Noein Episode 10 - A Stormy Night
What IS the name of Haruka’s cat? If anyone can tell me I’d be most grateful.
Uchida and Koriyama sit in their car as usual, wondering if Haruka has really come home (since Yukie could have lied to them!). Their fears are allayed when they see Ai, Isami and Miho waffling at each other about Haruka and Yuu spending so much time together. Uchida gets an annoying phonecall, however, summoning her back to Tokyo for a meeting, at which neither of them are best pleased.
Asuka and Miyuki continue to get horribly drunk together, reminiscing about their school days together. Ai and co come round to visit Haruka, and are most surprised to discover a drunk, happy Miyuki being happy to see them and inviting Isami round to play more often (because he’s cute!). Ai is mostly concerned with what happened to Haruka, however, who brushes off their concerns and tries to cover up for Karas and co.; Miho says that she saw someone at the window that she thought was Yuu, which Haruka tries to pass off as in her imagination, but then Miho typically decides it must have been a ghost, and she’s even come prepared with an ofuda to draw out the spirit (much to Isami’s terror!).
Haruka tries to brush things off generally, but Ai’s having none of it and forces Haruka to tell her, even though Haruka is sure she won’t believe her; of course, she doesn’t, and goes marching into the spare room to confront Karas, believing him to have deceived her (of course, Miho remembers he’s the ghost in the black coat from episode 1). Karas proves that he’s not exactly normal by teleporting behind Miho, who certainly gets more than she bargained for!
Ai takes the role of chief interrogator, but Karas is saying nothing; Haruka says he’s just observing the past, but Ai’s definitely having none of it. When Isami finds out that Yuu’s been keeping all this secret from him, he decides it’s time for punishment and gives him a noogie (that’s what they’re called, right?), which seems particularly nostalgic for Karas; meanwhile, the adults continue to get steadily more sloshed but happy that the kids are getting on well; Karas just continues to watch.
Meanwhile, off in that random quarry where Fukurou was last episode, Tobi and Atori decide what to do next; Atori is determined to deal with the Dragon’s Torque, and to cast it into a “valley of time” (whatever that may be), but first he has to deal with the annoying brat that’s always with her; as Isami and Yuu head homewards, bantering about their weird situation and whether Yuu will keep going to cram school or not, the two Dragoons wait atop the church spire…
As the two kids carry on homewards, Atori melts up through the ground and prepares to attack Yuu, but Tobi bursts out of the wall and stops him, having had a change of heart and telling him that they can’t interfere with another dimension because the effects could be disastrous; Atori grabs Tobi by the throat and decides that Tobi must die as a result, sinking into the ground with her.
Yuu and Isami continue to run, but Atori uses the ground to his advantage, eventually grabbing Isami and deciding to kill him, too, starting to strangle him and confirming what we all knew already when he says “Die, Fukurou!”. As Isami begins to lose consciousness, the real Fukurou appears in the nick of time and chases him off; when they ask who he is, he tells them wryly that he’s a tired old man before flying off.
Back in Lacrima, Kosagi and Kuina prepare to go after the Dragon’s Torque while Fukurou targets Karas; Kosagi would rather go after Karas herself, however. In Tokyo, Uchida presents her research on the quantum energy in Hakodate and its repercussions for the area to her company board; while she tries to impress the importance of her findings on them, she is interrupted by one of her co-workers, Shinohara (who, instead of listening to her, is busy messaging someone he knows about how much he hates Uchida for stealing his job)
, who remains unconcerned as it has little effect on Tokyo or the world in general. When Uchida replies that she’s concerned for the safety of the region, he shouts her down for being a foreigner (eh?).
The storm batters down on Hakodate as Karas is visited by Tobi, who informs him that Atori is after the Dragon’s Torque again to make himself all-powerful, imploring him to stop Atori; Yuu has already phoned Haruka to tell her that Atori is on the loose once more. Karas heads out into the forest and confronts Atori once more - the two of them fight manically (and whoo boy, you can see why we had a couple of “slow” episodes, the animation is superb), ending in a retreat for Karas. Meanwhile, Fukurou materialises in Haruka’s house to try and capture her; however, the Dragon’s Torque materialises, and Haruka realises that Fukurou is indeed Isami, knowledge which terrifies him greatly until Karas appears and the two of them teleport up to the roof (after Karas’ usual “I will protect Haruka” gubbins). As Haruka heads upstairs to stop Karas from hurting Fukurou (since she knows he’s Isami now), she is confronted by Kosagi (who, alongside a once-more malfunctioning Kuina, arrived while Karas and Atori were fighting), who blames Haruka for everything that’s happened as Karas and Fukurou face each other in the storm.
It would be safe to say that nothing really momentous happened in this episode. But what an awesome nothing it was! The animation during Karas and Atori’s fight was exquisite, and it seems to me that they’ll never be able to defeat one another as they’re both able to heal at will; I suppose Atori’s almost inevitable demise will come at the end of the series for some reason or other. Now that the other kids are in on what’s going on, I suppose we’ll get more parallels with the Dragoons and them; but who on earth do Tobi, Kosagi, Atori and Kuina parallel with? It’s almost inevitable that we must meet their past selves, but everyone’s been accounted for now, haven’t they? Well, apart from the adults.
Poor Uchida, getting shot down by the board like that; not entirely unexpected, especially as frankly she and Koriyama haven’t really had a lot to do with anything yet. They must serve some role, however; I half suspect that, in Lacrima, they’re the reason Shangri-La started attacking; their research into quantum potentia could plausibly be the catalyst for some kind of destabilisation in dimensions. But I’m just theorising, basically; I’m sure they must have a point, it just remains to be seen what it is, and I’m sure they’ll get more screentime now that it appears Miyuki’s storyline is resolved.
With regards to Tobi, it’s confused me for a while why she would team up with Atori, and her defection back to “good” in this episode came as little surprise. I just don’t quite understand all the differing motives of the Dragoons at this point; I’m still pretty sure that Kosagi has a thing for Karas, hence her dislike of Haruka, but I’m intrigued by what Matthew has said regarding Kuina; I thought that the traitor he and Noein talked about was Karas, not himself. Speaking of Noein, where’s he/she/it got to? Shangri-La aren’t especially persistent at getting the Dragon’s Torque themselves, it seems, unless Kuina really is working for them. Meanwhile, Atori is just crazy, Fukurou is trying to do the right thing (and hoo boy, I can’t wait for him to meet up with Ai in the next episode!), and Tobi is just a bit nothing-y thus far.
Hmm. According to the ever-interesting AniPages Daily (which currently has a translation of a fascinating piece about Nekojiru, the woman behind the film released by CPM as Cat Soup), there’s some real powerhouses working on episode 12 of Noein; Satoru Utsunomiya (of Aquarion 19 and Eureka7 OP3 “fame” - he doesn’t draw people well, but he’s an incredible animator nevertheless in my opinion) and Norio Matsumoto (who did the episode of Naruto, I believe, where Naruto and Sasuke fight at the waterfall? Something like that. In Noein I believe he does the shot in the OP where Atori is firing all those bolts of lightning into the screen) working together definitely sounds awesome in animation terms. Unfortunately, episode 12 airs on the 27th, which means I have absolutely no idea when I’ll get to watch it because of the festive season, but that’s still two weeks away…
December 14th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
Uh, Tobi is a he, no? I mean, he uses ‘boku’ and he doesn’t seem to have breasts on the picture on the official page. Anyway, I don’t think we’ll meet the past versions of the rest of the characters, or if we do, I don’t think we’ll get more than a cameo. Kuina and Kosagi don’t seem to be important enough for the addition of their past selves to the cast, and Atori and Tobi would be just too young.
I loved this episode, and I’m really looking forward to the Karasu-Fukurou-Ai interaction in the next one. Fukurou is so damn cool.
December 16th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
I don’t think we will meet parallels of Atori or Tobi either; they would be too young. The Atori and Tobi of Haruka’s timespace would only be 6&7! ^^ Tobi is a man, un.
I think Atori has some idea that bringing the torque to Lacryma is going to result in it’s destruction and so he’s decided (obviously quite rationally…:D) that it therefore has to be destroyed; I assumed that Tobi and Isuka actually agreed with whatever conclusion Atori came to as he didn’t seem to bully, coerce or force them to go with him in any way. Maybe Atori might not appear to be interested in Lacryma, but he was certainly screaming about it in absolute hysteria in *that* scene back in ep3….
But I think Tobi seems to be just worried about Atori’s increasing instability and is having a change of heart about destroying the torque, if not actually about the original reasoning. Also, obviously, he’s thought about messing with the timespaces too much too.
We still need to find out why Atori hates Karasu so rabidly.
(I wonder if Atori’s craziness is accelerated by the jumping between timespaces; he’s losing his marbles like Kuina keeps losing body bits. ^^)
I thought this episode was utterly awesome. ^^ It was a mighty fight. I had suspected (hadn’t we all) that Isami was Fukorou, but it was that scene with Karasu watching him and Yuu that really settled it for me. I thought he had a beautifully done expression.
December 19th, 2005 at 3:21 pm
Hello! I drop by here every now n then to read your Noein reviews n they’re very interesting! :) I watch Noein myself, so it makes it more interesting haha. Anyway, my purpose of writing is concerning Haruka’s cat’s name; I believe it’s Tono. I browsed around some sites and ended up with a few results of “Tono” so I’m assuming it’s true.
Welp, it was nice dropping by n hope Noein will continue to interest its audience, like us, in the near future! Also, I hope the info helps.
December 24th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
Could we leave Tobi as genderless? Honestly, I’m so torn between saying Tobi’s a guy or a girl… Tobi’s one of the most convincingly androgynous anime characters, to me anyway.
December 29th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
I knew the cat’s name Tono in a creator’s post in the official website blog. But it has never been seen or called in the show.