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. 🙂
