"Noein" (2005) begins with an innocent ghost hunt by a group of 12-year-olds that expands into a potentially world-threatening experience. Although she appears to be a normal girl, Haruka is the Dragon Torque, whose powers preserve and threaten dimensions across space and time. The inhabitants of La'cryma and Shangri-La want to use Haruka's abilities for their own purposes. With only the friendship of the neurotic Yu as a shield, Haruka must overcome the Dragon Warriors and the masked title character. "Noein" mixes elements of "Escaflowne", "Evangelion", "RahXephon", and other "magical girl" and fantasy series to create a program that suffers from both too much story and too little. The characters from alternate dimensions offer portentous statements about dimensions, time, and destruction; the Earthlings talk about quantum physics. But their speechifying does little to unscramble the plot. Although Haruka "is" the Dragon Torque, an Ouroubouros-like necklace appears around her neck, then disappears for no apparent reason other than to resolve story problems. Some episodes feel like filler, while major events end before they really begin. And having characters meet themselves at different ages creates paradoxes more problematic than most time-travel stories. The filmmakers clearly spent most of the budget on the computer-animated effects: The anthropomorphic ships of Shangri-La are strikingly original and disturbing, but the character designs suffer from inconsistencies. "Noein" will appeal to viewers who prefer splashy visuals to coherent storytelling. (Unrated, suitable for ages 13 and older: violence, grotesque imagery, brief nudity, alcohol and tobacco use) "--Charles Solomon"