Synduality: Noir Ep 9 Review: Memory and Present

Well, this episode 9 is really a special and groundbreaking episode, after the last break the swimsuit scenes and of course the promotion of Ciel’s swimsuit picture on the official twitter, which surely attracted some Love Live fans into following this anime. This episode is really serious, probably one of the most watchable episodes till now (the others 2 worth watching episodes for me are Kuro Kamen episodes). At first, I was very worried because the anime studio crew decided to make Alba and Ada cameo in this episode, but after watching I can be sure that this episode really did a good job at PR the game, now I’m really curious about what is the story of Alba and Ada.

Coming to this episode, we can see that although Kanata and Alba are the same main characters, they have many opposing points. Maybe it’s because Alba is a legendary Drifter and more experienced, but compared to Kanata, Alba is quieter, like he’s miserable and scared but hides it inside and at the same time Kanata is revealed. As a character who is very good at repairing hardware, Alba, on the contrary, is very good at repairing software, as evidenced by the fact that he repaired Magus’s memory retrieval machine himself.

Besides, Alba really cares about Ada, especially in the end when it rains. I’m not sure how New moon tears affect Magus, but through that scene it can be seen that whether or not it does. Alba doesn’t want to lose Ada, proving that Ada is extremely important and an indispensable part of Alba. Perhaps if we say the middle point between Alba and Kanata is here, the treat and care of Magus as a real person. It is also impossible not to mention Alba’s ability to not get poisoned in the rain. Perhaps this is what the publisher wants to force viewers to play the game to know their own story. The game is set 20 years ago from the anime, it is unknown what Alba and Ada went through, but no matter what happened, Alba had the ability to resist poison and not age and Ada had some problem. (Well done, Bandai Namco, well done).

As for Noir and Kanata, we found out that Noir is probably the prototype made in Amasia, and her insides are arranged in no particular order. Besides, Ada also said that when making a contract with a new Drifter, memories will be lost, especially for Magus type Zero, after the contract is terminated, memories will be reformed and with type Zero, it is in another level of safety feature. After trying everything possible, perhaps Noir’s memories are hard to get back, so what Kanata needs right now is probably his determination to create new memories with Noir in the present (living in this life and don’t worry about past life). However, I’m quite worried because through this episode, if the story develops in a darker direction, perhaps the plot will be that Noir is captured, Kanata is seemingly killed and Noir forgets Kanata because of the feature, then Kanata and Ciel together they go reclaim Noir from the villain.

The highlight of this episode is of course Bowierabbit. From the first scene and the battle scene at the end of the movie, Bowierabbit shows off his outstanding strength thanks to Alba and Ada. Also thanks to Bowierabbit’s design, compared to other Coffins, its highlight is its round body. When Bowierabbit moves in combat it reminds me of batwing in the recent Flash movie. Although it looks like it moves its limbs, its body seems to be balanced like the cockpit of a Batwing.

The music using BGM is quite emphasis and classically appropriate to the climactic scenes and it also reminds me of Ohsama Sentai KingOhger which is also airing. Besides, there are also a few scenes that I noticed that this episode was very carefully colored like Kanata and Ciel’s eyes were shaded. The part when Kanata looked at Noir about to be examined his eyes were quite beautiful and the same thing happened when Noir woke up.

Overall, This is a PR episode for the game, and it worked, I really want to know what happened 20 years ago. However, I also hope that it goes beyond just introducing the game because I really want to see Alba and Ada’s interactions with the characters of this anime in the long run. The next episode will probably be another serious episode, through the trailer we can see that Tokio is very serious and not as usual. Let’s wait and see what will happen!

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