DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionNoblesse
ONA ActionNOBLESSE:Awakening

REVIEWS

• 

  AnimeDweeb

  30/100
  Indifference, Or Not Caring About a Show that Doesn't Care.

  WebToon Anime only ever made sense in hindsight.

  

  Back when Tower of God was airing I expressed my excitement for what could have been a landmark turning point for both the WebToon and anime markets. I stand by everything I said, and there are undoubtedly good results achieved with this venture. A quick search on Google Trends would reveal that interest in WebToons and Manhwa skyrocketed with the release of ToG. If the goal was to create commercially successful products that brought WebToons mainstream prevalence, the production committees at Crunchyroll certainly succeeded. But despite the corporate success, it's difficult to view this partnership without some degree of cynicism; the flagship adaptations themselves have left a weak first impression. At best, they were middling half-measures that somewhat managed to hint at greater things to come; at worst, they did disgraceful disservice to the source material being promoted. And that brings us to where we are today. ToG was a flawed, but promising, adaptation that oozed with potential. But God of High School was all style with no substance, and today's case study, Noblesse, possesses neither. At the very least the sheer lunacy of GoHS was capable at provoking a vitriolic response from me. But soulless unambition confines this husk of a show to an arguably worse fate - indifference. Here's how. This review contains mild spoilers, but skip ahead to my Tl;Dr if you'd like to go in blind.

  ---

  Noblesse is built around a powerful entity living amongst men.

  

  After an 820-year slumber, the mysterious Raizel awakens, à la Rip Van Winkle. He is a member of the Nobles, a secluded race charged with protecting mankind from afar. Finding himself far from home, Raizel decides to live a peaceful life in modern-day South Korea. The show is split into two arcs, both of which are concerned with factions alerted to his "Awakening." His incredible abilities are rarely put on display, instead serving as the impetus for power struggles and internal politics. These conflicts and Raizel's new way of life are what the show utilises to explore certain ideas. But before we take that deep dive, there is something that needs to be addressed. For those of you who don't know, Noblesse the Anime does not share the same chronological beginning as the original webcomic. A 2016 prequel, Noblesse: Awakening, is the canonical start of our story, and the anime decided to continue where that OVA left off. Personally I didn't see a need to catch that prequel, given that the anime was never advertised as a follow-up. Way I see it, the existence of the source material or other adaptations doesn't absolve this individual instalment of meeting fundamental story objectives. My beliefs aside, I'm not one to tell you whether the OVA is necessary viewing or not, but I believe there is merit in making observations off the anime alone. And the show does attempt to make the best out of its 13 episodes, isolating a specific time period in order to deliver a narrative and thematic context one could understand as an entry point into the franchise. It's all just not very good.

  The anime's message carries noble intentions, but lacks meaning.

  

  Noblesse emphasizes the importance of setting aside our differences. All of us may come from various backgrounds, or possess unique traits. But no single member of mankind holds greater value than any other individual, nor is anyone entitled to unjustly take that value from someone else for personal gain. You and I are different, but you and I are the same, and should be treated as such. Throughout the series, there's this healthy lifestyle being promoted, showing how wonderful it is to live in peace and harmony with those around us. This is contrasted with the true enemy of Noblesse: systemically-corrupt organizations which represent dehumanization at its ugliest extreme. Be it greedy, soulless monsters or authority figures driven to irrationality, the antagonists of Noblesse abuse their powers at the expense of others. It's up to our boy Raizel and his crew to stand up for the little guy and maintain the balance. It's a solid message, and one that is certainly welcome in our politically-charged landscape. Let's not draw lines in the sand or discriminate, but go the distance to understand and love others instead. Let's join forces against systemic oppression, let's band together against the evils threatening to break us. The Noblesse OP sums up this idea through an emotionally-stirring refrain: "So why does everybody hurt each other?" These sweet sentiments sound an awful lot like propaganda, but there's no need to worry about things getting too preachy. Because while being thematically framed as propaganda,

  Noblesse undermines its own points by not saying much of anything at all.

  

  Now, I'm going to be demonstrating how this series is lacking in the execution of its intended message. The following three points covered here aren't necessary to every story of this nature. Rather, they're here to highlight how the thematic storytelling fails to be convincing. Firstly, let's address Raizel and others of his kind. Noblesse implies countless differences between Nobles and humans, but doesn't give much for the audience to work with. For a show featuring Nobles for a significant chunk of the runtime, we sure know next-to-nothing about them, aside from their incredible powers and boomer mannerisms. Why is their society so secluded from the outside world? Why are they supposedly incompatible with the humans they once protected? How does their society, ideologies and way of life differ from ours? Are there negative repercussions should our worlds collide? I'd like to think there are answers to these fascinating questions, but I just can't find them within this adaptation. The difference matters to the message, showing that anybody can see eye-to-eye and seek common ground. But there is no context, and as a result there's no real conflict between either party, rendering any commentary on this subject meaningless. Granted, it may not be fair to look from this perspective; even though the script seems like it would tackle this topic, neither of the show's two arcs really attempt to address this issue. So let's go ahead and talk about those instead; specifically, how they fail to portray moral ambiguity. Good and Evil are two ends of a spectrum, with the show's cast clumped together on either end. Bad people are capable of doing good things, and they can't simply abandon their flawed nature at the drop of a hat. But very rarely does the show burden itself with positioning our characters in the middle; there is no moral grey area. Noblesse chooses to play these concepts as straight as possible, watering-down the conversation to its most basic principles. For example, take the villains from the Union, some of whom are cold-blooded murderers who ingest pills that turn them into literal monsters, horrifyingly disfigured and dehumanized. There's no doubt in everyone's mind that Raizel would obliterate such cruel killers without a second thought. But the very moment one of the antagonists reveals some sign of humanity, their lives are immediately spared, and they suddenly become capable of doing no wrong. These moral questions are made to be as simple as possible, offering no substance in stating the obvious. What happens if you're on the bad end of the spectrum, and are finding it hard to work towards that harmonious middle ground? Well, Noblesse just throws up its hands in the air and adds nothing else to the subject. Those reformed characters from the Union are magically OK with their new social standings and doing good deeds, because that's how rehabilitation and life works, apparently. The third example I'd like to point out is the show's assessment of what unity means. Raizel and his growing group of besties enjoy a quaint suburban life, but rarely do we see them make connections with normal human folk. Within Raizel's household, peeps from various backgrounds do interact with each other. But there's no real attempt at understanding each other, nor is there an apparent need to. There's no difficulty faced, nor adjustments made, nor compromises agreed upon. Similar to my first point, there is no conflict, and it's hard to care. Everyone's just happy chilling at home and at their workplace, instantly bonding without putting in any effort. Two teenage students who had grown acquainted with Raizel's crew almost served as the human core of the group, only to unceremoniously disappear entirely from the narrative, because Noblesse decided that it was a good time to throw in exposition about random in-world politics. Closest we get to mutual understanding between different groups of people is one line of exposition, which I believe embodies a lot of the issues I have with Noblesse's thematic half-measures. Raizel's butler, Frankenstein, clues one of the main characters in on a brief history of Nobles and humans, back in Episode 2. In describing the relationship between both races, Frankie claimed that humans were weak and solely dependent on the Nobles to survive. Now that Raizel has opened his horizons to see human life up-close, he clearly knows that hypothesis isn't true and realises how his native society's misconceptions are false. But that's just it, there was never any intention to convince the audience otherwise. Of course humans are not helpless, how could they be anything but? Noblesse prides itself in making digestible, weak arguments, expecting a pat on the back and thunderous applause. It hints at a greater conversation, but drains all nuance from it, to the point where most potential meaning is lost. I must apologize if you felt that you didn't really gain anything from this long-ass paragraph, because I know that feeling too. It's the experience I had with this show;

  Noblesse is ultimately a show about nothing.

  

  Critiquing Noblesse for what it attempts to do is marginally more interesting than what it actually is. A vast majority of Noblesse comes across as… a school-based SOL. That's right, this story is played straight to be a slice-of-life. This cast of powerful idiots are either commuting to school or playing House at Raizel's. Bursts of serious exposition regarding investigations or politics are often quickly interrupted by long stretches of repetitive comedy sketches. Cutting out all the times Raizel and his bros get called "hot" by every minor girl in the high school cohort would end up halving the season's episode count. Episode 7, the all-time low for the series, sees one of Raizel's fellow Nobles getting crushed on by a student, followed by Raizel's chummy friends playing a basketball match. What makes these unfunny skits all the more annoying are the copy/pasted cast of characters. People might find Noblesse's non-personalities entertaining, and I'd be inclined to agree if everyone wasn't a carbon copy of one another. Noblesse's crew of genetically-superior expository devices are the literary equivalent of "Hey Man, Can I Copy Your Homework?" Eccentricity is fun in small doses, but cramming in this cast of stock characters sucks any life or chemistry to be had in the group dynamic. This means that scenes play out exactly the same, because all of the characters in them are exactly the same. The VAs soft-spoken, stoic delivery makes this issue worse, as half the damn characters sound painfully indistinguishable from one another. Every good guy's vocal inflection is equally polite and devoid of all personality. It has been annoying to hear a huge chunk of the cast members talking like they're all auditioning for roles in a fujoshi-bait butler anime. Of course, I mean no offence to those who find pleasure in those sorts of things; if those BL shows are to your fancy, you could do far better than this bland bunch of refugees in a PTSD halfway house. You could also settle for more in the visuals department; Production I.G. phoned in their work with all the brilliant aesthetic of a 2010s Man of Action cartoon. Lighting is fine, but backgrounds and character designs leave much to be desired. The show goes as far as to reskin their characters' supernatural abilities as much as possible, and the same goes for the repetitive backdrops of drab city skylines and stiff forests. Action sequences themselves are serviceable, but feel clumsy and unsmooth due to poor cuts or underexposed settings. The soundtrack is unmemorable, but I quite liked the opening and ending songs. The fact that the ED's K-Pop manages to be the best part of half of these anime episodes is pretty damning of the show's quality.

  Tl;Dr:

  "The most destructive criticism is indifference." E.W. Howe.

  I'd like to think I've done my best to find something worth caring about in this show, but it appears that Noblesse seems less interested in its own story than I am. The series' subtext is watered-down to merely stating the obvious, with holes distracting from any positive takeaways. It's a pandering script that fails to pander effectively, and an action show that feels like it barely has any to deliver. Noblesse is at times not a show with supernatural combat, but a stiff, unfunny SOL that's one sexual awakening away from turning into BL. Visuals are unappealing, music is unmemorable. Noblesse makes mistakes in almost every regard, but it's no trainwreck. And that's a damn shame, because at least it's fun to see things go off-the-rails with trashy shows. Instead, all I'm left with after Noblesse, is sheer indifference. 3/10~

  ---

  STRAY RAMBLINGS (SPOILERS):

  • Out of the 12 eps we got (let's be honest, Ep 7 was a fkin OVA,) I only had a good time with one, Ep 8. Up till that point we barely had any info about who the Nobles are or where they were from, so the visit to Lukedonia was a refreshing change of scenery. We also had Young Frankenstein, who was the only fun character in the show…
  • …Until he wasn't. The episode immediately following saw the novelty of the flashback wear off, and the show's only strong character along with it. YF all but disappeared between episodes, and all we were left with was boring ol' Frankie. I was disconnected from the rest of the episode, because the arc made zero sense! How does the Big Bad Bully of Lukedonia go from declaring his lifelong hatred for Nobles in one episode, to subservient servitude with zero complaints under a member of said Nobles? And what's more confusing is that the Blood Pact thing only happened at the end of Ep 9, which still leaves the question of what happened to YF during this time unanswered. This scene could have been a massive moment for the series, as Raizel and YF set aside their differences with their union. But again, the show just expects us to shut up and accept what's offered.
  • So remember how the Union hacker and the schoolboy hacker had this "Aneki" relationship, only for it to disappear with the memory wipe and never addressed again? God, this show was such a waste of time.
  • Rael really got his ass confined for 10 years over getting rejected. Fs in chat maybe, Idc.
  • Crunchyroll, Sony, Whomever I Need to Talk to: Please give your WebToon adaptations more episodes. Each of them needed more time to tell compelling stories, and all three fell short of that. Well, maybe more eps wouldn't have saved this script, but still.
  • BEST GIRL: No one really deserves this award, but I'll offer it to Young Frankenstein for being such a badass chad. Genuinely fun on-screen presence. Plus he's practically shipped with Raizel for life, and he definitely wears the pants in that relationship. YF, FTW.

  

  ---

  And we're through with this show, good riddance. Really wasn't looking forward to covering this mess. I guess you can call me a WebToon completionist from now on, here's hoping I finally find more nice things to say about the state of these subpar adaptations. If you happen to like my verbose rants, feel free to check out my other reviews for seasons past and present. Have a Happy New Year, peace~

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• 

  Jamiebreeze

  20/100
  The most underproduced show in the sad webtoon anime trilogy produced by Crunchyroll.

  The anime adaptations of Korean webtoons this year had been in the limbo of average and mediocre, but Noblesse decided we couldn't have that and decided to be the worst of the three. Tower of God had the story but lacked the animation, The God of High School had the animation but had terrible pacing, and Noblesse lacks...everything. Nothing happens, the show looks bad, and nothing about it is exciting. It was a lost cause from the beginning when you realize you had to watch an OVA from years ago for the first episode of this season to even make sense. What was Crunchyroll and everyone else that participated in this tragedy, thinking? other than money in their mind, they probably didn't think of much.

  All we get is 13 episodes and nothing ever happens. Seriously this is the most boring commercial I've watched. We mostly follow Raizel as he lives a normal high school life and meets his comedic supporting cast. Our main character does literally nothing in the whole entirety of his show other than offer cheap jokes and his powers only come up whenever he has to fix someone else's fight. This is the "plot" honest to god. The characters are not interesting, the main plot went to buy cigarettes with my dad and never came back, the character art looks ugly in many shots, the fighting choreography is none and the animation for it looks terrible (Black Clover has better animation than this in its first 13 episodes. It's this bad), and the soundtrack is nothing noteworthy. Both the ending and opening theme look cheap and the songs are average. This is probably the webtoon with the lowest rating and it is painfully clear to see why. I am surprised that this is being animated by Production I.G. They are the same studio animating Moriarty the Patriot and that show looks ten times better than this. I have not read the source material, but the art is certainly prettier there than what it looks like on the show. How is it that the Character Designer is the same person that did the art for the webtoon? This is mostly the fault of the studio, I assume. If I was the author I'd be pissed. The whole thing feels amateurish.

  It is just insane that you can manage to mess up a show this badly. I don't want to generalize, but judging by the art style of the webtoon, I can imagine the main audience were women. The staff was not even able to draw good-looking male characters (or female ones mind you ). Like the one thing that could make more people watch this, and you don't even nail the art on the still shots? shame on you and on your descendants. Every time a girl in the show says how good-looking Raizel or another guy is, I can't help but laugh cuz none of them look as nice as the show wants to make us believe. The characters look wonky almost all the time and their designs look outdated. Whoever chose the gradient for Frankenstein's hair did him dirty.

  As if their looks weren't bad enough, all the characters are walking cliches and their relationships with each other end up meaning nothing. Our protagonist Rai is stoic and doesn't do much, Regis is a tsundere, Seira is just female Raizel, Manabu is your hacker-otaku hybrid, Yusuke is the extroverted friend who was the main character in his past life, etc. They work in the universe they are in, but just as comedic relief. None of them add anything of importance to the main character or are relevant enough to the plot. M-21 is the only one that had potential and some thought put into him. They could have done a lot with this character and frankly, he is the one who carried the first half of the show. His back must hurt pretty bad for that, but even with that in mind, he is just used for comedy purposes. Frankenstein's character and his whole relationship with Rai was intriguing, but the production in this show is so bad that what could have been an ok backstory just left me feeling underwhelmed. The antagonists we meet are one-dimensional, just like the protagonists, and none of the fights that we get in the show have tension. The stakes are none, and the losers always join the supporting cast as comedic support. It is very hard to think this show will ever get serious or that anyone will die. The conflicts are superficial and just plain dumb, resulting in them ending predictably and leaving one feeling empty inside. Some of the relationships the characters have are written very poorly. Why does Yusuke even like Seira? because she gave him his bag that one time? we are not given any information as to how Yusuke even started crushing on this girl, yet somehow the staff decided we needed an entire episode revolving around how Yusuke could confess his feelings. Don't get me wrong, that episode was hilarious, but again stuff happens and the show doesn't bother to explain why even said stuff happened in the first place, or what happens makes no sense. In one episode, Manabu just decided to meet up with an adult he has not met ever despite the fact that he himself is a teenager. I am so sorry but who in their right mind would do this? this person you are meeting is not only older than you but was also trying to hack into the police system, surely you wouldn't have thought this was a good idea? nevermind the fact that they share a brotherly bond and then the show just puts that bond in the trash to never talk about it again. Nothing that happens between any of the "supernatural" cast and the humans will make an impression if you are just going to erase their memories every time something happens.

  TLDR; This is the worst webtoon adaptation as of today. Besides a few laughs, I mostly spent every episode sighing or getting angry at how bad the show looked. There is no plot, no good characters, no amazing visuals, no beautiful music, no intriguing backstories, and no good-looking characters so it is a terrible package.

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• 

  Yahshuhaz

  65/100
  350.- Noblesse, enfin une adaptation a la hauteur des attentes ? ( Non mais..)

  

  Spoiler in this review
  Les nobles comme vous les savez étaient les personnes les plus respecté dans notre temps et comme le représente Noblesse, Ils étaient catégoriser comme des personnages intouchable et qui règnes sur les plus faible. On a déjà eu deux préquel qui étais très intéressante :
  https://anilist.co/anime/99528/Noblesse-Pamyeolui-Sijak/
  puis
  https://anilist.co/anime/21629/Noblesse-Awakening/
  Je ne vais pas revenir spécialement dessus mais les deux étais tout de même bon et nous montrais un univers tellement riche et intéressante.. mais cette saison n'a pas apporté ce que je voulais( je tiens a préciser que je n'ai pas lu le Webtoon )
  

  Le réveil d'un noble dans les temps moderne..
  Si comme moi vous êtes sur anilist alors pas de soucis vous savez que les préquels dans quasiment chaque anime sont important a regarder et surtout dans Noblesse :
  On suit le Quotidien de Raizel un Noble qui vit dans le monde des Humains mais comme vous vous doutez ça va partir en cacahuète. Des combats car on cherche le fameux ''Noblesse'' qui est Raizel et qui possède ce coté ''immortel'' il est le plus fort de tous les nobles et doit maintenir l'ordre ce qui est bien expliqué et reste tout le long de l'anime. Cependant j'ai trouvé l'histoire beaucoup trop bateau.. On se rattache trop ici a la limite d'un isekai et je trouve l'histoire encore une fois beaucoup trop vide malheureusement.. La fin nous montre juste une démonstration de force et, j’espère que cela n'est pas la fin du webtoon car cela serais un rush sans nom. Il y a tellement a parler dans cet anime comme la puissance de Raizel, les différentes faction dans l'anime.. Mais peu de développement..
  L'histoire a beaucoup de passage ''cringe'' si je peux le dire comme : Les personnages sont trop.. Classiques.. Ils font des gestes tellement bêtes : Yu est chez son ami a lunette et il voit qu'il parle a une personne sur son ordi qui est un hackeur d'une organisation.Il va donc discuter avec et le hackeur vu qu'il pense parler a son ''ami'' devrais avoir un discours assez froid, provocateur tout de même c'est un tueur a gage.. eeeet non il vont créer le fameux quiproquo de : Mon ami est gay ! car dans l'épisode Yu pensant que son ami aimait les hommes.. ( d'ailleurs on ne sais pas comment Ik-Han Woo est si fort en hacking car déjà la scène est impossible dans la vrai vie puis il tiens tête a un mec qui est pro quand même enfin bref) C'est tellement vu et revu que au bout d'un moment sa gonfle. Les ennemies mise a part quelle que noble sont totalement vu et revu : Le solitaire qui cherche sa petite sœur, le gamin qui a trop d'égo et devient limite bêtes alors que Regis est un Noble il tiens tete comme un enfant c'est assez déconcertant quand c'est tout l'anime. Enfin bref L'histoire étais trop simple et pas assez travaillé a mon gout.

  ___Qui dit Noble dit personnage Noble ?___

  Un point ou les personnages principaux de Frankenstein et Raizel sont bien présent et sont vraiment une bonne représentation des nobles. On a pus voir qui était Frankenstein mais pas raizel.. Ca m'a beaucoup attristé car le personnages est vraiment mais vraiment bon. Il y a des combats tout de même sympa entre personnages et Raizel a toujours sa puissance qui est pas utilisé a outrance. Sinon honnêtement les autres personnages sont a mettre quasiment a la poubelle. Entre la nouvelle Lord qui a décidé de traite Raizel comme traitre car elle étais jalouse ou encore le fait que M-21 part avec l'ennemie pour protéger ses ''amis'' au milieu de l'anime et que Regis parte comme une victime...... Sérieusement c'est pas bon. Il y aurait pus avoir un meilleurs contrôle de tout cela j'en suis sur

  ___Production I.G es-tu la ?___

  Une animation qui est belle on va pas se le cacher mais en 2020-2021 ca commence a devenir normal. On est loin d'un Kimetsu no yaiba mais cela reste jolie.

  ___Le métal/rock en guise d'ost ?___

  Par contre, les ost étaient pas mal du tout surtout les insert song de rock ou métal pendant les combats donnaient vraiment un aspect impitoyable que j'ai grandement apprécie. L'opening et l'ending était sympa assez vu dans une adaptation webtoon

  ___Mon avis sur Noblesse___

  Je pense que si Noblesse serait sortis en 2015 et que je l'aurais vu ma vision des choses serait différente. J'ai le syndrome du : Je connais ce mécanisme, donc forcement je m’attendais a beaucoup mieux mais il fut agréable a regarde je vous ment pas même si il y a beaucoup de problème dedans, j’étais dans l'anime et je me suis peux ennuyé. Si vous êtes des petits consommateurs de anime Noblesse pourra vous divertir surtout que Raizel est très charismatique.

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