Video Backlog: “Simoun”

Publisher: Anime Works (Media Blasters, USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2006
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

As I may have mentioned before, it was the rather trashy “Kannazuki no Miko” which piqued my interest in Yuri anime. What I particularly liked in that show was the rather intense relationship between the two main female characters. I’ve been trying to find a show which has the same sort of relationship dynamics, but alas, I’ve not come across anything similar. I thought “Simoun” might be what I was looking for. While a very interesting concept, it’s not what I was expecting.

The show’s plot is rather convoluted. The world of “Simoun” is in what I assume to be a parallel universe. Seemingly everyone on this world is born as a female and they choose their gender at around the age of 17 via some sort of ceremony. How this actually works is never explained in the show, but in the country where the bulk of the story takes place, it is overseen by some sort of high priestess. The central story revolves around a number of priestesses in a country called Simulacrum. This country uses a lost technology, the helical motor, which seems to operate through a kind of religious ceremony when two young female priestesses kiss together then kiss the orb on top of the machine. In this case it’s a flying machine named a Simoun. While normally this mostly a ceremonial duty, due to the destructive abilities of the machines, the order of the priestesses have slowly merged into the military, especially with a advent of a war with the neighbouring country Argentum.

While the priestesses are meant to leave the order on their 17th birthday, the war has given them a reprieve. Many have decided to stay on even though they are free to travel to the Spring, the place where the high priestess performs a “ceremony” so they can become a male or remain as a female. However the continuing attacks from Argentum are beginning to put more pressure on the priestesses and their craft. Not only that, but their enemy seems to be jumping leaps and bounds in their technological advances in the continuing war, especially when two enemy countries join forces. More problems arise with the true nature of the helical motor and Simouns are slowly revealed.

I think for the most part, this show had some excellent ideas, but was pretty scattershot in its aim. The other problem is that with all of these ideas; the relationships between the girls, the mysticism and religious belief system, the political drama messing what system, the true nature of the Simouns, the war etc., nothing seems to be adequately explained or explored. It’s all a bit half arsed. I almost gave up only a couple of episodes into the show. I think the main flaw here is that nearly the entire series takes place on the ship where the girls live for most the series. It’s really hard to get any sense of what the general situation is on this planet. We never really get to see anybody else’s view except from those aboard the ship. And because of that things like the war seem rather distant most of the time. There doesn’t seem to be any threat from this war to anyone really. Another thing I found rather curious was the mention in the show that men are still the dominant sex in that world, in particular the mention that they get the best jobs. With everyone on that planet being born female, well, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense really.

The most annoying element is the lack of any real drama or overt sexual tension in the girl’s relationships. I mean for god’s sake, it’s being marketed as a Yuri show. I was really expecting it be filled full of melodramatic shojo-esque moments and lot more overt declarations of love. Instead the show is more like a poor man’s “Last Exile” with a watered down “Maria-sama ga Miteru” laid over the top. Add some quite at time dodgy animation. The effect of water colour-like backgrounds and some rather awkward looking and at times poorly rendered CG ships and aircraft, is quite jarring. The music, especially in some of the earlier episodes can be rather inappropriate. Oddly the music is rather orchestral pieces during the initial episodes, but soon heads into cheap electronica. Also off-putting was the fact everyone, including all the males, were voiced by women. With the rather bishonen look on most of the males, it was hard to tell who was male or female at times. Also not helping was Media Blasters’ subtitling of the show. All the foreign countries had their own language (which just seems to be Japanese played backwards), but they have subtitled it as “Foreign” every time. Not even in brackets, just “Foreign” by itself in italics. For a while I didn’t realise why every single enemy combatant was saying the same single word. Why couldn’t they be arsed to sub it as “[Foreign Language]” or something similar? How hard could that be?

But despite all this, I did manage to connect with the show about a quarter the way into it. I was expecting some light sci-fi Yuri, but got a completely different show. While on the Yuri relationship side of things it really isn’t much to write home about, a lot of the mysteries and a bit of the political side of things drew me in and made the show rather enjoyable. I’ll give in 6.5 out of 10. I would have given it a lot more, but there are lot of unbalanced elements (some of these elements should have been pruned back or removed entirely) in the show which bring the score down.

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).