Synduality: Noir

 Time for a new science-fiction anime series that came out the past summer season!

And the opening scene alone already gave off a beautifully drawn atmosphere.  And at 24 episodes, it's a longer one, quite rare these days... only to have it changed to 12 later on and probably a part 2 in the future.

Ah, the memories of 50 episodes a season...

It starts with scavengers finding a mysterious girl in a coffin of flowers, only to be ambushed by an alien creature.  Soon more arrive, and it comes down to facing them using The Coffin, a mecha battlesuit, as they retrieve the girl.

It turns out the year is 2222, and it has been years since the Tears of the Moon, a mysterious rain, wiped out a large part of humanity.  In Amasia, they build a haven from the creatures, which devour humans.  Kanata is one such human trying to scrape a living, and the one who found the girl named Noir.  When the city comes under attack, she takes one of The Coffin's, greatly powering up Kanata as his co-pilot.

But even with the threat of the aliens, humanity still remains add odds with each other, as becomes all to obvious when the former vice-commander of Aventure, Range, returns and challenges Kanata.  On the road to Desire Nest, Ellie and Noir meet another magus, Schnee.  She is the copilot of a mysterious masked man Kanata was talking too, just as desire's nest comes under thread of attack by the Enders.  This man turns out to be one of the protectors of humanity, a mighty warrior that easily repels the attack.

 

Kanata takes on a job as a Drifter, but soon finds himself in trouble, only to he saved by Noir and his Drifter comrades.   At an auction, they see the crystal they found sold by a competitor Drifter though, as they take some relaxation time off.  They are deployed in an abandoned city, facing mysterious Coffins who are after Noir.   It seems like Claudia and her magus are behind this.  Later when hiding for the rain, they arrive in a Nest with a robot arena.  Kanaya enters to help a magus befriended by Noir, but crooks bend the rules and putting him heavily outnumbered.  The mysterious paladin arrives to help him, Kanada dubbing him "Black Mask" as he doesn`t reveal his name.

 

As Noir goes off on a mission without Kanata, he reflects on his past with Ciel, the masterless magus friend of Noir.  Together with Ellie, they take some time off at the local aquapark, and a concert of Ciel.  he takes Noir to Alba to see if he can restore her lost memory part, but her chips are apparently differently made and placed, making it impossible to recover them.

 

 

But the calm time ends, as the Enders seemingly launched a mass attack line 20 years ago, the Drifters all being mobilised to investigate and defend the Nest.   His friend Tokio gets gravely injured in the initial fights, telling Kanata they are all counting on him now.  But others have thier eyes on Noir as well, as she is suspected to be the Magus Key.  But the Drifters engage the Silver Stone, fighting their way towards it's final core.  But during the battle, Noir suddenly changes appearance and personality, apparently being a Magus called Mystere, of which Noir is the safe mode.

The Nest is saved as such as the Silver Storm threat is warded off, but there are still many questions to be answered... which will be for when part two releases.