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Dated 4 June 2015: Girls-with-guns trilogy re-watching project complete, or, Bee Train be the bee trainiest

Noir discs and merchandise
Noir DVDs and Blu-rays. Also pictured: Some random
swag that RightStuf was trying to unload.

I fuckin' love Noir. You'll know this if you've read some of my old ass blog posts on the series—ones I've been meaning to import into WordPress for like, years. You'll also know this if you follow me on The Twitter, as I recently completed my Bee Train girls-with-guns trilogy re-watching project. This was inspired by my acquisition of Noir Blu-rays which, conveniently, are a Hell of a bargain. I also had Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja DVDs which I had previously purchased but never got around to watching. As you can see from the picture above, I already had the Noir DVD box set (which came with a Kirika t-shirt), but the Blu-rays are still a great deal even for fans who already have the DVDs.

Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja DVDs
I probably should have used a picture of Elenore here instead.

I've already re-watched Noir at least twice in the past 12 years or so, but this was my first time re-watching Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja. Noir holds up if you're already okay with the incredible feats they pull off. For example, basically every shot Kirika ever fires results in an instant kill. She's shooting .380 ACP ball ammo for crying out loud. Of course, considering some of the feats she accomplishes during the course of the show, I'm reasonably certain Kirika could find a way to instantaneously kill a room full of Soldats flunkies using a package of Q-Tips. Neither Madlax nor El Cazador de la Bruja are quite as good as I remember though, and I didn't think they were that great to begin with. Madlax at least benefits from one of best anime maids of all time, but El Cazador is sort of dreadful to marathon.

Dated 10 December 2019: The Beretta M1934, Kirika's pistol in Noir

Noir ED
MiniDiscs are rad, okay.

Fans of Noir, the BeeTrain anime from 2001, probably noticed the inverse relationship between the generally accepted lethality of a weapon and how dangerous its wielder tends to be. For example, a character armed with an expensive SIG Sauer pistol is probably just some flunkie from Soldats who will die faster than a Star Trek redshirt. On the other hand, a tiny Japanese girl armed with her school ID is definitely someone you do not want to fuck with. Like, not even a little bit.

Noir ED recreation
This turned out to be a high-effort post compared to my usual updates.

Despite Kirika's penchant for arming herself with makeshift weapons, her signature firearm is featured prominently throughout the series (likewise, Mireille's pistol). I've always recognized Kirika's gun as a Beretta, but it wasn't until much later that I fully appreciated she wasn't using some double-stacked wondernine, but rather a Model 1934—a small .380 ACP with a seven-round magazine. Also known as the M34, this design predates World War II (although its Wikipedia article claims they remained in production until the early 1990s).

Beretta Model 1934
This doesn't look particularly small in the show because
Kirika is a tiny Japanese girl.

This particular example features a rather stiff trigger and very small sights, which can make accurate shots more challenging for people who aren't Kirika. I already knew she was basically a goddamn witch, but knowing more now about her gun of choice does make her feats even more incredible than I previously understood. I guess during my next Noir re-watch, I should probably see if she ever bothers reloading. Kirika has no qualms about picking up additional weapons when facing multiple adversaries, so it's not as if she's handicapping herself on purpose.

Mireille and Kirika
Mireille is bewildered because this is only the third episode.

In all likelihood, it probably never even occurs to Kirika that she can arm herself with something else. I imagine it also has sentimental value—at least as much as her school ID, anyway. In any case, I don't think she's deliberately showing up her partner. I mean, Mireille is still pretty hot shit, what with picking off rooftop snipers from who-knows-how-damn-far with her Walther P99. It's not Mireille's fault that Kirika's a goddamn witch.

Beretta M34
Ballistics aside, gun-related details are pretty accurate throughout Noir.

This is the second 9x17mm pistol I've featured on this site. (See this Gunslinger Girl post for the first one.) I don't actually intend to turn the world's longest-running English language anime blog into the world's newest anime guns blog, but this does make four featured firearms just this year alone. What's really surprisingly is how little I've written about Noir since my haphazard 2006 transition to WordPress. I should probably at least transfer over the old entries.

Dated 3 August 2021: The Walther P99, Mireille's pistol in Noir

Walther P99 and Beretta M1934
Size comparison between Mireille's P99, Kirika's M1934, and their respective ammunition.

Complementing Kirika's Beretta M1934 in Noir is Mireille's Walther P99. Walther introduced the P99 in the '90s as a polymer departure from the metal-framed pistols it made previously, such as the P88 and the P5. This made Mireille's firearm relatively modern when Noir aired in 2001. I guess this also makes her the exception to the rule of thumb that allows viewers to judge how dangerous the characters in Noir are by recognizing the inverse relationship between the characters' lethality and the modernity of the weapons they use. Mireille may be out of her league compared with Kirika or Chloe, but she gets by.

Mireille
Mireille might not be as good as Kirika at killing people, but she does dress better.

Fans of Cowboy Bebop may also recognize the Walther P99 as the pistol Jet uses throughout the series. There are probably other anime examples I've overlooked. Certainly, there is no shortage of P99 appearances in live-action TV shows and movies. At a minimum, I know Brosnan-era James Bond adopted it to replace his iconic Walther PPK for a while. (Coincidentally, Bond is also shown with a Beretta M1934 in Dr. No.)

Jet
Cowboy Bebop takes place in 2071, but Jet's old-ass gun
is still newer than the Jericho 941 that Spike uses.

Mireille and Jet would have both carried the first-generation Walther P99, as the second generation did not come out until a few years after their anime aired. Somewhat surprisingly, Walther was still making the P99 as of early 2021 (in Ulm, for people who care about that), although a Wikipedia entry currently claims (without citation) that both it and its 2011 successor, the PPQ, are discontinued now that the PDP is out. That's a shame if the P99 has reached the end of its production, as the PDP is only offered with the American-style magazine release button. Adherents to the European flappy levers will have to look toward Heckler & Koch now, I guess.