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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Monday, 16 June 2008 16:00 |
 Mirielle's past comes back to haunt her not once, but twice in this volume of Noir, while Soldats various factions still can't seem to agree on whether they want the girls alive or dead. Makes for an interesting situation when one side decides to take positive steps to protect them...
13 - Season of Hell
After meeting an artist on the banks of the Siene, Kirika's taken a sudden interest in learning to draw, and Mirielle's only to happy to encourage her - after all, everybody should have a hobby. Suitably equipped, Kirika takes to sitting on the riverbank herself, talking to her new friend and seeing where her muse takes her. Meanwhile, Mirielle has problems when an acquaintence of a man Mirielle once killed returns to Paris to settle old scores - and Kirika's friend is caught in the crossfire...
14 - A Bouquet of Flowers for Mirielle
Mirielle's Uncle Claude is in Paris - it's been ten years since they last met, and after a chance meeting in the street they have a lot to talk about - to catch up with each other, and remember the past. After her parents were killed, Claude and Mirielle escaped Corsica together, and that's left her feeling a real bond with him. But Claude isn't in town solely for pleasure - there's been a spate of killings of people associated with the Corsican underground, while Claude also seems to have developed an interest in finding out who Noir is...
15 - The Cold-Blooded Killer Acte I
The girls have been asked to go to Taiwan to complete a job. Nothing unusual in that - except that the job request comes from Soldats. One minute the shadowy organisation wants them dead, the next it's throwing work their way. Go figure. Mirielle and Kirika see the job as a way of learning more about their employers / adversaries, and so begin their research. The target is an assassin for the Triads - the Chinese Mafia - and may well prove to be their toughest target yet, even if there wasn't the feeling that Soldats were simply setting them up to fail, and after arriving in Taiwan Kirika soon begins to feel they've made a mistake. Meanwhile, Chloe is also on her way to Taiwan...
16 - The Cold-Blooded Killer Acte II
Mirielle is captured by Shaoli, and held to use as bait for Kirika. Of course, there also Chloe on the scene, but Shaoli and her associates aren't aware of that - Chloe has come to help, this time, and teaming up with Kirika gives her a chance to see how the other half of "True Noir" works under pressure. After she's persuaded Kirika that they're on the same side, at least. Dealing with the immediate problem is only half the task, though - with both Shaoli and one of her associates have escaped unharmed from Kirika's fightback, the girls now have to make sure that their identities aren't revealed...
For all that Soldats and their scheming are a large part of the series, it's the two episode that don't feature them that are the really interesting ones here. Partly because I'm no fan of Chloe (who's got even less personality than Kirika, if such a thing were possible), and partly because the story features one scene in particular where Kirika manages to kill 20+ enemy goons without taking a hit (come on, even the A-Team were more accurate than that), the story just didn't rub well with me. It's interesting from the point of view of seeing how Altena is arranging things behind the scenes, but past that there's not a lot to redeem it, and it turns out to be two episodes pretty much wasted.
The other two episodes are far more interesting, with one showing Kirika take an interest in every-day life (which can only help her personality develop into something other than a blank page), while the other takes another look into Mirielle's past and how the pain and anguish of events 10 years ago can still cause her problems now. They're both very good little stories that focus on character development instead (while still having the inevitable shoot-outs), giving you a little more of a hook into the main characters, and that's always to be welcomed.
As for the bigger picture, the involvement of Soldats in all this just confuses me, with Altena's actions seeming to suffer from a complete lack of logic at times. She wants Mirielle and Kirika dead, she doesn't, she stops others in Soldats from giving them help while throwing them bones herself - it doesn't make a whole to of sense, to be honest, and from what I remember of the last time I watched the series, I'm not entirely certain that that's ever cleared up. Hopefully my memory is faulty. There's a feeling that the writers are almost trying to be too clever with making Soldats and Altena mysterious and tricky to deal with, and the results are bordering on nonsensical - at this stage of the story, anyway.
On the more basic "Ooh! Gunplay!!" level, though, there's still plenty of fun to be had here, Just try not to read too much into it, and whether or not it makes complete sense becomes less of an issue.
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