Noblesse OVA – Noblesse Oblige

It’s a new anime season and I am excited. It really doesn’t take much to make me happy!

I’ve actually already decided which airing anime I will be following this fall. And Noblesse is one of them. This isn’t a big surprise. I’ve been following all of Crunchyroll x Webtoon’s projects and out of all of them Noblesse was the one I was most excited for. Not because I’m a fan of the source, I have not read it. But because the synopsis sounded like exactly the type of nonsense I am here for.

For the record, here is that synopsis:

The series is about Cadis Etrama di Raizel who wakes up from 820-years long sleep and starts a new life as a high school student. His peaceful days as a student are soon interrupted by a group of attackers known as the “Unions.” Noblesse follows Raizel and his loyal servant, Frankenstein, as they constantly protect and save Raizel’s new human friends from the mysterious threats.

In order to get myself ready for the season, I decided to give the OVA a watch. Now OVAs aren’t necessarily a great example of what a series can offer as a whole, but they can at least give you a superficial idea of what to expect.

For the record, I was hoping for a super cheesy vampire soap opera but what I got was way beyond my expectations. It is cheesy and a little soap operaish but it seems that Noblesse is an actual comedy. There are on purpose jokes in there! And a lot more action that I thought we would see.

The OVA was really just an introduction to that characters, which it managed quite well with surprisingly little exposition. I have been watching a lot of lazily written shows where everything is just narrated at the camera for the audience. So just by the fact that noon of the main characters stopped to give us a full biography, II found this OVA rather refreshing.

From what I can tell through this introduction, the story is likely going to be a mix of supernatural action, with our main characters going up against this mysterious “Organization” and a school set slice of life comedy with vampire based jokes.

You know, I get that this is not going to be for everyone. I already know a few of my readers who will comment on how boring or stupid or just plain bad this show is. It is definitely likely to be an acquired taste. Even more so that post Webtoon x Crunchy collabs and “fans” just ripped through those.

But I’m still hopeful. Even with all the grumblings and naysayers, both Tower of God and God of Highschool got a lot of viewers from all over. So I’m hoping Noblesse will do decently as well because although it’s far from the best production and has possibly the cheesiest plot, it is the most fun for me.

This is probably where I should mention that I am a huge fan of kitsch in fiction. Not only the so bad it’s good stuff but also the so corny it’s hilarious. And not everyone is into that sort of thing.

Objectively the OVA was o.k. at best. Production is a tad underwhelming. Nothing special. The voice acting was good though. The premise is cliché and a bit date, at least by western norms. We sort of got over the vampire craze. And the characters are not yet developed enough for me to make any sort of judgement.

But there’s a sense of fun radiating from the dialogue. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, however, I got the feeling that the series was not taking itself seriously in the least. And as such, wasn’t expecting us to do so either. It’s all just a bit of a laugh.

Bottom line, if you like cheesy vampire stories and are a fan of comedies that focus on exaggerating genre tropes (like JoJo or Black Butler) then you might enjoy the OVA. I don’t know yet if that is in fact what the rest of the series will be like. I hope so. In fact, I hope they get even sillier.

If you want an impressive production in the service f a deep meaningful story with unique and fascinating characters. Yeah, it’s not here. And I don’t think that’s what Noblesse is even trying to be.

I hope this show doesn’t end up soaking up all the hate. It had a few elements that would make it a prime candidate for the hated show of the season. I’m going to watch it anyways! And I’m going to tell you all about it!