Characters of the anime Noir.
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Kirika Yuumura
Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (JP), Monica Rial (EN), María Teresa Hernández (LA)
A teenage high school girl with amnesia who lives in Japan; however during her journey she goes to stay with Mireille in her apartment which resides in Paris. The only things she remembers are the word Noir and her instinctual killing abilities.
- Anti Heroine: On the one hand, she's a lonely young woman desperately searching for her past and fleeing a mysterious organization that apparently wants her dead. On the other hand, she is extremely good at killing people and makes her living doing just that.
- Badass Adorable: One of the most adorable characters in the series, who is practically Woobie incarnate when she's hurting, and also an incredibly lethal shootist and incredibly creative with all kinds of Improvised Weapons, with one of the biggest killcounts of the entire cast.
- Dark Action Girl: Protagonist example. Not only is she a good fighter, she's extremely creative in dealing with various handicaps caused by terrain or injury.
- Dark Messiah: What Kirika-chan becomes when she attains the legendary mantle of "The True Noir."
- Emotionless Girl: Subverted. She isn't truly emotionless, just simply having a hard time expressing her emotions until near the end, when her "real" personality takes over. She has no hesitation in killing large numbers of people; that lack of feeling distresses her.
- Enfant Terrible: Raised by the Soldats to be a Noir candidate. Her first assignment was to kill the Boquets when she was age six, complete with overall straps askew.
- Expy: She's an assassin, she has amnesia, she's hunted by the orginization she belongs to, and she kills people with items that are SUPPOSED to be harmless. Essentially a Distaff Counterpart of Jason Bourne.
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: When she gets Hellish Pupils, it's very bad.
- Gun Stripping: Demonstrates this in the first episode with her eyes closed as Mireille is talking to her, and says she's disturbed by the fact that she even knows how to do it.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Even Revolver Ocelot would think twice fighting this cutie.
- Kung-Fu Jesus: She is basically viewed as a savior by the superstitious followers of Soldats: an Invincible Warrior destined to destroy evil and injustice in the world.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: She has no memory of her first fourteen years and only knows her name because of a student ID card, which could very well be fake.
- Meaningful Appearance: Her rather distinctive pink shoes have received a degree of
Memetic Mutation among fans. They're also nearly identical to the ones she wore as a young child, when she killed Mireille's family, and since the reveal is shot from her feet up it's the first indication of who the shooter was. - Oblivious to Love: Seemingly towards Chloe. It might just have been because she was in "True Noir" state but the fact that Chloe kisses her on the lips while they were both completely naked and gets no reaction whatsoever points to this.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her normal eye colour is hazel but sometimes it turns into red. This is usually the moment to take cover.
- Rei Ayanami Expy: Seemingly-emotionless, struggles with identity and humanity, short hair, permanently sad expression. The only thing different compared to the other examples is that she has natural hair, eye and skin colors.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality
- Tyke Bomb: Was about five when she killed Mireille's family.
- Unscrupulous Hero: Unscrupulous Heroine: She's more concerned with the ethics of killing than Mireille and is mostly concerned with solving the mystery of herself. That doesn't stop her from going into business with Mireille and being very good at it.
- Waif-Fu: Not as bad as some examples as she's never shown lifting more than would be conceivable for her body frame (with any instances of her flipping mooks over explicitly showing her using their combined weight and momentum to do so) but she does pull off some pretty impressive stunts.
- When She Smiles: The first time she does is she meets the cat in Episode 6.
- You Wake Up in a Room: Her first memory is waking up alone in a deserted house with photos of parents on the wall but no sign of the parents themselves. After searching for a bit she found a pocketwatch, a school ID with her name on it and a gun. Shortly after she kills a bunch of Mooks who showed up to harass her and is disturbed by how she knows how to use the gun.
Mireille Bouquet
Voiced by: Kotono Mitsuishi (JP), Shelley Calene-Black (EN), Claudia Nieto (LA)
A Corsican woman born into a powerful crime family. Mireille and her uncle are the sole survivors of a brutal attack on her family, whereafter he trained her to become an assassin.
- Affably Evil: She's a fairly decent person when out in public. She's also an assassin, so murder is what she does for a living.
- Animal Motifs: The producer describes her as a "female panther" in his notes.
- Anti Heroine: Although she's an amiable person who has no problem having a friendly chat with a shopkeeper, she is a contract killer and has no moral qualms about it.
- Badass Normal: Compared to the other candidates for the title of Noir, who have probably been trained since the time they could walk. It doesn't stop her from having as high a body count as Kirika or Chloe.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Mireille goes through quite a bit over the course of the series, yet she never looks anything short of drop-dead gorgeous.
- Can't Catch Up: Compared to the impossibly skilled Kirika and Chloe, even though by normal standards she's still a badass and not someone you cross.
- Combat Stilettos: Not as unrealistic as some examples, but her boots still have decent heels on them. Deconstructed Trope on at least one occasion: she nearly fell from a house roof to her death since her boots lack grip. How much heel her boots have is also rather inconsistent between animators.
- Cool Shades: Sadly, she only wears them in one episode.
- Dark Action Girl: Protagonist example. She's a very successful assassin. "Successful" meaning that she survives all of her jobs.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: She's twenty-ish at the start of the show, but about fifty-five in terms of cynicism.
- Heroes Gone Fishing: The first few minutes of the show are her going back to her apartment on a bright yellow scooter with a bag of groceries. Then she checks her e-mail to see if she has any hit job offers. She also has a tendency to window-shop.
- Love Redeems: Towards Kirika, whether one interprets it as platonic or romantic.
- Limited Wardrobe: She wears more action and climate-oriented outfits in some episodes, but the majority of her time is spent in the red shirt and black skirt. She is also quite fond of wearing a lavender colored jacket.
- Mafia Princess: Was one as a child.
- Magic Skirt: Many cosplayers will attest to the impossibility of replicating Mireille's short skirt without flashing people.
- Nominal Heroine: She’s fighting against a murderous Ancient Conspiracy, but is an assassin herself.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: When ADV Films dubbed Noir, they decided not to give Mireille a Corsican accent. The reason for this was to avoid confusion among viewers unfamiliar with the language.
- Phenotype Stereotype: A blond, blue eyed Corsican isn't impossible, but it's not very likely either.
- Psycho for Hire
- Self-Made Orphan: Subverted, she doesn't kill her parents — but she does (regretfully) kill her Parental Substitute uncle Claude, who was her only remaining family.
- Spanner in the Works: Not only Chloe attacking her brought Kirika out of her Brainwashed and Crazy state, but she ended up totally tearing through Altena's plans.
- Strong Family Resemblance: To her mother. This ends up being a plot point.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's actually rather pleasant when dealing with the general public, but maintains strict personal boundaries for all but a few due to her job.
- Villainess Protagonist
- Younger than She Looks: According to the series timeline Mireille is at most 20 during the show, while most people guess that she's a good deal older. Part of this is due to Vague Age, since we're not entirely sure how old she actually is. There's also the fact that she's implied to have been living on her own — and working as an assassin — for quite some time now, which borders on the horrifying if she's only 20 now.
Chloe
A skilled assassin who uses throwing and handheld knives instead of guns. Like Kirika and Mireille, Chloe is a candidate to become Noir. Chloe idolizes Kirika for her exceptional killing skills, and she believes that she and Kirika are destined to become Noir together.
- Anti Heroine: Mixed with Anti-Villain. She shows up as an antagonist, but she also aids the duo several times and loves Altena. She is, however, a little too enthusiastic about killing people.
- Badass Cape: Which comes with a high collar that was likely added so they didn't have to animate her mouth flaps for part of her screentime.
- Dark Action Girl: She is an assassin, just like the protagonists.
- A Day in the Limelight: Episode 12.
- Enfante Terrible: The flashback to Kirika's assassination of the Bouquets shows five-year-old Chloe looking on and smiling eagerly as the deed is done.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She works with Shao-Li only because she has to, and it's clear that she doesn't particularly like doing so and offs her as soon as she sees an indication that she's turning.Chloe: Poisonous insect.
- Evil Redhead: Her hair changes based on the lighting, sometimes it's purple, more often a deep, dark shade of red. Either way, it looks pretty sinister.
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Her eyes are noticeably more narrow than Mireille and Kirika's except when Kirika is in "true Noir" mode which highlight her being on the darker side of the Grey-and-Grey Morality. They also make determining her exact ethnicity difficult, and the show never clarifies either way.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Becomes blatant in episode 25 when she screams about how "it should have been me!" with Kirika and tries to Murder the Hypotenuse by going after Mireille.
- Implausible Hair Color: In a series of realistic hair colors, she stands out by having purple hair.
- Nominal Hero: Although she often helps Mireille and Kirika and is something of a Tritagonist, she never questions her job and was raised by a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
- One-Woman Army: She takes down a whole battalion of police officers in full gear, three assassins, etc., all singled-handed.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: As a matter of professionalism, she will kill other assassins who are targeting her hits.
- Psycho for Hire
- Psycho Lesbian: Lesbian is implied, though it may be a case of Single-Target Sexuality, given her seeming obsession with Kirika and we never see her show interest in anyone else. Psycho? Debatable, at least until the second half of episode 25...
- Psycho Knife Nut: She prefers knives to guns and is shown to be excited about killing people.
- Purple Is Powerful: She has a lot of purple in her person (hair, eyes and outfit) and is one of the deadliest assassins in the world.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Becomes especially apparent when she kisses Kirika and Kirika does not react at all. Even with the latter in Brainwashed and Crazy mode at the time it's clear it wasn't mutual.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Kirika and Mireille usually wear outfits that you would see on the street and not think twice about. Chloe, however, is almost always in that long green cape of hers but no one seems to bat an eye. The black bodysuit she wears under it is a little more plausible but still sticks out.
Altena
Voiced by: Tarako Isono (JP), Tiffany Grant (EN), Citlalli Godoy (LA)
The high priestess of the Soldats. She believes that the Soldats have been corrupted by power and greed, and she attempts to return the Soldats to its "original state" by reviving Noir. She lives a medieval lifestyle in a place the Soldats consider as their holy site called "The Manor", located somewhere on the border between France and Spain, where she raised and trained Chloe.
- Affably Evil: She's not just affable, she's downright gracious. She is also plotting something that has even other members of the Soldats worried.
- Anti Villainess: Depending on your interpretation.
- The Beautiful Elite: Altena is stunningly beautiful, impeccably dressed, sophisticated and gracious, and works for a secret society that controls the world.
- Big Bad: As the high priestess of Les Soldats, she is the one sending the assassins after Mireille and Kirika.
- Broken Bird: Her backstory is very Harmful to Minors. When she was a child, her homeland was devastated by war and atrocities at the hands of soldiers, and she herself was raped by one of them.
- The Chessmaster: Everything in the series was part of her plan to turn Kirika into her personal hitwoman.
- Dark Messiah: "If love can slay, then hatred can save the world."
- Dissonant Serenity: One thing that makes her so frightening.
- Does Not Like Men: Never explicitly stated, but she's never seen interacting with a male character on screen, and the male Soldat leaders only show up at the Manor after everything's over and she's dead. Given her Rape as Backstory, this makes a lot of sense.
- Knight Templar: So much so that even the other Soldats think that she's too extreme.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Even with Rule of Symbolism in effect, there are a number of things she does which don't seem possible unless she has some manner of magic/psychic powers, such as the three candles representing the "saplings" and how when one goes out she not only seems to understand what it means but also which "sapling" it was referring to. Also there's the fact that she lives on a friggin' active volcano.
- My Death Is Just the Beginning: One interpretation of the ending, especially since if you look really close at her face while she's falling to her death, you can see that she's smiling.
- Parental Substitute: She treats Chloe with the care and affection that she would a daughter.
- Rape as Backstory: She was raped by a soldier when she was a young girl, which contributed to her villainy.
- Villains Out Shopping: Her first few appearances show her tending to her grapes and writing letters without any dialog. It gives an extremely sinister feel to her even before she does anything.
- Visionary Villain: She wants to use Noir to cleanse the world of evil and impurity.
Silvana Greone aka "Intoccabile"
Voiced by: Yumi Touma (JP), Heather LeMaster (EN), Lileana Chacón (LA)
- Creepy Child: Her idea of "playing" as a kid is running at Mireille with a knife.
- Dark Action Girl: Although she lets her elite assassins do most of the work, she's a very capable combatant herself.
- Dissonant Serenity: She never seems to lose her temper and remains calm whether she's trying to have Noir killed or torturing a man by having his loved ones killed in the next room. When she reacts with genuine shock at Kirika shooting her knife and preventing her stab at Mireille from being fatal you know things have gotten serious.
- The Dreaded: Everyone who knows about the Intoccabile is either terrified of her or reverential of her ruthlessness. Mireille in particular has never gotten over her fear.
- Kiss of Death: Gives an excessively long one to Mireille.
- Lady of War: A villainous version.
- Mafia Princess
- Psycho Knife Nut: She favors a single, curved dagger.
- Pure Is Not Good: One translation of "Intoccabile" is "the inviolate" "the untouchable" or "the pure", but Silvana is anything but good.
- Purple Is Powerful: Has both purple hair and wears a purple dress, probably to emphasize her status as a Mafia Princess.
- Young and in Charge: Since, as stated above, Mireille is at most 20 during the show Silvana by extension is probably not any older than 25, since while it was obvious that she's slightly older that Mireille in the flashback to them as children it's clear it's not by much.
Shao Li
Voiced by: Urara Takano (JP), Kelly Manison (EN), Elena Díaz Toledo (LA)
- Acquired Poison Immunity: She uses a poisoned incense burner in one episode, which kills her victim but leaves her unharmed.
- The Dreaded: People who know about her do not want to meet her.
- Dragon Lady: An assassin in Hong Kong's mafia community.
- Expy: She bears a striking resemblance to one Faye Valentine.
- Femme Fatalons: Her fingernails are actually her weapon.
- Master Poisoner: Can create a poison that can kill after only a single nick from one of her nails.
- Psychotic Smirk: Her default expression.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: She offs her own comrades in exchange for alliance with the Soldats. Then Chloe flips this trope on her and kills her.
Laurent Bouquet
- The Mafia: Laurent at the very least had dealings with the Greones, and it's implied he was involved in a lot more.
- Posthumous Character: His death still affects Mireille years later and he appears in flashbacks.
- Screening the Call: The Bouquets refused to hand young Mireille to Les Soldats. Shortly afterwards, they were killed.
- The Voiceless: Apart from some grunts, he only has one line in the whole series. He says his daughter's name while thinking about not handing her over to the Soldats. Those would be his last words as Kirika appears after this to kill him, his wife, and their son.
Odette Bouquet
Voiced by: Kotono Mitsuishi (JP), Shelley Calene-Black (EN), Edylu Martínez (LA)
- Defector from Decadence: The Bouquets refused to hand young Mireille to Les Soldats. Shortly afterwards, they were killed.
- Face Death with Dignity: She didn't show any fear or hatred towards little Kirika when she came to kill her, just softly asked her to take care of Mireille.
- Lineage Comes from the Father: Played with. While Laurent was obviously a huge influence on Mireille and the direction her life took, it was Odette who probably had the largest impact, what with what she said to Kirika before she was killed.
- Mama Bear: As soon as she saw Laurent get shot, her first instinct was to reach for Mireille's brother, who was reading next to her chair. She was too late, and the poor boy was killed. Then there's her request to Kirika, where she calmly asks her soon-to-be killer to protect her daughter. (And boy, would Kirika later follow these words.).
- Missing Mom
- Posthumous Character: Like Laurent, her death continues to haunt her daughter and she appears in flashbacks.
- Screening the Call: The Bouquets refused to hand young Mireille to Les Soldats. Shortly afterwards, they were killed.
- Significant Double Casting: Shares Mireille's VA in both the Japanese and English versions.
- Spanner in the Works: Her making Kirika promise to protect Mireille took a long time to pay off, but when it did it put the final nail in the coffin as far as Altena's original plan for a Chloe/Kirika Noir went.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Looks nearly identical to her daughter, to the point that an old retainer of the family mistook Mireille for her mother when she went back to Corsica.
Claude Feyder
Mireille's uncle (presumably on her mother's side due to his name) who raised her after the deaths of her parents.
- The Dandy: His style of dress suggests this.
- The Mole: He was really working for Les Soldats in exchange for them leaving Mireille alone.
- Parental Substitute: To Mireille.
- Promotion to Parent: Claude doesn't look out of his teens when he and Mireille flee Corsica.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist
George Madelin
- He Knows Too Much: Tries to tell Mireille why her parents died, and gets sniped for it.
- Number Two: To Mireille's parents.
Belladonna Lily Woman
Voiced by: Fumiko Ōkasa (JP), Christine Auten {EN), Aura Caamaño (LA)
- Floral Theme Naming: She even points out the difference between the infamously poisonous Belldonna flower, and the more benign but less well-known Belladonna Lily.
- Grave-Marking Scene
- "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Attempts this on Mireille.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: This causes her demise, since the light hits her knife and attracts Mireille's attention.
- No Name Given: She's never given a name.
- Spy Catsuit
