Okay. That was amazing. Noein: To Your Other Self has recharged my anime batteries for sure.

Summary from the Back of the DVD:

“In the near future, a violent battle takes place between the dimension La’cryma (protector of humanity) and the dimension Shangri-La, bent on the annihilation of all space-time. A group known as the Dragon Cavalry is dispatched through space and time, searching for the only thing that can stop the invasion: the Dragon’s Torque.

In the present, twelve-year old Haruka and her friend Yuu are contemplating running away from home when they meet a member of the Dragon Cavalry named Karasu (Crow). He believes that Haruka possesses the Dragon’s Torque — and claims to be Yuu from fifteen years in the future…”

Initial Impression:
Right from the opening scene, I sat up and almost dropped my pizza during the awesome aerial combat sequence that blasted past my face. Sure it was confusing, since I didn’t really know who or what was being fought over, but being thrown in the middle of the story like that can be fun. Sweet sweeping animation helps a lot too.

Then as quickly as the strange battle rolled, we’re transported to more familiar anime ground, seeing the main character, Haruka, waking up for school. The episodes tend to play out that way. It mixes the weird sci-fi action with the everyday life of growing up in a rose-colored Hokkaido, just like one of my all-time favorite shows Figure 17 did, though Noein seems to be a very different flavor. Noein throws time travel, multi-dimensionality, at least three groups vying for power, as well as hinting at philosophical mumbo-jumbo to come down the pike.

One thing that struck me right away was the art direction of the show. While the style is most definitely anime, it’s definetely not done in a moetaku way. The character designs feel like they serve the story, rather than serve the fans.

The quality of the animation surprised me as well. Movement and human gesture is excellent for a TV show, though some of the CG is mediocre on mundane environments. I guess the DVD cover with its fairly low resolution print of the characters just didn’t give me the impression of how rich the animation in Noein can be. This show is far from ugly.

Anyway, I’m interested to see what they do with the premise and what happens to the characters.

The English Dub:
If you tend to enjoy English dubs more often than not, then there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Noein’s English dub. In spite of some minor quibbles here and there, I found it to be very good. If English dubs make your ears bleed, well you have the Japanese dub to entertain you.

I usually to enjoy characters played by Melissa Fahn (Haruka) and Crispin Freeman (Karasu), so after hearing their voices I pretty much stuck to the English dub, which is directed by Richard Epcar. To me the cast sounds like they match up with their character designs fairly well. One minor peeve though was everyone other than Freeman calls the lead haRUka, while Freeman calls her Haruka in a way that sounds closest to how I’m used to. The inconsistent pronunciation bugs me more than the odd pronunciation.

I was surprised by Yuri Lowenthal as Yuu and the amount of angst he brought to him. Up to this point, I remember Lowenthal mostly for impossibly optimistic characters like Yukinari in Girls Bravo, Joshua in Gun x Sword, and Leo in Scrapped Princess. He does a great job of portraying the troubled Yuu. It’s cool to hear familiar voices used in different ways.

Eddie Friarson as an over-the-top psycho Attori, the shows first villain, totally kills. At first the over the top portrayal left me wondering if the actor was over-acting or was onto something, but as things began to heat up, the guy owns the scenes he’s in. When I got to the part where he and Karasu face off on the cables the psychosis and hate from this character makes that battle even more amazing. Combat scenes really need intense villains to grab the spine and Friarson, who I’m not all that familiar with, is way intense.