Noblesse: Awakening

So, I was spending the last week or so catching up with the webtoon. It's slow paced at the beginning but shit gets real fairly quickly. Furthermore it's hell of an emotional rollercoaster ride. I would highly recommend reading the webtoon before watching the OVA. Basically, I was like really looking forward to watching the OVA, or so I thought. Story: 3 The whole story revolves around Cadis Etrama Di Raizel. Short Rai. He's the handsome badass, we all need in our lives. Or I just need him. Well, who knows. Anyways. He does not talk that much. He doesn't talk at all most of the time. So back to the story. He suddenly awakens out of his slumber / hibernation which lasted for almost 820 years. He finds himself in a new area. Nothing seems familiar. Actually, he does not speak the language at the beginning. - "Just saying." Rai does not know the reason for his awakening either neither does Frankenstein furthermore the reason for his disappearance is clouded in mystery. So, you're asking - why..why does he only give the story 3/10? Well it's simple. The whole story did not make any sense? Dr. Crombell for instance, one of the main antagonists of the series and the reason for M.21 and M.24 to be hostile towards the "Union" wasn't even introduced. What the f. was going on. Like seriously? Why? Why were they even attacking the girl in the first place? And who is the mutant which attacked the children? Why? It should be explained WHY Marry and Jake were sent. Also, what was going on M.24 is suddenly all "Sorry, I wanted to kill you first girl, but now I will just rescue you". That was like ENTIRELY different in the webtoon. M.21 and M.24 DO NOT know that he is the Noblesse also NO one actually knows what or who the Noblesse really is? That part was especially fucked up. If everyone knows who he is and the "Union" also knows that he is the Noblesse, - well done - 2/3 of the ORIGINAL story are now worthless. The original concept was changed an effing lot to fit into the 30 min time frame - I can understand that is was meant like a preview for further projects maybe. Either way it's not really well adapted. Art: 8 Looks amazing. I didn't expect any less of I.G. Production. Still, the "blood" looked ridiculous in many scenes. Sound: 6 I don't know. I think - in my humble opinion - it din't fit into the anime. They should have sticked to a more "classier" approach towards the series. Rai is like old, not just old he is like ancient. The whole Baccano "feel" wasn't my cup of tea. Character: 4 Rai was speaking to much. He shouldn't be talking at all. He was like very open towards everyone. Sorry but the whole premise of the series is HIM OPENING UP. Rai gets to knowing the humans. He starts to understand what it means to live among men. Enjoyment: 5 It wasn't all bad. It was decent. But surely it wasn't outstanding. I liked that it was heavenly action-driven. Much appreciated. But still, following the webtoon a little more accurately would be so much appreciated. Overall: 6 (Because I am generous and I LOVE Frankenstein.) Meh. It wasn't good. I mean, I love the webtoon. But..the OVA wasn't great, far from being anything. It was indeed enjoyable but that's it. Read the Webtoon. It's really nice to read.

It was a very wonderful episode I loved the character of Raizel and Frankenstein And I also liked the character of Mary I would be very satisfied that he had an anime component of at least 13 episodes this is a wonderful thing no one pays attention to I do not know what these people would be happy if anime (TV) was composed of at least 13 episodes It does not matter that maybe I read the Manhwa read because Ova very impressed me and I loved this Anime The events were more than wonderful, but unfortunately it has only 2 episodes

First off i want to say that i am a very big fan of Noblesse. Noblesse, in my opinion, is one of, if not, the best graphic novels (in this case, manhwa) of all time; the characters, the story, the jokes, it is as close to perfection as a story could get. This being said however, i did not enjoy this little adaptation. So much has been changed or straight out removed that it pales in comparison to its source material, a husk. The only reason why I would give this an overall score of 4/10 is because of its astounding art and because its Noblesse. If i had not known of Noblesse going into it I would definitely have given it a lower score.

This is the first thing in the series I've seen, and I can say with certainty, I will not be watching any more of it. It felt like watching a fever dream. The anime tries to be style over substance, only the substance is zero. You know what happens when you divide by zero? It doesn't work, and neither does this anime. It got bad enough to the point where I stopped reading the subtitles, and with the basic level Japanese I know, I'm pretty sure I got the gist of what little but ridiculous story there was. The action was well animated, the sound design was good, and the character designs were attractive. But man, the plot and character cast weren't anywhere close to being interesting enough to carry through the awful pacing.

I honestly don't understand why this got as high of a score as it did. As a longtime fan of the manwha, I was seriously excited when I saw there was an adaptation. I settled down for what I thought would be a treat. I was majorly disappointed. This adaptation tried to mash the first 80 or so episodes (aka chapters) of the manwha/webtoon into 30 minutes. 30. MINUTES. As such, the pacing is so rushed and so much is cut out that it's left a major mess. On top of all that, the acting is so poor that it's difficult to suspend my disbelief and invest in the story. That, plus that hackjob animation, was so distracting that I finally turned it off before I had even finished it. If you watched this and thought it was interesting, then go read the manwha. The manwha has great characters, decent pacing, enjoyable humor, and amazing story. But this adaptation was nearly as disrespectful to the source material as The Last Airbender movie was to Avatar: the Last Airbender tv show. Seriously. Go read the Webtoon.

To those who are disappointed with Vampire Knight, Noblesse is the right one for you. I have no expectation at all on Noblesse at first. I dive into this anime blindly, expecting to be somewhat like Vampire Knight. I also had prepared myself to be disappointed but boy, I was wrong. Plot line: 7 It's not exactly original. After reading tones of fanfics and mangas, I can say it's typical. But what's good in this story is there's no romance involve at all. Which is a huge bonus point because if not, the girl main character would usually be like Yuki from Vampire Knight and honestly, that'll annoy me to the max. Those who wants to see Ikemen minus plain, annoying romance, yes, watch Noblesse you won't regret it. Characters: 7 Since it is only 30 minutes anime, I couldn't get really in depth with the characters but they are definitely likeable. Rai would obviously be my favourite out of the lots. Rai is your Noblesse, a cool and strong character who is majestic, elegant and just perfect. He didn't talk much but there are parts which I find him rather funny. Animation: 10 This anime mesmerize me since the very beginning. It's so beautiful and I have no room to complain at all. Over all, I really like Noblesse. Too bad there's no continuation to this short movie.

Going to make this real short since it's almost time to scream out "Happy New Year" to the people I probably won't like. If you have any intention of watching this show, do it only if you've read the webtoon (roughly 100-200 chapters of it). Otherwise, and I'm being rather forgiving here, you'll find the episode absolute chore, save for perhaps a few scenes of action. Storytelling-wise, this is a pretty bad OVA, if I'm being honest. Considering everything they crammed in this thing, they could have actually made an entire regular season. What they did, in a nutshell, is take a bunch of scenes from the webtoons, animate them, and put them in a relative, chronological order. They took several arcs, and tried to mold them into a single, cohesive one. Because of this, both fans of the webtoons and just fans of anime suffer, since there's absolutely 0 set-up to anything that occurs, pacing is complete shit, there is 0 background to anything and anyone, and, overall, absolutely nothing will make sense unless, again, you've read the chapters they're trying to cram into 30 minutes special. I'm actually being quite forgiving by giving the story here '4', because if it was a standalone episode without any background, it'd be the most decisive zero I've ever given in my life. Pretty much the only reason you'll watch this is art and animation, so let me touch on that briefly. In terms of artstyle, it's exactly the same as with webtoon, although I felt it was slightly darker, or rather director/whoever decided to focus solely on the dark-themed parts of the webtoon, hence why for some reason I felt the entire color palette took a dip to the darker shades. Animation wise, to be honest, I expected more. Action scenes were brief, and save for maybe 2-3 or animations, most others felt like something you'd see in your everyday action anime. Absolutely nothing in terms of animation stands out, and they even had to opportunity for it since they decided to fast forward some chapters to get to the fights that were slightly more interesting. Overall it's definitely above average, but nothing you didn't see in about 10 shows this year alone. In terms of characters, it's the same thing as with the story: I'm giving a huge leeway here by giving it the score I am. Also, same as the story, if it were a standalone product, absolute 0 without a second thought. Every character is randomly flung at you without any set-up, there isn't even a whiff of character arc, and the most 'development' you get are from two pseudo-villains, and even that is composed of 2-3 relatively ambiguous flashbacks that offer absolutely nothing unless, again, you've read the webtoon. Overall, I did actually enjoy Noblesse: Awakening. Would I have enjoyed it if I didn't read the webtoon? Definitely not. This short OVA should have been focused on introducing people to one of the better webtoons out there, and instead they decided to give the already established fans 30mins of what's actually a pretty average thing. We know we won't be getting a full season any time soon, so we weren't in the absolute need of getting the animated version of ... uhm Jake and Mary? fights. Too much was skipped in order to give fans 'something', and absolutely nothing was established well enough for the people who've never heard of the webtoon to give a single fuck for it after watching this. Let not the '6' overall fool you. If you've never read the webtoon, this will probably linger around 2-3 AT BEST, as it feels like a slideshow of a few scenes that kind of connect, during which absolutely nothing makes sense. Off I go to get drunk alongside people I shouldn't. Have fun.

If you've read it and understand the story then you might like this, but I have not and I have no idea what is going on. I think I thought it was good because it has Bleach vibes, but Rai shows up and he is such an uninteresting character that it makes me question if I liked it at all. It feels rushed to fit important parts of the story into 30 minutes which makes it feel like it misses all development with the story and the characters. The animation was fine, the fight scenes were ok, the dialogue was pretty poor but I guess it's more for the brooding powerful character atmosphere that there was little dialogue.