Noir is an anime set in the near future. Mireille Bouqet is a young girl who happens to be one of the most talented assassins in the underworld. One day she receives an e-mail with the name of her next target: Kirika Yumura. The e-mail has an attachment phrase, "Join me on a pilgrimage to the past." and a melody that was playing from a music box (Mireille's fathers watch) when Mireille's parents were killed. Mireille, whose parents were killed by a mysterious assassin, and Kirika, a girl who has no memory of her past, eventually team up together as assassins.
Noir is a remarkable anime. It has a lot of focus on the story, and the creators take their time to tell it. You don't see any funny sequences in these series, you see the characters hold on to whatever small hope they have left in their life, and you see the two main characters do their job in cold blood and an empty look in the eye. After watching a couple of episodes, I found it hard to take a break away from Noir. It has so much atmosphere, and the feelings of the characters really got to me. The main story has some interesting twists and turns, and at some points it really surprised me, and I never really couldn't be sure that the things I new wasn't going to turn around on me.
If there is anything I should complain about, it should be the flashbacks that you see through the whole plot. They just appear too many times, but in my opinion they bind the story together, and I liked them because of their "Noir"-style, so it really isn't such a big deal.
Noir has great animation all the way, a good plot, some interesting side-stories, and a kick-ass sound track that I regularly listen to on my computer. People who like action-packed anime may get a little bored watching Noir, though.
