May 1st, 2006
Right, don’t remember much about this episode; there’s another new Sibylla on the scene, but unfortunately I remember no-one’s names so I can’t remember who (check elsewhere, I’m sure Kaoru Chujo or someone else has a comprehensive list!); there was oestrogen-charged angst over Nebril because of the whole Palling up thing, then they all got into swimsuits and flew around in a big tube because people were coming to attack… or something.
Um. This episode didn’t leave much of an impression on me so I barely remember anything about it (it was, like, a whole two weeks ago or something!) Sorry.
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April 11th, 2006
While Aael stubbornly pursues making Nebril her Pal after discovering her status as Regina (i.e. the best pilot in Core Tempest), Nebril herself has given up on being a Sibylla and, together with fellow Sibylla Eri, makes her way to the Fountain to select her sex; as we are told in lengthy exposition (and I looked up on the website last week!), everyone in wherever the HELL these people are from (”Heaven’s Shore”? 大空陸 is the kanji, and calling it “Skyland” would be stupid…) is born female, and at 17 undergoes a ceremony at a special Fountain to select their gender and become adults; the Sibylla can only be children, however, and so choose their own date for selecting their gender.
Eri and Nebril make the journey together, with Aael helping Nebril fly there in a final attempt to make her become her Pal after she and Parietta fail to convince Nebril to stay; however, Nebril heads to the Fountain with Eri, and the dichotomy between the regular peasants and the Sibylla, who are worshipped as gods, is made clear on the train ride to the Fountain. On arrival, Eri still hasn’t decided which sex to pick, and is terrified; nevertheless, she goes into the Fountain (where there’s a creepy woman with red and black eyes overseeing the ceremony) and, despite still not knowing what she wants, is picked to become a man. Nebril, however, does not enter the shrine, and attempts to comfort Eri, or Erif as he is now known, as he breaks down outside as he realises that EVERYTHING is going to change from now on and he can’t go back to the way he was.
Nebril returns to the Simoun, where Aael is unsurprisingly waiting; they take two to fly, after all! There is smooching and flying, and lo is the story set up for the rest of the series.
I feel very guilty for liking Simoun as much as I do. Surprisingly, in many places I’ve seen a HUGE backlash against the series, mostly citing the badly written dialogue (”I want to get stronger!” “I WANT TO GET STRONGER!*splat*) and likening it to the melodramatic excesses of Takarazuka without any of the singing.
I can’t deny that the dialogue isn’t exactly Natsume Soseki, but then to be honest that’s probably part of the reason I like the show, because I can understand it… not a good reason, I realise, but I really don’t think the show’s as bad as many are making it out to be. And I don’t even like Takarazuka that much, mostly because a lot of the time the actors aren’t very good singers and the songs aren’t that great (yet I still watched a three hour marathon of Takarazuka clips in Japan…).
Simoun isn’t a “cute girls” show by any stretch of the imagination; there is absolutely no pandering to anyone, and it actually feels more like shoujo than anything else; the manga runs in a dedicated yuri anthology rather than a seinen huhuhuhu-girls-kissing-and-raping context, and the rather po-faced atmosphere of Simoun reminds me of a lot of shoujo I’ve seen or read. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing - there’s been a lot of thought that’s gone into the world design of this show, and even if it is a little obvious at times I think the serious tone of the show is the best way to treat it; I don’t think it’s THAT heavy, as some of the (admittedly rather underdeveloped, but then it IS only the second episode) supporting cast are fairly light in their approach to the situation.
Well, anyway, I like Simoun; I guess I’ll have to wait until the fansub has reached wider exposure before I can really gauge how other people feel about the show, but it seems that scorn and confusion are mostly what people feel about the show thus far. But I really enjoyed this episode; the Eri storyline was rather poignant in a slightly overwrought way, and I continue to appreciate the visual design of the show. I still don’t know what to make most of the characters aside from Nebril, but this IS a 26 episode series after all, and there’s plenty of time to properly get to know the characters since I’ll hopefully stick around that long.
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April 4th, 2006
OP - Utusukushikereba Sore de Ii (Chiaki Ishikawa) - wow, Chiaki obviously took notes while she was in SeeSaw! The chorus is kickass, and the rest of the song isn’t bad. I don’t really like the OP sequence, though; too little of it is synched properly to the animation, so it looks a bit odd. I’m hoping it’s only temporary because there are a few shots which come from the episode, but I don’t hold out much hope.
ED - Inori no Uta (savage genius) - not one of their best songs, but still pretty good, and a CG-tastic ending; spin, Simoun, spin!
A hidden ancient kingdom called Helikal Mortris (I think, according to the official website) relies on the power of Simouns, gyroscopic flying machines, to protect it against invaders; these are piloted by Simoun Sibylla, young girls especially chosen for the duty, pairs, and the Simouns are powered by the relationship between the girls, i.e. they have to snog to make them work.
We mostly focus in on Nebril, a pink-haired rather stoic Sibylla, and her co-pilot Amulia, who is a bit obsessed with getting stronger and is obviously deeply in love with Nebril, as well as the other members of Tempest Core, the platoon they’re part of. The Sibylla make their way to combat an invading force to discover the previous Simouns have all been destroyed (save one, to whom they grant a mercy killing); the magnitude of the invaders is far greater than they had realised, and one of their powerful Ri Masion attacks (whereby they draw magical sigils in the air with their Simouns) is not enough to wipe them all out, and they lose one of the Simoun outright.
In desperation, Nebril and Amulia create the sigil for one of the most powerful Ri Masion attacks, the Sapphire Ri Masion, which acts as a black hole to suck in their enemies; however, they come face to face with one of the attackers (who have somehow managed to create ships without Ri Masion) and Nebril’s concentration is thrown, sending the Sapphire Ri Masion out of control; while it destroys all their enemies, it also damages the Simoun and kills Amulia.
On their return, Nebril holes herself up in her room and refuses to come out; later, it is discovered she is missing, and has apparently gone to a place known as the Fountain; in Helikal Mortris, everyone is born a girl and their gender is determined by diving into the Fountain and picking when you reach the age of 17, although Sibylla are exempt from this as only girls can pilot the Simoun and they get to choose when they want to give up. The Sibylla end up with three new recruits to replace those who are dead; two young girls and the Pacifica Casull-lookalike who will be our main character, Aael, who immediately zooms off to find Nebril and waffles about wanting to fight. You so know she’s going to have a horrible crisis of faith when she sees the effects of war in a few episodes time…
What a pleasant surprise! True, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions that yuri=stupid/boring, but it’s generally a rule I can follow fairly successfully. However, the first episode of Simoun turned out to be pretty engaging, and the lesbianism isn’t the whole hook of the show; the world design is brilliant (I LOVE what they’ve done with the Simouns themselves, the whole Ri Masion thing is awesome) and I think there could be some interesting political plotting going on.
The background art is a bit sketchy but well-designed; it’s like Erementar Gerad with imagination, really. Music-wise, it’s all sweeping strings and epic stuff like that; I like it a lot, but it’s not overly innovative or anything. The character designs are growing on me, although the loli one with blue hair looks really podgy for some reason…
So, yeah, I actually quite like Simoun based on the first episode, and am looking forward to the next episode; the blessing of the Monday night TV Tokyo timeslot is upon this show!
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