English Dub Season Review: Noblesse Season One

Overview

Based on the manhwa (Korean Manga) that was released in 2007 and written by Son Jeho and illustrated by Lee Kwangsu. Noblesse takes place in a universe where Vampires, Supernatural creatures, and other artificially created supersoldiers exist, it just so happens that most of the storylines take place in a high school for other monsters run by a mysterious Vampire/Noble named Raizel (Ray Chase) and his devoted servant Frankenstein (Sean Chiplock) whom during the course of their adventures end up being caught in the middle of various conflicts throughout the series with some tied with the unraveling mystery of who the two leads are as characters…

From a technical standpoint, the animation team with ties to Crunchyroll known as “Webtoon” did two other Manwha-based shows along with this one known as “Tower of God” and “God of Highschool”. So it feels like a substantial change for Crunchyroll to introduce Korean properties to an American market. The action is solid in places, it does have its share of comedic moments and at times even has funny post-credits scenes at the end of each episode.

However with every attempt to dip their toes into something different. Crunchyroll tends to stumble in places or at times and lack any sort of common sense when it comes to heavily promoting their own exclusive anime properties when dipping their toes into the English Dub market against other competitors such as Funimation, Viz, or even Sentai Filmworks.

For starters, one of the biggest problems from a narrative standpoint is the unusual decision to not establish the OVA from 2016 as part of this mainline series and I find it baffling that at the time of this review, it still hasn’t been dubbed as it works better as a jumping-on point. But it kinda hurts fans who have actually followed the Manwha.

Overall, unlike the other Webtoon adaptations, the ending itself felt very self-contained. Despite its source material, the anime could’ve done better to leave it open for another season since they didn’t leave much to explore, or at least a cliffhanger but it couldn’t even do that. I don’t know what the deal is with Webtoon or Crunchyroll, but the anime itself felt like it was done. But it remains to seen if we do get another season or if we’re lucky, a dub for the OVA prequel.