Of the Summer 2023 anime series, Synduality Noir is the other of the series that I’d almost describe as “horror adjacent” – in this case not because of the inclusion of traditional gothic horror monsters (Werewolves, Vampires, etc.), but rather because of a few of the elements introduced later in the series.
Synduality Noir is part of a sort of trans-media Anime project (there’s a video game due to come out later), set in a post-apocalyptic future where the earth’s surface is ravaged and humanity lives in domed habitats. Resources that are scavenged from outside the cities are done so by Drifters, who travel the wasteland in transport vehicles, along with their mechs, called “Cradlecoffins” (or just “Coffins”), alongside their android companions who help pilot their mechs – called Magus. The series proper follows Kanata, who aspires to be a Drifter like his semi-adopted brother Tokio (by which I mean Tokio adopted Kanata as his brother when Kanata was orphaned). While exploring some ruins they find a mysterious magus named Noir. The series then follows the group while they try to find the secret of Noir’s origins, along with contending with the threats of various monsters, known as Enders, on the surface.
How this gets horror adjacent is with the introduction, late in the season, of a type of Ender that can take animate presumed destroyed Coffins, and even take control of other people’s Coffins (killing the pilots and Magi in the process). It’s basically mecha zombies – and thankfully the series firmly avoids the whole Zombie fiction trope of having the mere existence of Zombies become an inciting event for social disintegration as everyone switches to screwing over everyone else because most Zombie horror writers are cynical nihilists.
Instead, the series puts a lot of its time into the social bonds and connections between Kanata, Tokio, their drifters, and their individual Magus. It’s why I describe the series as “horror adjacent”, rather than straight horror – a lot of horror series tend to use isolation as a part of their horror, both in terms of social isolation and in terms of taking away the support structures of characters. It’s why a lot of people don’t consider Buffy horror in spite of the presence of vampires and demons – a significant part of the series is the presence of Buffy’s support network, the Scoobies.
Whereas, in Synduality Noir, there’s a heavy focus on the ties between Drifters – even when a Drifter is willing to screw someone over for a score or for their own personal gain, when things really get bad, they come together to help each other.
As far as the rest of the series goes, there’s a fair amount of comedy here – to the point that I thought this was going to be somewhat lighter until the zombie mechs got involved. There’s some light fanservice, but nothing really heavy. The character of Noir has a bit of the Chi “I don’t quite know how to person” thing (from Chobits), but without Chi’s infantilism. Indeed, Noir’s own character development takes up as much of the series as Kanata’s development does.
The mecha animation is also well done – it’s CG (as are a lot of mech series at the moment) – but the movement is fluid, doing the rocket skates style of movement that Ryousuke Takahashi innovated on VOTOMS, but with otherwise generally fluid movement.
We also have some development of how the world is now, with some teasing at how things got to now – with the implication that the show is saving that for next season, which is due in Winter 2024. I’m looking forward to that second season, and possibly also picking up the game.
Synduality Noir is available for streaming on Hulu/Disney+ (depending on region).
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