Category: Simoun

Thanks a lot for Hashihime to translate episodes 7-11. Still, .ass-files do have their disadvantages. It’s incedibly hard to find the raw files for these episodes. These aired more than a month ago, so any torrents containing these files is going awfully slow. Episode nine also proved to be interesting, as the only torrent to the only raw which seems to be available displayed an error when I tried it. >.< Anyway, about the episode, I can understand why people are raving about this show. Mamiina was just awesome during this episode. I like the twisted mind that she has. It should prove to be awesome for following episodes. We start with the members of the Chor Tempest running into the members of the Chor Ruboru (the Chor of Aaeru's roommate, Vyüra). It's night, the members of the Chor Tempest are about to start with a special training excercise while Chor Ruboru just came back from patrolling. Of course, both sides try to mock each other. While this was funny in the first place, I just loved Aaeru when she acted like nothing happened and shouted some things back to Vyüra. ^_^ The girls from Chor tempest then board the Shimire (the training crafts) in order to practice. It also seems that Aaeru asked Wapörifu to fix the Simoun that her grandfather flew in (I still have to get used to the fact that grandfathers once were girls as well). I don't exactly know what happened to it, though. I suspect the thing broke after he went to the spring, and he was allowed to take it with him. Though that doesn't make any sense. (On a side-note: chibi-Aaeru looks too cute). In any case, during the training, random conversations are going on. It seems that when Neviriru was still active, it was the Chor Riboru who looked up to them. They also talk about the spring and growing up. It seems that Limone doesn't want to hear about the latter, and someone wants to go to the spring, immediately when she turns nineteen, though I couldn't pick up who that might've been. During the actual training, Morinas is having trouble concentrating, and Rödoraemon's getting worried about this, though Morinas doesn't seem to care. Dominüra places Limone in the lead. Furoe annoys Aruti again and Kaimu gets happy to know that Paraiette didn't desert her (after all, during the previous episode, she put her trust into the pair of Neviriru and Aaeru). Then, another ship like the Arcus Prima (the big ship which forms the main ship, where the sybylla live) approaches them. (On a side-note, thanks a lot to Hashihime for giving a list of all the terms and names used in this anime. I don't think I would've been able to remember all of them if I didn't use this list.) In any case, this ship is called the Arcus Niger. It seems that Guraghief and Anubitufu arranged a meeting with them. Normally, it's stationed at the Western Great Temple area, wherever that might be. Though it seems that its commanders decided that there wasn't a lot of time, so they already met up with them halfway. Probably because of an emergency or some impatient VIPs. Then, a pink Shimire emerges from the Arcus Niger, flying badly on purpose in an attempt to make fun of them. It then appears that the two Sybylla on this Shimire are to be assigned to the Chor Tempest, in order to make it a complete Chor, consisting of six Simoun again. It seems that the Arcus Niger came to announce that the country called Plumbum Reikoku (what's lead got to do with this?) has offered a peace treaty with Simulacrum Kyuukoku (the country the main part of this anime plays in). Both of these countries seem to have similar customs, so they probably wouldn't offend each other. Both of these countries worship a different god. Simulacrum has Tempus Patiem, while Plumbum has Animus. It could be the same being, though neither party would acknowlegde that. Still, Anubitufu didn't look really happy when he hears about this peace treaty. We then switch to the Chor Tempest. Paraietta brings them the news about the peace treaty, while the other members are in some kind of gathering room, full of pillow-like things. Music is on, and some of the members are also dancing. It's reckoned that Plumbum only wants the peace treaty because they want the Helical Motores, found in the ancient ruins and used to fly the Simoun. I then seems that the first peace conversations will be happening in international territory, over the ocean. This means that the Arcus Prima will be heading for Plumbum, as it's somehow been decided that the conference will be helt on the Arcus Prima. Then the two Sybylla who were seen in the Shimire from before appear. You would expect that the new ones are totally incredible in every way, though that isn't the fact. While they may be good Simoun pilots, they're not as overconfident as you see with most rivals who appear. Furoe predicts that she'll say something along the lines as "so, the rumours about the Chor Tempest were true", which is exactly what Mamiina (one of the two) does. ^^; Mamiina then turns her attention to Rödoreamon. It seems that Rödoreamon comes from a very rich family, while Mamiina was the daughter of one of their servants. She then introduces herself, and so does the other girl (Yun). Then some girls come to warn the Chor Tempest that someone's moving in with Neviriru. It seems that her father's got some high rank, and he placed Mamiina as Neviriru's new partner and roommate, against her will. At this point, it seems that he's blinded by ambition, and wants his daughter to look good, no matter what. Neviriru, of course, refuses to let Mamiina be her pair. What follows is a bit of random discussion between some of the members of the Chor Tempest. That's another thing I love about these random conversations. The huge amount of characters, in combination with the fact that each of the characters is interesting in some way, makes each of these conversations unique and very enjoyable to watch. Furoe asks whether Aaeru'll be her new pair, though she still has her eye on Neviriru. Yun also is a strange one. She's willing to go with anyone, but she hates war. The only reason she flies as a Sybylla is that all of her friends went to war and died. She couldn't face herself if she avoided it. The next morning, Aaeru seems to be holding the same strange thing that we've seen her with a couple of times. It's never explained what it was. In any case, she looks down her window, and there she sees Neviriru's window. Neviriru, meanwhile, isn't too happy when Mamiina comes bothering her inside the shower. Mamiina shows that she's determined to become Neviriru's pair, though Neviriru shows that she's determined not to let Mamiina be her pair. Aaeru breaks the tension in this conversation when it appears that she used a rope to come down to Neviriru. For the first time ever, we see Neviriru amused again. Mamiina, however, gets angry. Very angry. We then switch to a conversation between Harukonfu (Neviriru's father) and Guraghief. The Chor Tempest is supposed to perform the Dandelion Ri Maajon during the peace conference, and it requires six Simoun to perform it (hence Mamiina and Yun's sudden arrival). Guraghief wonders whether the new members will be able to do it. Harukonfu exits with the phrase that he won't let his daughter get hurt anymore. It seems that the two of them have been separated for too long, as he has the wrong idea about what a "father" means. Then the good stuff finally begins, as we switch to Aaeru and Mamiina in the Maaju Pool. There, Mamiina turns berserk, while she tries to rip Aaeru's suit off. The two of them struggle for a while before others see them and break them apart. Harukonfu then decides to disband the Chor Tempest as soon as the conference is over. He also plans to send Neviriru to the spring as soon as possible. It was really great to see Mamiina break when she heard this. I wonder what happens during this conference. The episode ends as soon as the priests from Plumbum are brought aboard the Arcus Prima. I've read everywhere that episode eight seems to be totally incredible, so I'm really looking forward to that one. I also love the way that there are so many characters who break so many clichés so easily.

A Paraietta episode. Aaeru also keeps trying to bug the hell out of Neviriru. Furthermore, we get some info on Guraghief and Anubitufu.

Though the main focus lies on Paraiette. She’s been with Neviriru ever since she was a child, and of course that creates a certain bond. Amuriya, however, was the one that took Neviriru away from her. Still, Paraietta remained loyal to Neviriru. Now that Neviriru is in crisis, she tries to help her, though it doesn’t really work. This episode mainly served to let her see that Neviriru also felt that she betrayed her. She then manages to convince Neviriru that this wasn’t the fact. The episode ends with Paraietta and Aaeru dueling in the Maaju Pool, Aaeru beating Paraietta and Paraietta acknowledging Aaeru as Neviriru’s partner. Kaimu also played an interesing role. She’s obviously in love with Paraiette, though she knows about her feelings towards Neviriru. She also helps Paraiette see the thing that troubles Neviriru.

So, what were the roles of each of the characters in this episode?
Neviriru: Still in her room, locking herself away.
Aaeru: Mostly trying to get Neviriru to come out of her room. I liked the things she painted on her door.
Paraietta: Realized that Neviriru also was worring about her. Came a bit closer to Kaimu.
Kaimu: Tries to get her feelings through to Paraiette. Works a bit.
Furoe: Keeps acting playful now that they haven’t got any meaningful missions.
Aruti: Stays a bit gloomy and spies on Paraietta and Kaimu. Why?
Rödoreamon and Morinasu: Worry about the state of the Chor Tempest.
Dominüra: Attempts to bring a bit of dicipline back into the Chor Tempest, but she isn’t really enthusiastic in it.
Limone: For some reason still does what she likes to, outside of the missions.
Guraghief and Anubitufu: Seemed to be a pair of Sybylla as well, in their early days.

I finally realized the major flaw of Good Witch of the West: it doesn’t give enough time to let the viewer familiarize himself with the world it created. That’s the cause of all that’s bad in Good Witch, as the viewer doesn’t have the chance to live with the story if he or she hasn’t been introduced in it. That’s the toll that has to be paid when you take a series like that and try to stuff it into thirteen episodes. It would really have been better if that series lasted for two seasons, instead of one.

The fifth episode of Simoun really made me realize this. After all, both series started out with a lot of questions about the world in which the story took place. Simoun’s was even fuzzier than Good Witch of the West’s. Then, however, while Good Witch kept spurting forwards, Simoun grabbed the brakes after the first episode, and has been using episodes 2 to 5 to explain the way the world works, to let the viewer get familiarized with the characters and offer some character development. I really have to say that the system of this anime makes a lot more sense than it did when I started this system.

I also rewatched the first episode, and this also refreshed a lot of my memory. It’s like this, we have several Chors, or groups of Simoun Pilots, otherwise known as Simoun Sybulla. These Chors consist of a number of girls, who work together in order to protect the Imperial Nation (I thought that that was the name of that country, though I’m not sure, sorry). The Simoun don’t attack with bullets or missiles, they attack by drawing patterns in the sky with their Simouns, called Ri Maajons. These then take a few seconds, after which they explode, blowing every enemy away who gets too close. There are a lot of different Ri Maajon, including a huge number which hasn’t been discovered yet. The Ri Maajons range from very easy ones, to very difficult ones, depending on the pattern that has to be flown. There are Ri Maajons who can be performed alone and there are those who need more Simouns in order to perform them. When I saw this in the first episode, I didn’t really like it. Though now that I’ve seen more of it, I realize that this is a brilliant system, and I even want to see more of it.

The Chor Tempest was seen as the most elite of the Chors. It was lead by the most talented Simoun Sibulla ever, Neville. Unfortunately, the first episode changed this, when Neville’s partner was taken by god because of a very powerful Ri Maajon which went wrong, Neville has since then been refusing to patrol, two others were killed and two more went to the spring, deciding which gender they should be. This immediately put a halt to the legend that the Chor Tempest had set.

Anyway, about the episode. It was mostly focused around Limone. She’s a prodigy, and the youngest person ever to be a member of a Chor. At the previous episode, she experienced some pretty horrible things, though the problems didn’t end there. Her case is familiar to Nevilles, though slightly different. In Neville’s case, it was her partner who wanted to become stronger. In Limone’s case, it was Limone herself who wanted to try a Ri Maajon she wasn’t able to do. This resulted an accident, killing her partner, who had warned her that she’d be acting too dangerous. Ever since then, she’s been unconciously holding back while flying in a Simoun.

Then over time, she started to listen more and more to people. She only did things because people told her to do so. During this episode, a new member gets assigned to the Chor Tempest, I believe her name was Dominura. In the first episode, her entire Chor was killed off, leaving her as the sole survivor. She now gets reassigned, in order to bring the Chor Tempest back to the position it once had. She decides to do this by trying to improve the weakest link: Limone (she hasn’t been doing too well, lately, as she’s been holding back). The yellow-haired girl (Furoe) made some nasty remarks about this. Dominura looks quite like an evil character in the beginning, though her actions later in the episode made me doubt about this.

Aaeru’s personality surprised me again this episode. She’s just so incredibly to-the-point. Limone, as she’s getting pressured from all possible sides, asks Aaeru whether she’d mind it if the two of them were separated as a pair. Though Aaeru comes with the true statement that if Limone decided so, that she wouldn’t mind. Everyone has a reason to fly in the Simoun. Aaeru does it because she can’t decide whether to become male or female. Apparently, there’s a law which says that when you reach nineteen, you immediately have to go to the spring, though you’re excluded from this if you’re a Simoun Sybulla. If Limone had no reason at all to fly the Simoun, there’d be no problem is she left.

Anyway, Dominura decides to test Limone by putting her in the pilot’s seat, instead of the navigator’s seat. I’m assuming that ever since that incident in her past, Limone’s been refusing to drive as a pilot. And it shows, as her Simoun really can’t fly straight at all. In any case, there’ve been some rumours about some enemy activity, so two Simouns get sent out to check up on them. It appears to be a large number of enemy land tanks. Dominura’s plan was to use this as an opportunity to get Limone out of her depression, though her plan fails as a blizzard is coming up.

What follows are some very intense, but also very awesome scenes, in which the calm Dominura panics, Limone finds her reason why she wanted to be a Simoun Pilot and she performs, along with Aaeru in another Simoun, one of the more difficult Ri Maajon out there. The one she failed at in the past, which killed her pair. Especially seeing Dominura freak out worked extremely well, as it immediately destroyed the calm, evil image I had of her, which was created by the first half of the episode.

Still, I wonder where this anime is heading. It hasn’t even begun with dealing about all the ethical questions that might be induced. After all, the imperial nation is in a war at the moment, and clearly has the upper hand. The Simoun can instantly kill off entire armies. The Archipelago also really needs the Simoun technology in order to survive and live a better life, though the imperial nation has no intention of giving them the information they need, and keeps sending Simoun to kill off the armies from the Archipelago. What reasons do the characters use to justify this? We’re holy and you’re not, therefore we can use the technology, and you can’t. This gives so much material for the later episodes.

Overall, I liked this episode. It was nice to see Limone struggle like that, and some interesting character background never hurts. Neville still isn’t doing much, though I don’t think that this’ll last for the entire series. The episode wasn’t as good as the previous ones, though I did enjoy it. And the music really is awesome at times.

On a side-note: what exactly are those wire-speaker-thingies that connect the Simoun with each other? Are they just for communication between Simouns, or do they have another purpose?

Heck, I may already be blogging too many anime, so why did I get the crazy idea of including another one to my bloglist? Well, because this anime deserves it. To me, this was the surprise of the season, as my predictions of the spring season seemed to be quite accurately. I never saw this one coming, though, and I have to say, it’s pretty awesome.

Okay, so what has happened so far? The story plays in a world with a unique property: all people are born genderless, though with the shapes of a female. When a person has reached the age of nineteen, she can choose to go to a special shrine, at which she can choose to be either a man or a woman, and reach adulthood. In the world, there’s one country which stands for everything that’s holy. They have holy technology in their posession, including the so called Simoun. These are flying vehicles who can have total flight control in the air, and are most probably the most powerful weapons in existance. The only problem is that only genderless persons can control it, and you need two people for it.

The other countries of the world, however, do not have things that easily. Their countries are polluted, and they are barely able to survive, forced to use technologies which poison their air. They see the Simoun as the way to get them out of their miseries, as these are made with some incredible technology. That’s why they aim for a war against the holy country, in order to capture and research one of these Simouns. So far, they’ve got not much luck, as they’re trying to capture some of the deadliest weapons ever. The story follows one of the groups of these Simoun pilots. At the moment, their group is put on standby, as their leader has just lost a number of very important friends, and needs time to process this.

The thing I like about Simoun is that even though it knows that it doesn’t make any sense, it still is able to deliver some quality drama. Both between main characters, but, as this episode showed, also between main characters and guest characters. It also is able to take some overused clichés, then gives this a huge twist, and it manages to turn these into something worthwile. The main character, for example. She’s incredibly impulsive, just like most other main characters. The difference is that she actually knows what she wants, and she’s not afraid to take actions to do this. She’s a person with a great insight, though she lacks the respect towards others. At the beginning of the anime, she didn’t take any other person’s feelings into account at all.

These first four episodes, Aaeru (the main character) changed. A lot. The other members of the Chor Tempest (the group of Simoun Pilots) made her see a bit what it’s like to be working with others. Not much, but it’s only the fourth episode.

The themes introduced in each episodes also are a major plus. This episode, for example, shows us how desperate some of the members of the other countries can be, the fact that Aaeru’s willing to make some gruesome acts and the heavy themes that this show will be featuring. Aaeru takes another member of the Chor Tempest, Limone, out for a ride on the Simoun, in order to practice (even though this is forbidden). They then notice what looks like a destroyed Simoun, so they land down in order to check things out. Then it seems that the stranded Simoun was fake, and set up by a single member of another country, desperate in an attempt to conquer a Simoun.

This plan, of course, was a huge waste. The guy (who looks very interesting, by the way. I liked it) knocks Aaeru and Limone out, though when he tries to pilot the Simoun, things go wrong, as he’s not genderless and he doesn’t have a pair. Not to mention that he seems to have troubles breathing, probably because of the polluted environment where he came from. When he finds out about the way the Simoun work, he gives up, deciding to wait for help. The three of them (Aaeru and Limone concious, but tied up) wait for a couple of hours. This gives the guy the time to reveal that in The Archipelago (one of the other countries, seems to be the major enemy), the system at which you can go to a spring and choose your gender doesn’t exist in other countries at all. People just get surgeon, the minute they are born. Aaeru also reveals that all of her older friends have gone to the spring, and became mature. She didn’t, as she couldn’t decide what to become.

It’s also interesting that the creators tried to give the viewer a bit of sympathy for this man, right before Aaeru manages to cut her ties loose, and charges for him, which drives him mental. He runs towards the Simoun, and starts shooting at everything he sees moving. Aaeru and Limone hide a bit, and decide to think of a trick to lure the guy away from the Simoun. In the meantime, he dies, while desperately clenching himself to the controls of the Simoun. This results in the fact that his hands, as they’ve become stiff, won’t come off. Aaeru then even goes as far as cutting the guy’s hands off, in order to remove him. That was one disturbing scene, but greatly executed nonetheless. Limone, as she’s much younger than Aaeru can’t take this, and decides to hide and close her eyes. Aaeru herself has great difficulty doing this, even with tears in her eyes. The result is a blood-stained Simoun. A freaky sight, especially when you see Limone’s reaction to this.

Ah well, one of the major reasons I decided to blog this is the following: this show is unique. And with this, I mean not a tiny bit, but really unique. I haven’t figured out what makes it so unique, but I hope to be able to define this later on. I’ve also seen some hints from the raw watchers that around episode 7 this anime begins to get incredible, so I’m very curious about how this will turn out. 🙂