Noblesse ep 13 – Twin Swords

Is that innuendo for something dirty? If so, I swear I didn’t know. And I regret to inform you that neither my post nor this week’s episode of Noblesse have anything particularly dirty in them. Depending on how you feel about tastefully torn clothes that is.

I would have been fairly blown away if Noblesse turned full-on hentai, in the last episode, completely out of the blue. Has that ever happened? If so can you tell me the name of that anime and where I can watch it? I’m asking for a friend.

I have almost a full week without any episode reviews. It’s like a little vacation. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. Noblesse was a bit of a hold-out, with its 13th episode ending this week and by the time you read this review, it will be 2021! Happy New Year everyone!

You know, I had fun with Noblesse but more with the first half. The way this show was put together, blending three genres as it does, the finale could have gone in three different ways, if you ask me. The could have ramped up the action and just kept everyone fighting to the very end, they could have leaned into the drama and tied things up through exposition, or the could have gone back to comedy and, I don’t know, shown us Rai walking into empty rooms for 5 minutes and then going back homes for school house shenanigans.

Those of you who are familiar with my tastes can probably guess which I was rooting for.

Unfortunately, they didn’t go that route. They went the worst route. The feelings route. I will say that in the episode’s, and in the adaptation in general’s, credit, most loose ends were tied up rather nicely. I can’t say this is the ending that I wanted but I can’t call it unsatisfying either.

And although I wasn’t enraptured, it still ended way sooner than I thought. Meaning that I was neither really bored nor particularly annoyed by this episode. It didn’t undo the things I liked about Noblesse but it wasn’t what I liked best either.

Personally, I think Noblesse was at it’s very best when it was goofy. Even with a lot of action thrown in, it could remain a bit aloof and nonsensical which it did well. There was a lot of heart in that humour and I appreciated it.

To the surprise of absolutely nobody I would think, my least favourite aspect of the show, were the attempts at drama. I think there were touching moments in the early episodes with M-21 trying to cope with the loss of his partner but that was also because it was moderated by a lot of funny scenes.

I do understand that Noblesse was trying to tell an epic tale. One filled with powerful, everlasting creatures fueled will centuries of jealousy and bitterness. Obviously, the political intrigue and mysteries to come out of such a story run deep and require and a lot of sturdy foundations.

And it’s in this that I could see the adaptation straining. The world of the nobles, the laws by which they operate, their interests and obstacles. All of that was glossed over and made it difficult for me to care about the power struggle beyond, these are the guys we know so we want them to win. I’m not even sure what nobles do exactly. Do they rule over men in any way?

The thing is, I’m not blaming the adaptation for not having the time to fully flesh out the story. I just think it should have stuck to the schoolhouse nonsense and not even introduced the greater Nobles society at all. Have Seira and Regis in because they’re good foils and good laughs but leave all the other Nobles out of it. A nice supernatural Slice of Life with Rau trying to navigate the modern world.

It did make me want to read the webtoon though. I bet a lot of the stuff that was left on the cutting room floor were comedy asides. And that would make it even better!