Synduality: Noir Ep 18 & 19 Review: The Swan Song

To be honest, these 2 episodes were truly the most explosive and emotional episodes of season 2. It not only completed the ending of a character (Ciel) well but also showed the real deal turning point of Kanata’s development. In particular, my experience through these two episodes is summed up in the word “Excellent” and I think these 2 episodes alone take a lot of the budget of this series lol.

starting with Ciel, I have to admit that I exaggerated a bit in the previous episodes that she had character development (yes, I take those words back), episode 18 is Ciel’s peak. And even when she disappeared in episode 19, Ciel still left a mark in the hearts of viewers (both Kanata and Noir). Ciel’s case is probably not just because she is Magus, if in other anime works, it could be a human, a mutant, or even a certain species, these poor people will be manipulated by villainous bosses, they are treated as tools only to accomplish their master’s goals. Another thing that makes me interested in episode 18 is Ciel’s decision and actions when she knew that she had been formatted many times just to be a pawn in Weisheit’s hands. The turning point was probably the scene where she pointed the gun at Kanata, but with Kanata’s kindness, simply his pure kindness reached Ciel and that was all she needed. Because of that kindness, she decided to sacrifice herself and entrust everything to Noir.

Regarding Kanata, in these two episodes, he changes many emotions from a guy with a kind heart, to someone who dares to pick up a gun to protect others, to sadness and suffering, and then rising up once again. Become stronger and more mature through those failures. Through 19 episodes, this episode lets viewers to clearly see Kanata’s development even though his heart is still full of naivety about the good world and what is right. But perhaps it takes people like him to balance the world.

As for Ideal, there are three characters I will discuss here. First is Weisheit, perhaps the typical villains in these genres, if not old men with some extreme ideals, are also Ikemen with mental problems. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t like the type of person who likes to manipulate and control everything in a relationship, even if he’s handsome. Besides, episode 18 also shows us that all of Weisheit’s skills are perfect and that is the reason he was chosen as the leader of Ideal, but among those scores, it seems stress resistance does not include a thorough mental health check.

Next are Ideal’s 2nd and 3rd place members, Tokio and Macht respectively. What I’m quite surprised about here is that Macht always said Tokio looked down on him and surpassed him, but both of their stats were very close. Tokio is only better than Macht in the stress resistance section, but the strange thing here is that he is built as a character that is a bit contrary to that. As for Macht, because of his judgement ability, stress resistance, and his intelligence, he is somehow a rigid person, but thank to that, as Tokio also said, he hasn’t changed at all (in a good way). Macht has his own opinion on how to treat Magus and that probably won’t change (maybe this will give us a plot twist in the next episodes).

Coming to the music part of episode 18. Ciel’s song Your song plays as a farewell song between her and Kanata as well as her other friends. It’s like a sad love song, the last song that Ciel left behind for this world, she sang to make Kanata’s dream come true as well as her feelings for her My Dear.
Next is the image of episode 19. It must be said that in this episode, the staff really elaborated a lot from colors to shading in these episodes. There are 3 scenes that I find most gorgeous in this episode. It was the scene where Tokio and Macht drank for Uta Hime – Ciel, followed by the scene where Kanata sat sadly in the Daisy Orge under the stars and finally the scene in the minds of Noir and Mystere. Each of them deal with the loss of another person in different ways, one drinks to honor what Ciel has done, one mourns for her and finally the one who inherits her legacy left.

So these two episodes ended Ciel’s story and marked the return of Noir. Also left the end of this episode open as if entering the final arc of the series. Pascale seems like knew about the existence of both Noir and Mystere because she said “two daughters”, perhaps there were things at that time that she could not do (like old age and technology issues) and entrusted the future of her daughters to the next worthy master – Kanata. Perhaps in the final act, both Noir and Mystere are needed to reach Historie. It is truly two explosive episodes worthy of all the viewers’ anticipation and the set ups from the previous episodes.

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