudia and Flamme make off with the crystal—50-5o did seem overly generous split.

Kanata and Noir take the minor betrayal in stride as the lesson it was meant to be. He admires Claudia fighting solo out there in the wild, making the bank needed to keep Flamme running. If he wants to be a proper partner to Noir, he needs to get better, and Claudia and Flamme helped. The latter even gave their Coffin a name: Daisyogre.

The main things keeping Synduality from being great (rather than simply good) are Kanata, who is a pretty lame and generic MC, and the absolute anonymity and inanimateness of the Enders. The CGI wheels looked okay, but at the end of the day they’re just wheels.

Fortunately for Synd:Noir, the setting remains fun and compelling, the battle animation is decent, the soundtrack is varied and superb, and the colorful cast of supporting characters, including Claudia and Flamme, make up for Kanata and Noir’s blandness. I also appreciate the fact Kanata isn’t getting too good too fast. This is a two-cour series, after all—it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Synduality: Noir – 03 – The Great Cause

Ellie, bless her heart, is excited Kanata is finally a drifter, and wastes no time setting up a mission they can go on together, as a treat. But when she arrives at Kanata’s hanger, only Noir is there, pondering the meaning of a message from Tokio saying he’s taken Kanata to the hedonistic Desire Nest to pop his cherry. Ellie invites Noir to join her and Ange on what is now a rescue mission.

While Tokio does manage to nudge Kanata into the arms of a couple of comely employees of a swanky club in Desire, his own carnal designs are dashed when his butler magus Mouton starts chasing him, believing his yoiung master wants to have a race. While en route to Desire, Noir learns that Ellie and Kanata grew up together, and they also pick up a mysterious magus named Schnee on the side of the road.

Luckily for both Kanata and Ellie, he’s made to wait in a comfortable sitting room until his number is called. A formally dressed, masked gentleman asks him if it’s his first time, then declares, to Kanata’s shock, that it’s his first time too.

It becomes pretty clear that this fellow is the one Schnee refers to as “My Lord”, and she was willing to walk to Desire to return to his side. When Enders attack Desire, Ellie sorties with Ange, leaving Schnee to drive Noir—and Kanata’s coffin—into the city.

Noir and Schnee arrive just as Kanata’s number is called and the general alert is sounded. Literally saved by the bell. The ladies fill the gentlemen in on the situation. Schnee’s “Lord” tells her he came to Desire alone to try to find the “Goddess who will take him to Paradise” for “the Great Cause”.

Ellie is just hanging on with Ange when an attacking Ender is snared by Kanata. I loved Ellie’s elation upon learning he’s there, only to observe that he has a lot to learn about fighting Enders. That’s fine with Ellie; she doesn’t need a white knight; fighting beside Kanata is enough.

Unfortunately, even the both of them aren’t enough against a particularly tough group of Enders, but they are bailed out by Schnee and her Lord dazzling the stage in a snow white coffin. He elegantly slices through all of the remaining Enders with an energy sword while Schnee covers his back by projecting herself outside the coffin, a trick neither Ange nor Noir (at the moment) can pull off.

When the battle is over, Schnee accidentally lands the coffin in a puddle of mud and apologizes to her Lord, but he’s okay with a little grime in the name of the “Great Cause”. This inscrutable masked gentleman is sure to return again, as there’s something “nostalgic” about the scent around Kanata. That said, if Noir was the one he was looking for, you’d think he’d have noticed her when she arrived at the club with Schnee.

In the end, Ellie still gets to go on a mission with Kanata like she wanted, while Tokio and Mouton spent all night running around Desire Nest, and clearly exhibit the signs of the runner’s high. All’s well that ends well, and while the CGI Enders are pretty much whatever, I still enjoyed the new characters and watching Ellie and Kanata finally team up.

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.

Synduality: Noir – 01 (First Impressions) – Two to Tango

With Gundam Mercury over and Nier:Automata yet to resume, I need a sci-fi fix this Summer, and Synduality:Noir looks to scratch that itch. I’ll level with you: perfect it ain’t, but it makes up a lot for its shortcomings with some nice character moments and top-notch production values.

Bear with me: since this is a sci-fi show, there’s lots of jargon to absorb. In a post-apocalyptic world, Drifters are agents who go out into the unprotected lands to forage for resources and loot, while either avoiding or combating Enders, twisted monsters that have taken over much of the planet.

Kanata works for the cocky lone-wolf Drifter Tokio, and on one mission he happens upon an unconscious Magus—a kind of android. Rather than leave her there in a bed of roses, he decides to take her home, but not before they end up in a fight with Enders.

Once that fight is over, Kanata and Tokio head home, which is a futuristic city covered in protective domes. Upon arriving, their vehicle is subjected to decontamination. They then head to the auction to sell off Tokio’s bounty: a giant red crystal (very Final Fantasy touch) that’s a little bigger than his Drifter rival Michael, whose Team Aventure is much bigger.

Upon bringing the Magus home, Kanata presses a button on her back and her clothes disappear. Before he can correct this, his friend Ellie, who has a long standing crush on him, arrives at his pad with her friend and Magus, Ange.

The two young women are scandalized by what they see, and assume Kanata lost his virginity when the Magus wakes up and says she’ll “take him to paradise”. I enjoyed Ellie and Ange’s sisterly rapport throughout; there’s something about Ellie’s design and expression and voice that makes her very rootable, even if she probably doesn’t stand a chance against the “new girl”.

But while the Magus (delicately, precisely voiced by Koga Aoi) is awake, she doesn’t know who she is. When Kanata, a collector of items from the before times, tells her about his dream (apparently instilled in him by his late parents) to find the semi-legendary old city of Histoire, she’s more interested in his vintage washing machine.

While his boss Tokio and Michael continue to drink (and perhaps flirt), Kanata takes the Magus to Maria, Ellie’s older sister and Magus expert. Maria welcomes them with rocket fire, but once she actually meets the Magus, she’s as intrigued as Kanata: this is a model she’s never seen.

Before Maria can do any more research, there’s a massive attack by a swarm of Enders, some of whom break through the dome and threaten the residential zone. Tokio, Michael, and Aventure sortie to aid the city’s defenses (the leader is a tiny old woman in a mech suit).

When Ellie is cornered by Enders, Kanata comes to her rescue, much to her delight, but she’s a Drifter and he’s a civilian, so she tells him to scram. He does so, and switches out his carrier for a mech in the hangar. He boards it and takes off, asking the Magus to stay put.

When a boss-level Ender threatens Ellie, Kanata returns in his mech, but without a Magus aboard he’s pretty much out of control, like a driving school student on their first day at the wheel. At best, he’s a sitting duck for the Ender boss.

And here’s one of the show’s flaws: the Enders, while creepy-looking little snooters, are nevertheless mindless monsters and thus not very interesting. There’s also precious little mortal peril to be had; I expected Ellie or Tokio or someone to die in the battle to show the Enders are a serious threat.

Instead, even the boss kinda stands around, allowing the Magus girl to run up to Kanata’s mech, request and gain access to the rear compartment, and interface with the mech, forming the same Drifter-Magus symbiotic connection as Tokio and Mouton, or Ellie and Ange.

The HUDs inform Kanata that his Magus copilot’s name is Noir, and while she couldn’t even keep her jacket sleeves from sliding down her arms, in the cockpit of a mech she’s an artist, making quick work of the boss Ender with an acrobatic melee attack.

Once the battle is won, Ange eggs on Ellie by telling her to stay on her toes vis-a-vis Kanata, as she may just have a new rival. As for Noir herself, once Kanata says her name and she accepts it, her emotionless demeanor softens and she actually smiles.

Synduality is nothing groundbreaking either premise or visuals-wise, but it is a solidly executed sci-fi yarn made with care and attention to detail. There’s not a whole lot to Kanata personality-wise (no doubt in part because he’s an audience stand-in) he’s surrounded by a host of more colorful and dynamic characters.

The enemy is generic and the jargon is thick, but nevertheless this was a strong and entertaining enough opener to justify sticking with it—or to borrow the slogan from the promo art, stand by it.