Normally, I wouldn't give D-War five more seconds to invade my mind, let alone my blog. But, Eric made an interesting observation yesterday and I wanted to post it quickly.
Spoiler Warning: I am not very good at not spilling the beans, and if you haven't seen the ending you probably won't get what I am telling you anyway, so if you haven't seen the ending of Noein yet, do me a favor and wait to read this until you have.
We just watched the final DVD of Noein, and I have to say it was pretty enjoyable. For a series that was sometimes utterly cincomprehensible, it had a pretty coherence ending and plot resolution. This means a lot when many anime get the apocaliptic treatment (what Alara calls the futility ending). For a series that did to quantum mechanics what most anime do to every religion ever known, I think it was - dramatically speaking - very well done. And, evil Yu looks and acts like Sephiroth. Even if he is a whiney little b*, who couldn't love that?
So, Eric's comment was that - if you look for it - Noein is full of elements of the same legend of the Imoogi that was prominent in D-War.
It has a female who has been bestowed with a fantastic power she did not choose, a male lead destined to protect her, the quantum equivalent of reincarnation, and two dragons (the old man with the straw hat and Noein). Instead of fighting for the dragon pearl, the two dragons are fighting to win Haruka's heart and mind by forcing her to choose between two different courses of action.
Also, there are overtones of the idea that desire makes reality, and in the end Haruka is forced to make a wish to re-establish the universe. This is very much like the wish granted to the dragon who receives the pearl, especially since her wish will play to the desires of one of the two powerful beings that are influencing her.
Finally, there is the obvious fact that the oroboross just plain looks like a dragon. I am not 100% sure about that, but I believe there is a scene near the end where the image of the straw hat man is superimposed over the dragon like "head" of the oroboross just long enough to imply that it is the oroboross itself which is the force of the old man who is oppossing Noein.
Maybe there are more references buried in here, or maybe there's nothing to it. But, I thought it was a very perceptive and salient comment coming from an 11 year old boy. Even though I am kind of acclimated to his intelligence - he *did* read the Laughing Man like two years ago - I still think his interpretation is pretty amazing.