Noir (anime)

Noir (Japanese: ノワール, Hepburn: Nowāru) is a 26-episode Japanese anime television series produced in 2001 by the Bee Train animation studio. Kōichi Mashimo directed Noir; it was written by Ryoe Tsukimura, and the soundtrack was composed by Yuki Kajiura. The DVD version was released by ADV Films in North America and the United Kingdom and by Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand.

The series follows the story of two young female assassins who embark together on a personal journey to seek answers about mysteries from their past. While they seem to be only vaguely related to each other at first, there are clues and hints given throughout the series that there is more than what meets their eyes. During the course of the series, they are lured into more and more traps by a secret organization named Les Soldats ("The Soldiers" in French).

Noir was followed by two spiritual successors, Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja. Together, these series constitute a trilogy exploring the "girls-with-guns" genre.