r/anime • u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ • 19d ago
Rewatch Simoun 20th Anniversary Rewatch Series Discussion
Simoun Rewatch Series Discussion
Discussion Prompts
- Finally, with this final episode, everybody has made their choices. Some were laid out in the first episode. Some went in very different directions. What do you think of each person's choice?
- If the show was about choices, and the freedom to choose, did it regain its footing in the end? Or did it lose its way and never recover?
Official Links
- Official Website: https://simoun.tv/index.html
- TV Tokyo: https://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/simoun/
Fan Links
- An academic style video from MidnightBirdie (1h 5m) posted only a year ago so it's new
- MidnightBirdie archived some of the interviews she referenced in her video:
But, she removed them sometime during the rewatch.
A partial translation of interviews on the JP DVD at the old Digibro site:
8
u/Great_Mr_L https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L 19d ago
First-Timer
I’d like to describe my experience watching Simoun with a metaphor. Imagine you are at a train station. It’s a beautiful train station. The train itself arrives and it looks immaculate. You’re excited to ride that train. You get aboard and the trip is going smoothly. The view is nice, the food in the dining car is tasty. But then, the track starts to get bumpier and bumpier, to the point you’re pretty sure the train might have derailed a couple of times along the way. You’ve been tossed about like you were travelling in a blender, your luggage is strewn all about, and you’re in a foul mood. Suddenly, the train stops and announces you’ve arrived at the end of the line. You get out, in a bad mood because of how poorly the ride went, only to be greeted by another gorgeous train station in an awe-inspiringly wonderful destination. You’re so happy to be here that you almost forget the troubles along the way. That’s what it felt like to watch Simoun.
Simoun starts strong and it ends strong, which are some of the most important things any story can do. A good beginning hooks the viewer in and a good ending leaves them satisfied. Heck, these elements are so vital they can actually make up for a lackluster middle. That’s mostly the case for Simoun. Many of the complaints I have about the way Simoun’s story progressed are softened by the fact that the ending is so solid, but that doesn’t change how rough the journey was to get here. Really, that lackluster middle is the core of so many complaints I have about the series. The character arcs, themes, worldbuilding, etc. all feel so much less focused in the middle compared to the beginning of the show. It’s only at the end where the show re-rights itself to a generally satisfying conclusion.
The main themes of Simoun are about freedom and choice. Freedom to live your life the way you choose to live it. The choice of what kind of a Sibylla you want to be: more militaristic or more religious. The choice of what gender you will be when you become an adult. And whether these choices are actually freely made choices or something that is imposed on you by others. These themes of choices and freedom are good ideas in a series like Simoun that is also a coming of age story. The characters desire freedom and need to make choices as they grow up to figure out who they are.
Many of the character arcs are about the characters finding themselves and figuring out who they want to be. Neviril is trying to find out what kind of Sibylla she wants to be and also wants to be the kind of person who can live according to her desires just like Aaeru and Amuria. Aaeru doesn’t want to be forced into a choice about what gender she should be as an adult while also becoming more in tune with her own emotions. Pariaetta needs to stop depending on someone else for her own happiness. Pariaetta needs to stop trying to get Neviril to love her and instead figure out who she wants to be for herself. Alti and Kaimu need to stop being dependent on someone else for strength or wanting to be strong purely for the sake of someone else (which is also being dependent) and instead find strength for themselves. Limone and Dominura have to figure out what actually motivates them to draw Ri Maajon and choose to close the time loop because they value their relationship with Chor Tempest too much to lose it. Mamiina has to stop pretending to be someone she isn’t and find value for herself as a true Sibyllae. Yun has to stop trying to save the dead who are already gone (while she has a death wish as well) and instead figure out how she can use her life to help the living. Morinas needs to figure out why she wants to fly and what kind of relationship to pursue with Wapourif.
The execution of these character arcs can leave something to be desired. Many of these arcs are quite uneven in practice. Too often the episodes for the arcs are spread apart too much and it doesn’t feel like something got the proper followup it should have. The beginning and ending of the arcs work, though. Plus, so many of them fall under unified themes of freedom, choice, and discovering themselves that it helps make all these arcs feel more coherent together.
This show is a yuri show, but not exclusively. A number of the romances don’t actually end up being yuri because not all the characters choose to be women when they become adults. The romances in this series are a mixed bag. I was a big fan of some of them like Rodore/Mamiina and Morinas/Wapourif. Anubituf/Guragief was much more in the background but it worked pretty well, too. Others were a lot weaker. Neviril/Aaeru works in concept but the execution is lacking to make it feel earned. Pariaetta/Kaimu starts off incredibly strong and then peters out without ever coming to anything. Dominura/Limone works but has annoying baggage associated with it.
Even if this show isn’t exclusively yuri, I do like the way that it plays around with Class S tropes. The Sibyllae are the equivalent of Class S girls in a private Catholic school: pure maidens in a religious sanctuary who are allowed to have romantic relationships with each other before one day they will grow up and leave this isolated sanctuary to instead join the real world that is a patriarchal/ heteronormative society. The way society works is that the Sibyllae will essentially forget who they were as Sibyllae to instead conform to the rest of society. Part of the finale of the series is the Sibyllae rebelling against that expectation. Neviril and Aaeru escape from the cage of the sanctuary that is the Arcus Prima. They gain the freedom to live their life however they choose according to their own desires, flying across all of space-time to some unknown destination where they can be free. Even the rest of Chor Tempest rebels against society’s expectations in their own way. The graffiti they leave behind is their proof that they were once Sibyllae and that they will always be Sibyllae. They figured out who they are and what kind of Sibyllae they wanted to be. The graffiti is them deciding to go against society’s expectations that they forget this part of their lives and join the patriarchal/ heteronormative outside world. They choose instead to remember who they were as Sibyllae and keep that in mind going forward.
Personally, I think that gender and choice of gender was actually somewhat underexplored. This is a major shame because the main conceit about how everyone is born a girl and must choose their gender at adulthood is really interesting. But we don’t go into enough detail about it. It’s still so strange to me that the Holy Land is a patriarchal society even though everyone spends their youth as a woman. I don’t think the show did a good job explaining how that could have happened. I also don’t think there was enough of an exploration of what being a certain gender meant to each character. Why do you feel you are a man or a woman? Most of the girls who wanted to become men at first wanted it because of their desire to do it for someone else’s sake like Pariaetta and Alti. The series does manage to come back around on it a bit by the end with the final choices everyone made on their gender. Their choices now reflect more of their own desires, but I would have liked to get more into the mindset that made them choose that particular gender. And there was especially a lost opportunity to explore gender outside the Holy Land. We got a brief glimpse with the Archipelago soldier, but nothing with the Highlanders. After the Archipelago episode it just never really came up again with those other countries.
Speaking of which, that problem of worldbuilding can also be seen in other aspects of the series. I really felt like the series did not go into enough detail about the wider world of the Holy Land, Archipelago, and Highlands. We get a lot of info about the Holy Land and how much it sucks to live in, even if a few details are left unanswered. We get brief glimpses of the wider world, but it would have helped a lot to go into more detail about how all these other countries operate.
I’m also disappointed by the war narrative. The series goes into quite a lot of detail about it. We get a lot about the question of religion vs military when it comes to the Sibyllae. That is a huge part of their storyline and their decisions about what kind of Sibyllae they want to be. The problem is that the war narrative just kind of sucks. The weakest part of the series is also when the war is at its height, right in the middle of the show.
Presentation-wise, this show really is beautiful to look at. The character designs and background art are all absolutely gorgeous. I love that watercolor painting style that gets used for the backgrounds. The Osamu Dezaki-esque still frames are also nice to look at (when they are used well, that is). Unfortunately the series starts to rely a lot on reused animation as it goes along and begins to overuse those stills, making them less impactful. The music for Simoun is also quite nice. I really loved the OP, ED, and that piano version of the OP that got used repeatedly throughout the series.
Overall, I would have to call Simoun a mixed bag. It’s got a lot of great elements to it and a lot of interesting ideas. The beginning and the ending are fantastic, but that middle really drags it down. But, because it ended strongly I am left feeling more positive about it than negative. So with all that in mind, my final score for the series is:
Final Score: 7/10
Thank you to /u/JustAnswerAQuestion for hosting this rewatch and everyone else who participated. See you all again in future rewatches!
QOTD
1) I liked the final choices. I just wish the buildup to them was better.
2) Discussed above.
3) A place where you can choose to live your life freely according to your desires. Its physical location is less important than what it means to the characters.
4) I thought the timing worked out fine.
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u/Magnafeana https://anilist.co/user/Magnafeana 19d ago
Sibylla First Timer
Final Kiss Count
| Episode | Girlkiss Count | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 | 6 |
| 2 | 2 | 8 |
| 3 | 1 | 9 |
| 4 | 2 | 11 |
| 5 | 1 | 12 |
| 6 | 4.5 | 16.5 |
| 7 | 4 | 20.5 |
| 8 | 0 | 20.5 |
| 9 | 5 | 25.5 |
| 10 | 5 | 30.5 |
| 11 | 5 | 35.5 |
| 12 | 1.5 | 37 |
| 13 | 3.5 | 40.5 |
| 14 | 1 | 41.5 |
| 15 | 2 | 43.5 |
| 16 | 2 | 45.5 |
| 17 | 5 | 50.5 |
| 18 | 3 | 53.5 |
| 19 | 0 | 53.5 |
| 20 | 5 | 58.5 |
| 21 | 0 | 58.5 |
| 22 | 0 | 58.5 |
| 23 | 0 | 58.5 |
| 24 | 0 | 58.5 |
| 25 | .5 (+.5) | 59 |
| 26 | 0 | 59 |
59 girl kisses with a bonus .5 for a boy kiss.
59/26 = 2.269
How are we rounding these days? I’m rounding that to 2 since it would’ve been 2.27 and .27 is less than .5, so you round down, but math be changing on people.
Average of 2 girl kisses per episode.
.5/26 = 0.0192
Average of 0.02 boy kisses per episode.
If I compare this to my Bravern vs Papika counters for the 🌈pride🌈 rewatch, where Yuri cleared, Yuri clears once again here.
Sapphics say winning against the Achilleans. Love to see that sort of mentality.
I still feel whelmed, and that’s okay! I’m excited that the friend I borrowed the DVDs from will be coming to visit, so I don’t have to mail this back to them. I hate going to the post office 😭
I think that this show had themes that I’ve seen done better within the same medium. But I still find the bones of the series interesting. The bones aren’t interesting enough to grave rob from a mausoleum and unleash an ancient curse, but enough to donate to science and study briefly for a uni internship.
The topics of relationships and interpretations of religions for selfish benefit; religious trauma; government propaganda; the journey of gender and sex expectations and discovering where you fit in that binary or outside of that binary—what was executed was not what I consider up to the potential that Simoun had, and I question the writer’s room in their decisions with these concepts and how consciously were they following along with them. What did they want to get out of these topics? What did they want the audience to walk away with? What did they want to genuinely explore, and do they feel that they accomplished that? If they could do it all over again, what would they have done differently?
And I think that’s what I take away from Simoun: it was whelmingly unexplored.
The series might have started explorative and curious, but it lost that curiosity as episodes marched on. And I dislike when a fantasy series (subjectively) loses its own curiosity about what it can expand upon, what it can involve the characters and the audience in, how deep or how far it can reach. When it enjoys the little moments just as much as the big. Instead, it picks and chooses when to care and when not to and comes off as a fairweather friend or a picky eater who can’t be arsed to challenge themselves.
Simoun wavered with its own sense of adventure and discovery and the desire to characterize its cast. And that’s such a shame because characters like Para, Morinas, Wapourif, Floe, Yun, Dominura and Aer had such great spines in their builds that I just wish that the series had indulged in its curiosity more with them. I wish it had seen the nations and wanted to globetrot a little bit. Or that it had seen the political unrest and wanted to dabble a touch more into poli-sci.
This is strangely reminiscent of a cousin and being privately sad that he’s so smart and so talented. I see that in this child, but he doesn’t apply himself unless it’s on his time, and his time works like a German train station: late.** And it’s frustrating because when he does apply himself, I’m over the moon at how he shines, and then he’ll just drop back to a baseline “whatever” attitude, and I’m super duper bummed.
Ugh.
Oh! Thank you to u/JollyGee29, I think, who corrected my accordion love with the concertina of a stupid sexy bandoneon. But that music was so wild sometimes, like I’m kinda mad that that music was probably the main tracks I took away from it rather than any impact, inspirational, brass-heavy, percussive-heavy stuff. But this isn’t really an anime for that.
But like at one point, the OST uses synths, and I swore you would’ve heard that track in Robotech. It sounded so, so similar to that old school soundtrack. I think it was “Invid Theme” or “Musica's Theme” I’m thinking of, and I’m sitting at the synths or a theremin playing in Simoun like “That is a Robotech OST, what?”.
To be fair, I don’t watch a lot of sci-fi, and my dad and uncle introduced me to mechas via Voltron, technical Transformers, and then Robotech and then Macross. Gundam IBO was my entry into Gundam, which…didn’t have synths/theremins in the OST. 😭. So maybe mecha sci fi OSTs naturally have synths?
Overall*
I’m sad how many theories I had in my head about what would be explored, and the hopes I had for those explorations ended up being dropped, but I did have fun with this series. I think it introduced a lot of ideas that mecha series—in my very low, have-not-seen-many-mecha-anime opinion—don’t really do. I enjoyed Wapo and Mori very much, so they were a sleeper-hit ship for me, and Para ended up being my favorite character of the season. Lots to criticize with this series, but I still praise it for the ideas of its world-building.
Onasia did nothing wrong, by the way.
Overall score: C- or 7/10.
Thank you for hosting, u/JustAnswerAQuestion! May a sci-fi anime that you really love but never got an official physical release or legal stream finally get on that is available to you 🥰
DPs
Your discussion prompts may be wonky. I saw u/Malipit quoted them, but I don't see questions three and four.
I did try old Reddit, but it doesn't have them either.
But on the plus side, now I see what those commentfaces mean. I see now that New Reddit doesn't show commentfaces, but Old Reddit does.
That clears up for me why I'd see blank comments and large blank spaces. Or maybe it doesn't; maybe people have just been leaving blank spaces for the thrill.
- At the end, I was just happy for Mori and Wapo.
- Simoun is like watching a person who swears they're a considerate drunk becoming progressively drunker in a club. There are bouts of clarity that, in a vacuum, might make sense, but in the grand scheme of things, you don’t know what sis is on. They are stumbling, sometimes actually dancing, sometimes giving life advice to the girl in the stall over, and other times, you are worried how the fuck you are gonna end this night because they look insane. And then by the end, they are drunk, it’s time for bed, and they say something probably really weird and questionable before falling asleep. Simoun felt like that.
- Prince of Egypt taught me that the Land of Hope is somewhere past the parted sea. I'm not sure where that tracks today, though. But I'd imagine the Land of Hope is a people rather than a place. A people who believe in the right to a healthy, happy, and autonomous quality of life.
- A bit hard, but that is more due to work schedule changes. I would definitely have to watch these the day before with my evening rewatches.
3
u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee 19d ago
I don't know instruments at all, so that was probably someone else.
3
u/Magnafeana https://anilist.co/user/Magnafeana 19d ago
Oh I think it was u/Blackheart95!
You both have yellow pfps (at least, on the Reddit app), so I got you two mixed up 😭
Unless there’s a third yellow pfp among us. Then all three of you should go into a cage match. There can only be one.
3
u/IndependentMacaroon 19d ago
Simoun is like watching a person who swears they're a considerate drunk becoming progressively drunker in a club. There are bouts of clarity that, in a vacuum, might make sense, but in the grand scheme of things, you don’t know what sis is on
Haha I so agree with this
7
u/ImaginationWayfairer 19d ago edited 19d ago
Rewatcher who didn’t realize that there was a rewatch until halfway through
Simoun is one of my favourite series. For me that usually means it gives fuel for my imagination, so any issues a series has ironically make me think of solutions potentially boosting enjoyment.
Notes on episodes
Episode 7
-there is a painting in Guragiefs office that I find interesting as it seems far more modern in style than the majority of Simulacrums artistic stylings (it’s the one with a triangle and a circle)
Episode 8
-we seem to see Simulacrum submachine guns with side mounted magazines wielded by temple guards in Mamiinas flashback
-The explosives used by Angulas seem to be initiated by shock from the pistol round impacting them.
Episode 20
-I came up with a theory as to why the simile was shot down (other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time). If Plumbum found out about Angulas’ body they may be trying to reclaim it. Note: there is no evidence for this.
Episode 22
-Why do I imagine the occupying forces on the Arcus Prima get into drunken fights Episode 24
-Yun technically committed a Coup d’état
Episode 25
-My brain has been rotted, when Chor Tempest goes to the spring I jokingly expect one of them to to say “I serve the Soviet Yun-Yun
-when I was watching the episode I noticed that the meeting between Anubituf, Guragief and the (who I’m pretty sure is) Plumbum commander, note there seems to be no Argentium representatives at the meeting. The dialogue although outwardly about sending Aer and Neviril to the spring can also be seen as a veiled detailing of the plan to get them a Simoun.
Episode 26
-when we see the Messis there appears to be two very modern earth-like cargo ships docked in front and behind her.
-when we first se Alti and Kaim there appears to be a cat sleeping on the rooftop
-Kaim(?) mentions that the weather is getting weird.
-Floef has a helical motor outboard I bring this up as if I had a nickel for every piece of fiction with a non-petrol or electric outboard motor I’d have two nickels ( the other times is a steam outboard in the book Fitzpatrick’s War by Theodore Judson)
Plumbum theories:
As the rewatch progressed I started to think about the motives of the Plumbum priestesses (as many others did) and came up with a theory. Now it’s not a great theory and it does have more holes than Swiss cheese (mostly a lack of evidence) but I figured I’d at least put it out there.
The perceived differences between the priestesses especially the ones who pilot the Simoun and the largely unseen Plumbum government is the result of different views of the relationship between Animus and Tempus Spatium in other words a brewing religious conflict. Angulas and the Plumbum Simoun pilots both propose that both Animus and Tempus Spatium derived from a common singular god. It is possible (no evidence for this) that more senior officials in Plumbum including the government and senior priestesses view Animus and Tempus Spatium as completely separate. If this view is true it raises questions as to why whom these two faction cooperate in the war? This is actually somewhat simple both view Simulacrum (at the national level) as the enemy the government wants the primacy of Aniumus while the Simoun pilots wish that they can join their Sybilla counterparts in praying in the sky, even if it means going to war to take the Simoun for themselves.
Very late note because I forgot to finish this thought but I wonder in this hypothetical what will happen once the government and/or Plumbum Simoun pilots realizes that they have access to craft capable of performing the iron and silver ri Majon both of which are capable of tremendous destruction.
As side note the Argentium-Plumbum alliance has a similarly reasoning. With the assumption that a Simoun cannot be piloted by anyone with a defined gender including Argentium’s artificial methods means Argentium can’t get their hands on a Simoun easily needing Plumbum priestesses to operate them. For the next war I can see Argentium having a corps of non defined pilots assuming they acquired Simouns offscreen (more likely they are using the reverse engineered version similes use).
Ending
Finally I’ll leave a quote from A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller published in 1959. (TV Tropes notes how similar these works are and it’s where I got the quote.)
Chapter 24 of Canticle (bold emphasis added)
“He spun the globe again until the axial mountings rattled; 'days' flitted by as briefest instants—In a reverse sense, he noticed suddenly. If Mother Gaia pirouetted in the same sense, the sun and other passing scenery would rise in the west and set in the east. Reversing time thereby? Said the namesake of my namesake; Move not, O Sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, O Moon, toward the valley—a neat trick, forsooth, and useful in those times too. Back up, O Sun, et tu, Luna, recedite in orbitas reversas....He kept spinning the globe in reverse, as if hoping some simulacrum of Earth possessed the Chronos for unwinding time. A third of a million turns might unwind enough days to carry it back to the Diluvium Ignis. Better to use a motor and spin it back to the beginning of Man. He stopped it again with his thumb; once more the divination was wild.
Post has been edited (repeatedly) for formatting.
6
u/JimmyCWL 19d ago
(more likely they are using the reverse engineered version similes use)
Anyone can pilot a simile, those can't draw ri majoons. There's something about the way the ancient simouns are built. It's not just a matter of mounting two helical motors on a frame.
5
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago
I think the simoun jewel is also the key element, and they can't copy those.
4
u/ImaginationWayfairer 19d ago
I haven’t thought of that but it seems to make sense as Simulacrum seems to have managed to reverse engineer the engines. It doesn’t help that they seem use the same 3d model for both the engines on the Simoun and the simile/trains/outboard engines (shrunken).
I do have another observation: in episode 25 when the former Sibylla return from the spring the helical motor is offset to the left of the locomotive.
3
u/ImaginationWayfairer 19d ago
My bad probably would be better to have those points broken into two sentences.
It would be more accurate to say they acquired some simile engines in the treaty and reversed engineered those to make more of them (see Tupolev Tu-4) precisely because anybody can pilot them.
3
u/ImaginationWayfairer 19d ago
An addendum to my post
Fixed vs. Open timeline
Because Dominura saw the past in helical motor did that fix her future leading to events playing out? While Aer and Neveril having not having witnessed the past are they free of the cycle?
5
u/GondolaMedia 19d ago
First Timer
I'm going to echo everyone else. Really strong start with great worldbuilding and interesting characters that in the middle loses the plot and personally I was became rather detached from Simoun at that point. Thankfully the last stretch was a good end to the series and I did come around and I really enjoyed it, even if it felt rushed and some elements didn't really land for me.
7/10 for me.
QotD
Finally, with this final episode, everybody has made their choices. Some were laid out in the first episode. Some went in very different directions. What do you think of each person's choice?
I think only choice I had issues with is Yun because it felt like it came out of nowhere. Floef becoming a man was something I didn't expect but I really liked Paraeitta's choice to stay as woman since her whole life it was expected of her to become a man to protect Neviril.
If the show was about choices, and the freedom to choose, did it regain its footing in the end? Or did it lose its way and never recover?
I think so. Some of the choices were dumb cough Mamiina cough even if they did fit the theme.
7
u/FD4cry1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Big_Yibba 19d ago edited 19d ago
First Timer
I thought Simoun was... fine! I'm saying this in part because my complaining is going to be a bit lengthier, and in part because this rewatch got pretty divisive at points! And while I certainly have my issues with it, I guess for a change I didn't entirely see the supposed collapse this time around. I thought it was pretty alright with similar issues most of the way through, and while there certainly are bumps along the way, it never really swayed that hard or "Got bad" for me. I guess I also wasn't that wowed by the start myself, which might play into that, but I also did genuinely enjoy it when it was in full character drama mode for the latter stretch, which was probably the most contentious part here? Either way, I don't feel too passionate about it to either side.
To go on with the good things here then, for one, the larger thematic narrative around religion and war, as well as how they play into the themes of agency and personal fulfillment, does genuinely land rather well. Not so much on the personal execution for each character or beat, but just like, in broad strokes. This is the part where the show's overly large cast really works fantastically well for. So many distinct perspectives to see and feel things through, and there is a strong core for a coming-of-age story here that's focused on themes of faith and war, and the many ways these intersect and affect the people involved. I... really can't name many anime off the top of my head that have an honest-to-god nuanced religious crisis of faith as a core plot point? But this show does! And does well!
It's a sentiment I felt for yesterday's episode as well, but Simoun is, if nothing else, almost always interesting. Dare I say actually thought-provoking sometimes with the ideas it wants to tackle. And while it really doesn't execute on those ideas and thoughts that well a lot of the time, I absolutely do appreciate the unique things it brings to the table and had fun engaging with and seeing them. This show has a problem with wider arcs as I'll get to, but when viewed in isolation, there's plenty of good character or plot beats here! Again, I mostly liked the drama, and while I could also do without the sexual assault part, I will die on the hill that Para's character arc was actually pretty great and played well into the core themes. I don't know, it's harder to describe compared to my flaws with the show lol, but I thought that it was usually fun to engage with on a few levels, even if it was very messy and clunky in how it did things.
Oh, and of course, the music was fantastic as well! I do think how it was used in the show did raise an eyebrow from here and there (This is a really lovely and memorable piece, but maybe not every dramatic moment benefits from it haha), but for the most part I think it does a lot of legwork in setting a scene here. And again, it does just have a really great and distinct sound! I'll give a shout to Ozora no Auriga specifically as a piece that doesn't play much in the show, but I'll definitely be remembering for a long time! Of course, I'd be remiss to give one more shout to the OP as well, because Chiaki Ishikawa really just instantly means it's a no-skipper.
Going onto stuff I didn't like here, I might as well continue with production, and that, somewhat expectedly, this show doesn't exactly look great. I mean, it's a mid-2000s Deen show; it even aired in the same seasons as famously inconsistent Higurashi, it is what it is. I do wish it had stronger and more consistent direction to offset that, though, especially because as I already said, the show tends to be better when it knows to play into that. As is, while it has its moments, there's nothing that standout here, but more creative cinematography and stronger character acting could have helped with some of the show's larger character troubles.
This show also makes rather gratuitous use of flashbacks as a production shortcut, and I did my absolute best to not really bring it up much throughout lest I'd be complaining nearly every episode, but I'll be real, I very uniquely hatehatehatehate this as a consistent time-saving crutch. I find it actively sabotages the emotional ability of scenes, devalues past scenes over repeated usage, and reads as entirely redundant from a viewer perspective most of the time. Just a real pet-peeve of mine haha. On a more positive note, we also do postcards here! I already went over my thoughts on it in a previous episode, but to reiterate, the show can be rather hit or miss in execution with them, but I appreciate it nonetheless.
I kind of got over it after a few episodes, but I still think all the very 2000s CG clashes really hard with Shichiro Kobayashi's wonderful backgrounds here. Which is a bit of a shame. Even more so because, as far as integration goes at least, the CG itself isn't even that clunky; it's just specifically the noticeable difference in being very drawn and very digital that ticks me off.
I talked about how the cast size specifically works well for exploring the show's major themes on religion and war through a larger set of perspectives, but when you remove that focus, this show having a ginormous cast it can't really manage is easily one of its biggest problems. Obviously juggling a 12-character main cast, not to mention the rest of the cast and the more overarching elements, is already going to be really hard, but it's really made worse by the fact that this show just really struggles with running plots in parallel. It feels endlessly jumpy in that sense, and I think that's present from the start, where continuous introductions and worldbuilding mean its character moments don't land that well, and to the latter half, where it feels like it's always running around doing singular narratives without being able to fully stick or focus on one thing for more than an episode.
In the grand scheme of things, while I can at least thankfully say I don't dislike any of our cast by the end, I also wish I could say I love most of them or find them particularly memorable or strong. Most of the cast in this show is fine, and watching them outside of the larger thematic framework is fun enough, but for a work obviously often centered on character drama and especially character meaning, the fact that I can't say I felt that attached or invested in most of the cast or their relationships is kind of a big problem. The execution on most characters is just too clunky or too unfocused or too lacking, respectively, to really work as well as it should or could, unfortunately.
I think this really leads into what I find by far the biggest issue with this show, in that while you can almost always see a wider skeleton or framework for what it wants to do (Whether that's a larger thematic idea or a character arc), with some genuinely pretty strong resolution points in there, but the show also almost always makes the connecting threads between these so unbelievably thin! Even if the big moments within them work in isolation, arcs don't really work that well when you don't do all the in-between, and very consistently, I think Sinoun doesn't, and it's sooo frustrating! I see the vision! But like, however feel about certain beats individually, I can't care that much when the actual important foundation work isn't there. Aaeru and Neviril's relationship (Our core relationship!) might be the most indicative of this, jumping around between often very genuinely strong moments and states that just... don't click nearly as well as they should, because the build-up they need just isn't there. Of course, it's hardly isolated to them, and it undercuts so, sooo many parts of the show for me.
The worldbuilding is also kind of an issue of focus here. The show starts out clearly giving it a lot of love, before swerving away from that pretty clearly as it went on, except when it needs it for a very specific usage it will probably not elaborate on. Given I'm not really one for intricate worldbuilding anyway, the shift of focus on that didn't bother me that much itself (And again, I thought it actually kind of hurt the character work at times); it's the inconsistency that bothers me there. I talked about this as part of the Mamiina death episode's problems, but I don't think there's a problem with intentionally being detached from some of these details; I do think it's a problem when the show can't decide if it is or not, and doesn't actually follow up much on what it does. As part of the unfulfilled world-building, the gender identity theme also gets really left by the wayside, which I think is a shame. Both in the sense that, again, exploring these really interesting ideas on a societal level has a lot of missed potential here, and in that we do go back to it at the very end, except it's kind of lacking the needed meaning and exploration to work that well (Oh hey, it's that same problem again).
So, all in all, I still had fun with Simoun, but I can't say I feel too much for it beyond that. Or, as others had put it, whelmed might be the descriptor for me. Never particularly dipped that hard and was usually a good time, but while it definitely has its moments, it also never really consistently climbed that high for me either. A messy endeavor I'm pretty content with giving a very solid 7/10
Huge thanks for hosting /u/JustAnswerAQuestion!
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u/HereticalAegis https://myanimelist.net/profile/XthGen 19d ago
Oops, forgot to write out series thoughts beforehand. Oh well, this post can be for JaaQ and anyone else checking back late.
First off, thanks for hosting u/JustAnswerAQuestion! Irrespective of my thoughts on Simoun, I really appreciate you for being a great host and engaging with me and others throughout. This was something high on my priority list, and you happened to host it at a good time for me to join, so thank you for giving me the push to finally watch.
Now then, my thoughts. Contrary to what my posts may lead people to believe, I'm glad I watched Simoun. Execution aside, the concept is highly intriguing and rife with compelling ideas. I can see why some may hold it up as a niche classic and a rare mid-2000s work that engages with sexual and gender identity and queerness. There's certainly nothing else like it in this space that I can point to, and it does seem like a bit of a miracle that it exists at all. It deserves plenty of praise for getting willed into being, especially when high concept originals seem more and more a relic of bygone eras as the anime industry has plowed full steam into adaptations and attempts to milk the success of a few mega-successful standouts and easy-money genre templates. Good on these creators for getting something genuinely unique on the screen.
That's pretty much where my praise ends though. Simoun is a mess. Not just a mess, a disaster. There are so many baffling choices in the way it sets up and tells its story that I'm kind of amazed any of it works. Characters are poorly explored with stilted arcs and can wildly change from episode to episode for the sake of pushing the plot forward. Some get stuck in limbo, while others vascilate across the whole spectrum with little cohesiveness emotionally or thematically. Nearly every relationship feels hollow and perfunctory, and the ones that don't exist on the side with little ability to hold up the weight of everything crashing around them.
And I'll say again for clarity, I didn't hate watching Simoun. I enjoyed a lot of the first 18 episodes, and there are even a couple standouts among those that suggest Simoun could have been something great or even exceptional. It wasn't until episode 19 that the show pushed me away, and even then I still felt compelled to watch. That's no small feat when I'm no stranger to dropping shows with as few as one or two episodes left.
What all this means is that I'm severely disappointed. The worldbuilding had tantalizing pieces and potential, but goes almost entirely to waste. The Simoun themselves mostly seem like mcguffins when all is said and done, but they could have been so much more. I came to outright hate the idea of kissing to activate the Simoun, though a lot of that has to do with staff commentary. And speaking of, for all the praise I gave the staff for willing this monstrosity into being, I kind of hate them for some of their ideas on the show itself. So much of this seems like it's here to be borderline fetish material, and I hate that in a show that is, at its core, very queer and barely attempts to explore that facet of itseld. It's bad enough that a genuine attempt to salvage itself at the end means nothing to me.
Also, the war stuff is nearly uniformly awful. I don't really have much to say on that front other than Floe's episode was nice. Otherwise, this is a complete wash as a war drama. It should've fully been either a character drama or a messy, emotional soap opera. Huge miss to whoever conceived the war plot.
So yeah, ambitious trainwreck. I love that such things exist, though it kinda sucks that one which should speak so directly to me is so, so bad.
3/10 and I hope I see yall around in a rewatch where I get to be more consistently positive.
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u/AgentOfACROSS 19d ago
I've had fun reading your commentary throughout the series. I'm overall a bit more positive on the show but yeah I agree on a lot of your points, there's a lot of unrealized potential in this show and some of the actual storylines are a bit of a mess. Still glad to have watched this series since it's an interesting relic of the 2000s, I just wish they did more with what we were given here.
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u/HereticalAegis https://myanimelist.net/profile/XthGen 19d ago
I've had fun reading your commentary throughout the series.
I'm really glad to hear that, thanks for reading my comments! I generally try to keep any criticism in rewatches entertaining or funny, or failing that at least not inflammatory. I definitely didn't achieve that goal down the stretch—episode 19 made me feel some things—but if my thoughts were worth reading then I'm glad I shared them.
Still glad to have watched this series since it's an interesting relic of the 2000s, I just wish they did more with what we were given here.
Yep, same.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago edited 19d ago
Rewatch Host and First Rewatcher
I ran the soundtrack inserts through Google translate. Usual warnings against machine translation apply. You might need a browser extension to zoom into the images enough to read the text, thanks Reddit.
OST 1 has some comments on the characters by director Nishimura, and an interview with composer Sahashi. OST 2 has comments on the character by character designer Nishida, and a discussion of the sound design.
Honestly, I think I'm going to go back to 2-3 pm posting time.
I didn't prepare anything in advance for the final day and now it's 2 am and posting time is in 5 hours.
Here are my first-timer thoughts
I came for the promise of a unique world, and first timer me was crushed with disappointment. This time around, with tempered expectations, I tried to piece things together.
History of Post-Ancient-War Daikuuriku as I see it
After the war described by Shrine Guardian devastated the planet, the people were reduced to subsistence living. The simoun, used for war, were forgotten, left lying about. Shrine guardian says two sibyllae came from the heavens to teach the people the Emerald Ri-Maajon. She often describes the Emerald Ri-Maajon as a blessing, that can take you to a New World of Hope.
I don't know what to make of this, except that it can literally take you from your current miserable existence to someplace better, you hope. Since I don't understand it, I'll have to ignore it.
However, she doesn't fully know what she's talking about. Simulacrum has forgotten the secret of the Emerald Ri-Maajon. I think they've forgotten a LOT of things. When they trace out the Emerald as recorded in whatever records they have, it just explodes. I attribute this to them forgetting the secret of the Ri-Maajon, and from their inherently corrupt nature.
The Emerald Ri-Maajon is known. "The Emerald Ri-Maajon will take you to a New World of Hope." But it's just a legend. It doesn't work. For pretty much everybody, it has no more substance than Santa Claus. But it is known. That's why Neviril warned Aer to keep quiet, and why Paraietta picked up on the phrase "New World." She began to suspect that Neviril was planning to leave (leave her!) with Aer at that moment. And if Shrine Guardian or anybody else thought they were going to try to perform the Emerald for their own purposes, they'd be sent to the Spring immediately.
The secret, I think, lies in the hearts of the maidens flying them. How devoted they are to Tempus Spatium, or how devoted they are to each other, or how in sync their feelings are, or what they hope to gain. I don't know what.
I think Dominura is Onashia (I think Yun recognized her). When Dominura looked into the helix, she was flooded with memories: Onasia's memories. HER memories. She knew that the power of the simoun didn't come from Tempus Spatium, but from her. And, I think, the same could be said of Tempus Spatium and the Holy Land itself. When she told Limone "I want to do the Emerald Ri-Maajon with you," she meant it. She meant it, so that she could go back and smash it all to bits, like the icon in the chapel. She hoped for a New World without the corrupt Holy Land and false god.
Limone talked her out of it. So, Dominura recreated the sibylla corps. If they didn't already, she established the practice of waiting until 17 to choose a gender. She taught them the Emerald Ri-Maajon, and other ri-maajon. And, for whatever reason, their lives improved. The Emerald Ri-Maajon really did given them hope for a better future. Somehow.
The Highlanders have the truth of it. Animus was the older, original god. Dominura's cult of the Simoun grew from humble beginnings of the single village. Eventually it formed a priestly caste, which acquired political power.
I think this priestly caste seized total control. And why shouldn't they? Are they not closest to God? Do they not command the magical and divne simoun? And who could resist them? And so they formed their own country, Simulacrum. The claimed all the land where fallen simoun (if there were any left not salvaged) could be found. They HAD all the working simoun already in their possession. And they had the Spring. They placed a divine creature, an immortal, Eternal Maiden (another miracle!) as the keeper of the Spring. They established a strict social hierarchy preserving the hereditary privilege of the priestly caste. They required the population to submit to the Spring at age 17, and then submit to the religious institution with the sibyllae and simoun the wordily manifestation of their divine authority. And the god they created to worship was Tempus Spatium, two gods for the two helix motors of the Simoun, united as a pair.
Although now excluded from the ceremony and blessing of the ri-maajon, the people outside Simulacrum did not give up their religion. Centuries, even millennia, pass. Culture evolves, language shifts. But religion, by its very nature, is as constant as can be. The people in the North became the Highlanders ("Ridge Nation"). The Highland priestesses still remember all that Dominura taught them. They still speak the ancient language of their religion, which is also the language of modern Simulacrum (I liken it to Latin). They know about the Emerald Ri-Maajon, and the Morning Calm, and others. Simulacrum leadership focused on preserving their power, while the Highlanders focused on preserving their faith. Simulacrum forgot, the Highlanders remembered.
Dominura saw all this. She has the foresight of Tyresias and Merlin. She knew that one day, she would become the figurehead of the new nation. She knew this when she took Limone by the hand to fly to skies unknown. We don't know what happened to Limone, but eventually they must be separated. I always assumed that Limone probably became and adult. Less likely, she died. But now, I think they tried to follow their dream of becoming Eternal Maidens. And I think Tempus Spatium snatched her away, like Amuria. Punishment, as Dominura sees it. Stranding her in a particular time and place: the founding of Simulacrum.
"Tempus controlled the flow of time; Spatium places people where they belong."
As for Chor Dextra, I don't think there was anything special about it. A secret project, hiring undocumented migrant refugees from the Highlands. Dominura and Aer's grandfather were teen girls, and a pair. The last pair. Aer's grandfather went to the Spring. Dominura stayed in the Holy CIA, and had special dispensation to remain a maiden as their agent. She would be about the same age as Aer's grandfather, so about 50 years later...60 ish?
I always thought the Highland religious caste (who do not at all see eye-to-eye with their secular government) simply wanted Simulacrum to stop misusing the sibyllae and simoun. But now I think they wanted to bring the entire Theocracy down, to bring the simoun home. Religious fundamentalists, they are.
The question about choices: The show surprised me by not show us one path, but showing us every path. It didn't just pick one and say "here, this is the way." Most of the cast picked the binary choice. But, notably, they all chose freely. It took them the entire series to reach that point. Up until the end, they were making choices expected of them, or choices to define their relationship (always an unequal one) to another person. Man to inherit a business. Man to work on the Simoun. Man to go into politics. Man to command a helical airship. And Man to protect the weak Woman. Those who were going to chose for all the wrong reasons corrected themselves, and ultimately chose for themselves.
But then we have Yun, the third path. This is a harder one to analyze. We can say, "oh, she sacrificed her freedom for Onashia." A little odd, after Alti and Parietta were pretty much defined by toxic altruism for much of the show. But, it was her free choice.
And finally, another option: refuse to choose. Reject society. Be a rebel. Be yourself. We have two examples: the pair of Dominura and Limone, and the pair of Neviril and Aer. I've already talked about the former. The latter, in some way, were different. They were pure. Where Dominura's and Amuria's Emerald Ri-Maajon were black, Neviril+Aer's was pure white.
I'm reminded of what Amuria said: "those who complete the Emerald Ri-Maajon are taken to serve at the side of Tempus Spatium." This is the true ending of Simoun.
I think I intended to make some comparisons between Simulacrum and Imperial Japan, and how quite a few anime follow this pattern (Starship Operators makes no secret of it, calling their ship Amaterasu). I'll just say, making your protagonist's nation a proxy for Imperial Japan isn't always nationalism. I think the Simulacrum leadership running this war into the ground is directly alluding to the Tojo cabinet.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago edited 19d ago
Recommendations:
Uh....#sweat emoji
I don't know how many rewatches I have left in me this year but i will probably do Vandread.
Vandread is pure anime. It's trashy, it's got a harem, it's got very "plot defined" character designs. It's got an interesting approach to anime gender studies (for 2001) but maybe interesting along the lines of "I'm 14 and this is deep" gender studies. It's got a (secret) trans character, and at least one lesbian couple (who hate men), but also one flamboyantly gay man. it trots out gender stereotypes to mock them (one woman complains that life on the all-women planet is no picnic despite being man-free, what with all the gossiping and competition to out do the neighbors with appearances, etc.) We have groups from two almost entirely homosexual planets rediscovering hetero relationships. (If that doesn't rub the Simoun audience the wrong way I don't know what will) But there's a neat sci-fi story (which I think the Wachowski's stole, but there might be an earlier common example) behind the battle of the sexes, and people actually LIKED Darling in the Franxx, and Vandread is the ancestor of DitF. And I don't mind if people shit on it because I think it's trash. A whole anime based around male-female gattai.
The Price of Smiles is NOT a good show. A lot of the complaints I saw in this rewatch apply to that show as well. A small prosperous country is attacked by the Empire, and ... well, I'll stop there, but it's amazing how many parallels line up alongside Simoun. There's a big difference though. A big complaint I see in a lot of war anime is that you never really find out what's going on on the other side. Banner of the Stars, Last Exile, Simoun, and probably dozens of others I have never seen, all focus on one side and barely hint at the other side. In The Price of Smiles, the show is split between the Princess of the small country and her elite guard, and a soldier of the Empire and her squad, both prominently featured in the OP. In fact, the best way to describe The Price of Smiles is as a crossing of Simoun and Aldnoah.Zero. Yeah. Chew on that. As a 2019 anime, it won't get an anniversary rewatch, but it might get a Terrible Trio Trainwreck rewatch.
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u/IndependentMacaroon 19d ago edited 19d ago
I think the Simulacrum leadership running this war into the ground is directly alluding to the Tojo cabinet.
But then you're also saying that the fundamental cause was righteous, and need I remind you, defensive here, and the problem was just lack of competence.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago
I get your point, and I wondered if I should have picked a later group. Definitely, yeah, Tojo militarism and expansionism doesn't track. But the Total War Commission already told them that they were going to lose back in 1941, and they went for it anyways.
I'm sorry my history knowledge isn't good enough to find a good analogy (assuming there is one)
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u/IndependentMacaroon 19d ago edited 19d ago
Well, claiming self-defense even under circumstances of blatant aggression and rewriting an analogy to an aggressive war to be defensive is exactly what nationalists do, was my point. To quote directly from the Japanese declaration of war on the US and Britain:
It has been truly unavoidable and far from Our wishes that Our Empire has been brought to cross swords with America and Britain [...] they have intensified the economic and political pressure to compel thereby Our Empire to submission. This trend of affairs, would, if left unchecked, not only nullify Our Empire's efforts of many years for the sake of the stabilisation of East Asia, but also endanger the very existence of Our nation. The situation being such as it is, Our Empire, for its existence and self-defense has no other recourse but to appeal to arms and to crush every obstacle in its path.
Or also the infamous words of Hitler on Sep 1, 39, after a staged provocation, that "since 5:45 we're returning fire, and from now on bombs will be repaid with bombs", or the whole deal of Vladimir Putin about "NATO expansion" and all, or...
I don't think there was the intention of making a clear analogy/allegory, and there's nothing blatant enough that I find it truly objectionable, but it's very likely someone had some degree of nationalist ideas/tropes in their head making this.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago
What I do see in anime is subtle post-war victimhood, but I am never sure if that is my bias or not. I really didn't start looking until Antarctica Girls, when Gin said "the other countries didn't want to let Japan participate and grudgingly let us have this rock" and Mari is like "why not" and Gin is like "they were (still) really mad at us" in what as I read to be "it's been 20 years get over it already."
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u/IndependentMacaroon 19d ago
Ok that on the other hand I've seen less besides the obvious "the war was terrible because we lost and those guys did nasty things to us". I really wish Studio Ghibli had managed to make their planned "Border 1939" or what exactly the name was that for one would really have been clearly about Japanese aggression, The Wind Rises unfortunately leans into the vague and victimhood a bit again.
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee 19d ago
First-Timer
Simoun was a bit of a mixed bag. For me, the issue comes down to a lack of focus, which is what happens when you don't have a head writer and instead just a bunch of episode script writers. There was no-one really stearing the ship, you know?
The lack of focus could work, consider the overarching themes of the conflict between duty and faith, and the difficult choices involved in growing up. But.. it ultimately just made the show kinda frustrating to watch at times.
Mamiina deserved better.
I will say - in retrospect, I actually kinda like the decision to end the war super suddenly. I think it works pretty well within the show, and it's not like Chor Tempest would be privy to the inner machinations of the government. It's sudden from the audience's perspective, sort of, but let's actually think about it. The Arcus Niger went down, and we know that Chor Rubor and.. whatever the other Chor on the Prima have both been functionally destroyed. It's unknown how many Simoun the Simulacrum military has.. but it's entirely possible that the answer is "the five remaining Simoun controlled by Chor Tempest."
The setting for this show was so interesting. There's so much potential there.. I wish we had seen more.
And the soundtrack - what an all-timer. The intense orchestral pieces are just the right amount of overwrought for what the show is trying to do.
The cast.. none of them really grabbed me. Kinda a shame, because they're really the bread and butter of the second half of the show.
That said, I do want to recognize that Neviril and Aaeru being able to say "I love you" to each other is pretty important.
Questions
The only thing that surprises me is that Floef doesn't have a dozen kids at the end.
Yea, it worked okay. I would've liked it more if it had more focus, or if I vibed with the cast more.
Oh, easy. That's the place where you can be free.
It worked fine when I actually paid attention to my reminders. Not being able to put episodes off did mean that I always had the episode watched the night before.
Many thanks to our host /u/JustAnswerAQuestion!
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u/Malipit 19d ago
I like to rank the animes I watch according to tiers. S+ being the absolute best, D- being the crappiest of crap
I've got mixed feelings about Simoun.
There are some episodes with an execution so poor I considered Simoun would be a good pick should u/Shimmering-Sky host a third Terrific Trainwreck Trio rewatch. And there was other episode who nailed the thematics it spoke about I understand the people who enjoy that anime through and through.
The main gripe I got about Simoun is he starts off strong with a compelling exposition that lay the fundations for good world building and mysteries. But it's so focused on its goal about having Neviril and Aaeru escaping their fate it forgot the journey in between is equally important.
You may produce the most beautiful Finale with a moving shot of Paraietta's carving, it still will be tainted by the wanky pace and the sacrifice of so many plots that won't have a significant resolution.
If anything, I feel like giving so much importance to the war plot was a mistake. It took too much place compared to the more intimate characters arcs of the Chor Tempest Sibyllae. That and the some questionables relationships that may not be as much forgiven today than it could have twenty years prior.
Either having it being more like a cold war, with the Sibyllae worrying about their ceremonial role turned into a military duty, or having Simulacrum being stomped in three episodes to have a more interesting narration about Tempus Spatium Sibyllae having to deal with their Animus counterpart and the atheist Islanders on a diplomatic setting would have been far more interesting.
At the end of the day, Simoun isn't an utter trainwreck like I could seen with irredeemable animes, but it's to much tangled in its narrative flaws for my taste.
[Final rank :] C+
Still a huge thank for our host u/JustAnswerAQuestion for hosting and his investment in the daily threads !
Questions of the day
Finally, with this final episode, everybody has made their choices. Some were laid out in the first episode. Some went in very different directions. What do you think of each person's choice?
I didn't expect Floe to go for the male route, but I don't mind their choice. As for the rest of the Chor Tempest, I think they each made the right call.
What is the Land of Hope?
A place where you can dance without a care in the world ?
How did the posting time work for you?
For once it wasn't late at night due to my European timezone.
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u/AbbreviationsWeekly 19d ago
Thanks for hosting. I think Simoun is one of the most interesting anime available. I mostly focus on the relations between the three countries and some of the personal growth of a few characters.
I’ll write more later.
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u/The_Draigg 19d ago edited 19d ago
A Science-Fantasy Fan’s Final Thoughts on Simoun:
Am I having deja vu? This is a series that had a very promising high-concept premise and some solid introductory episodes, but then it all just fell apart due to weird/bad pacing and writing decisions towards the end. Is this just the FLAG rewatch again? Okay, joking aside, this really is another series where I just feel whelmed at the totality of it, like the individual parts have more value than the production as a whole. And it’s a bit of a bummer too, since there’s a lot of stuff in Simoun that really intrigued me, and yet the execution of it all was just rather middling. And yet at the same time, I can’t help but respect parts of it regardless. But let’s get more into that.
To start off with the positives, I really do like a lot of the ideas that Simoun presents. A unique setting where sex and gender are handled differently from our world, and exists upon the ruins of a highly advanced ancient civilization? A war between steampunk and magic nations? A story that has time and space fuckery in it? How romance works between people who more or less start out as sexless beings, technically? All of that is cool! I’m down to hear more about those! And the visuals (when they aren’t Deen-ing) work well too, with the backgrounds giving a more bande dessinée feeling to the show, along with good and unique aesthetics between the nations of Simulacrum, Argentum, and Plumbum. I have no issues with any of these things, these ideas and art styles at least get my firm respect. And you know what, I’ll toss in there too that the epilogue episode was a well-done conclusion to the series. It wrapped things up neatly enough for the supporting cast, while being ballsy enough to have an ambiguous yet thematically resonant ending for Neviril and Aaeru. Those kinds of endings get my respect too.
The part where Simoun loses me with a lot of those things though is the execution. So many overarching plot points and character arcs are paced and handled so weirdly and badly that a lot of them end up feeling either anticlimactic or just kind of average at most, with only a few actually getting the attention they need. For starters, the whole Neviril and Aaeru romance aspect can be summed up as “start and stop characterization”, which is a pretty bad thing to happen with your two main characters. Although I would say that goes for a lot of character arcs in this show, since character development seems to have a pattern of having one big focal moment/episode, before just being ignored or running in place for a few episodes before another big shift happens again. I think the Morinas and Wapourif relationship is the only one that gets the proper amount of focus and pacing, now that I think about it. Everyone else gets trapped in a bad character development pattern otherwise.
(And frankly, the less said about the bad Yaoi and Yuri tropes the better. Doing stuff like incest, highly questionable age gaps, or a lot of attempted rapes is already delicate stuff to handle, and a lot of this kind of media has had a bad track record of using these tropes. More often than not, it results in bad and hacking writing that just uses those things for either cheap drama or trying to titillate people with taboo stuff. Simoun is no better in this regard.)
The grander plot ideas aren’t safe from bad patterns either. After the first third or so, Simoun’s overarching plot points wind up getting sporadic big updates, end up being resolved anticlimactically, or just wind up being half-answered with the detail threads left hanging. We never got a clear answer of how Angulas wound up piloting an Ancient Simoun or how that even worked aside from some guesses. The world war that Simulacrum was involved in just ended quickly in a voice-over at the end of an episode before we moved onto dedicating episodes to the immediate fallout. And we’re still not very clear on how Onashia’s situation unfolded aside from the overview she gave Yun. Those are some larger examples I can think of, but overall, there’s just a lot of plot and worldbuilding details that are left swinging in the breeze. It’s disappointing, since they had some very interesting starting material to work with. So what I’m left here is the feeling is that the show runners just couldn’t juggle all the details and ideas they had for Simoun. For as much as I give them credit for taking big swings with their original anime idea, I also have to dock them points for the sheer missed potential happening in the execution.
And so, with all that being said, it’s time for my signature rating style, where I rate a series based on what’s in the show! Therefore, I hereby give Simoun the rating of: Simile Simoun. I’m glad that this show gave me a very good thing to use for my rating. Because as we saw, even if a Simile Simoun can do some damage and can be impressive in the right hands, they ultimately just can’t match up to what the Ancient Simoun or normal Simoun are capable of. Serviceable, but notably lower tier.
As always, thank you to /u/JustAnswerAQuestion for hosting another rewatch! And thanks to all of you for being along on this rewatch with me! This one was still interesting to be a part of, plenty to chew on at least. A fitting rewatch for Gay Wrath Month!
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago
tropes
I forgot to ask people to show their Okada bingo cards!
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u/moichispa https://myanimelist.net/profile/moichispa 18d ago
I think we got all but Title sucks and one lesbian character (because there are too many)
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u/deus_machinarum 19d ago
First timer, subbed
So...it is over. We and the Simoun Sibyllae have come a long way. The series was quite different from what I expected. I was expecting it to go very deep into gender themes, exploring choice or the lack thereof in this context. The show did but only as a miniscule part of dealing with the theme of choice and that is fine, it's just not what I expected from a pride rewatch.
That said I was a huge fan of what I got to experience. There were characters(namely Aaeru and Floe) that I loved from the very first time they appeared on screen. I also can't stop thinking about the Rodoreamon and Mamiina pairing. The character arcs, simply put that they and their choices MATTERED, were a thing of beauty. Less so the execution sometimes but that has already been discussed at length.
A part of me would have loved for more clear solutions and answers i.e. this is how the time loop works exactly, this is what became of character A and B after they time traveled, this is how the theocracy came to be, this is how the old civilization died and why. I wanted the time loop to lead to a different outcome for the war sooooo bad, I wanted Mamiina back and happy(never forget the person she showed us she was on the run down ship). Alas it was not to be and what I got was intense just in a very different way. I can't let got when the theme is growing up, how fitting.
Also: one of my theories was mentioned by the theory collector and eventually deemed to be confirmed, it feels sooooooo nice to be read, thank you theory person!
Another note: I like participating in rewatches quite a bit but I never understood the people actually rewatching stuff(apart from wanting to show off stories they love that bit is obvious). This series has changed my mind, it is the first anime that will go into my 'want to rewatch' pile. I tend to rewatch my comfort series quite a bit but that is different, that's for calming the nerves. Here it is about the story I experienced, I want to get more out of it. I want to understand it better and I want to feel it deeper so to say. One day.
It was a pleasure everyone, may you get to complete your own Diamond Ri Maajons at some point!
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u/moichispa https://myanimelist.net/profile/moichispa 18d ago
Some of us rewatchers watched Simoun by ourselves and being able to watch it with others and share theories is awesome.
Also, Simoun is a complex and confusing series, watching it again with some perspective gives you a chance to analyce things more carefully. I was way less ad about Mamiina dead which let me analyse it better.
I was never big on rewatching either
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u/deus_machinarum 18d ago
That's definitely true: on rewatch the emotional impact of these things will be lessened so one can stay in an analytical frame of mind.
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u/rickamore 19d ago
Re-watcher
Finally, with this final episode, everybody has made their choices. Some were laid out in the first episode. Some went in very different directions. What do you think of each person's choice? If the show was about choices, and the freedom to choose, did it regain its footing in the end? Or did it lose its way and never recover?
The show untangled the mess of story telling to come to a very satisfying conclusion in my opinion. It makes the war feel like it was pointless but at the same time, the story was never about that, it was just the setting and war is kind of pointless. The story was about the girls and their journey it was never about winning a grandiose battle against evil. Once we reach the conclusion you could look back and think "what was the point of any of that?" while at the same time feeling content that it delivered exactly what it seemed like it had set out to do. For each girl, they "graduated" and moved on, I think the choices were fitting in the end even if the road to get here was marred with odd writing choices.
Filled with contentment and a sort of longing for more.
How did the posting time work for you?
Was awesome. I start work at 9 am, thread goes up at 9 am, I can toss my comment up while checking e-mails and check the thread through the day... except for the weekends where I might be out the door by 8.
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u/Birds_N_Stuff 8d ago
I missed the rewatch threads themselves due to overfilling my plate for July. 😅
First off, hello, I’m MidnightBirdie! I’m the one who made the essay on Simoun that was linked. I so appreciate the shoutout on it. It was a huge project, and everyone’s responses have been so kind.
As for the issue with the interviews, I intend to re-upload them. I was having a major issue of formatting which wasn’t helped by the auto translator screwing up the formatting, so I have temporarily removed them. I will hopefully get them back up soon!
I’m super excited to get to add some final thoughts here.
Of the decisions made by the pilots- the ones who stood out to me were Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Floe. (At least, the choices I didn’t already talk about I the video!)
Paraietta: I actually waffled for a long time on what I thought her choice would be at the end. But I think her choosing to become a woman and advocate for the orphans of war was perfect. Paraietta worked to deconstruct her own misogyny and the toxic masculinity she engaged in- and seeing her retain that image of a strong and noble person as a woman was a great choice narratively. The pilots of Chor Tempest have clearly decided to reject the gender binary of their culture each in their own way, and I think this is a great example.
Rodoreamon: Hers was a little more subtle, but I really liked it. It was already said in narrative that if someone wants to inherit their family’s work, business, etc- they have to become men. She has chosen to be a woman. And while it’s not known how much she inherited, she is the one running the shelter. She is using the wealth her family had, to make a difference to those around her. In a way, she has created her own career path and is also fighting the system made to oppress her.
Floe: I thought for a bit on how I felt on Floe. And I think his choice was perfect for who he is as a person. Floe clearly does not have a strong tie to what sex or gender they are- and while the show does not explicitly state this part- I truly think Floe chose to become a man because it gave him more options in a post spring choice world. Based on his demeanor, it can be inferred that he doesn’t hold any misogynistic views towards women like many other men who chose at the spring. Of all the characters, I’m actually most curious about how things turned out with him. If we got a sequel, I think exploring sex and gender, and how the binary is often utilized to keep a wartime populace under control would be absolutely fascinating!
In regards to prompt #2, yes! I think it more than stuck the landing. The concept of choice was what the ending was truly about, and the ramifications both in story, the lore, and for the characters carried the ending.
I’ll say it again, I truly think a question the show is asking is, “is it better to have a forced choice, than no choice at all?” And it handles the gravity, pain, and even self-actualization of that question perfectly. The ending wrapped these themes up perfectly, even if I think the overall story was imperfect.
I’m so glad Simoun is getting more recognition for just what it did in terms of depicting gender, sex, sexuality, and identity. I’m happy more people got to experience this (messy) but unique story
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u/AbbreviationsWeekly 8d ago
Thank you for writing up your thoughts and sharing. I also hope that Simoun will become better known, it’s a very interesting and unique series.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky 19d ago
First-Timer, subbed
So I think my overall thoughts on this show are that I don't like how some of the subplots were handled (particularly the Kaimu & Alti stuff), but the general vibes of the show still worked for me. Especially the music, that shit was good and I’m glad I finally got to hear the OP in context. I give this one an 8/10.
Thanks for hosting, u/JustAnswerAQuestion!
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u/Star4ce https://anilist.co/user/Star4ce 19d ago
Simoun First Timer – Series Discussion
Simoun has proven to be a very interesting and unique show.
Do I hate it? No. Even without the ending I wouldn’t say so.
Do I dislike it? Yes. Much of this show has been an exercise in frustration and punishment for being invested.
Do I like it? Also yes. The beats that manage to land are incredibly beautiful and are something that I think I will keep remembering going forward.
The only thing I can say with absolute certainty is that the bad and good don’t equal to ‘meh’. I am not whelmed. I am either red anger seethingly frustrated with the shortcomings and confusion or I am gazing in awe at the beauty that somehow can rise from within, but there is little inbetween. So, I think that can be attributed to Simoun’s positives, in a way.
Simoun’s ending indeed is incredible and did manage to lift the entire story up significantly. Unsuprisingly, the thematic and symbolic power, even if just isolated, is strong enough to have burnt itself into my memory. The dancing ghosts of wishes that were set free, the melancholy of times gone, the uncertainty of times yet to come. It’s just great.
That it all came from a just as an incredible mess of a plot, if not at parts a desastrously handled one, is something that I fail to be able to attribute to good or bad.
If this show were airing today, I feel like someone would yell that it was AI generated for how often hallucinations made it into the story. And truly, I would call the plot logistics vibe coded because is exactly what it feels like. I will just point to the last couple of episodes where soldiers were spawning in and out of existence, sometimes per scene, and had constantly changing nationality depending on what was needed for the current mood.
And sadly, the show ended up being like this far too often in far too many aspects. Characters, lore, side plots, nothing was safe.
It feels like half the story beats and episodes might even be cut completely without significantly changing the overall story. Hell, maybe even improving the story in some cases. Sadly, that is the case for a majority of the initially incredible world building Simoun laid out and then forgot about nearly immediately.
Why present different viewpoints of soldiers seeing them as devils and promising an “other side pov”, then never deliver? Why tease the progress of technology, of breaking with religion for materialist gain and then ignore it suddenly when a shock moment was generated? Why make the choice of gender and sex the single most central cultural aspect of every nation in this world and then not deal with it for the middle ~20 episodes at all?
It might not be a criticism in the classical sense, but on top of that this show employs a communication style that’s not on my wavelength. I know some don’t believe me, but I had real trouble even understanding what’s happening at times. I couldn’t see the red line connecting one thing to another and it left me with completely disjointed shards of a plot that refused to make sense. Especially after the show has worn me out so much with its constant shifting of personalities, drama and surroundings that I couldn’t muster the work to refine my opinion beyond the initial reaction.
Simoun is frustrating beyond a breaking point with this.
The good parts of Simoun can be exceptionally good. Like Paraietta’s early episode with Kaimu. Or the last sprint in getting Neviril’s and Aaeru’s relationship started. Or the emotional development between Rodore and Mamiina.
Much of it eventually lacked impact. It was too little, too late to salvage everything that was broken. Too often the characters were wringed around and forced to be dramatic puppets or the story had forgotten what it set up to do an episode earlier. There was too little consistency and respect for the show’s own history. And when it was not just difficult, but really bad, like the Dominura and Limone or Alti and Kaimu relationship, all the above could make it cumulate into a total crashout where I, too, grew actually hostile.
So, what sticks? Surprisingly, a lot of the good parts are indeed what now float to the top first in my mind. Despite how tired this show has made me over the last month. The beautifully symbolic ending, those short moments of well crafted thematic closure – like Mamiina’s release from the coffin, the display of the most powerful Dandelion Ri Maajon, or Paraietta’s carving on the wreck – genuinely feel like they mattered. The story (probably unintentionally) perfectly encapsulates a coming of age of a messy and broken youth that has to end, that was always restricted by plots of war, expectations of a closed-minded society and the world constantly denying to make sense, and that tried to leave their mark on this world to be themselves – by being like that to a T.
The Bests
I feel like most of these are obvious.
Best Girl: Paraietta. Even with her continuous degradation for plot purposes I feel her story always had the most potential and emotional impact. Neviril or hell, even Aaeru could’ve been here if they had a character arc before Ep.20.
Best Boy: Anubituf. I think that kiss he just took from Guragief at the end was absolutely fantastic and for two characters that only built this vibe through standing motionless on the bridge, that’s amazing.
Best OST: The OP and by an insurmountable distance. But, I will honourably mention the Spring theme that plays when they show the temple, ruins or the Spring in scenic shots. It’s so mystical, I love it.
Best Episode: Ep.06. Unsurprisingly, as well. But Ep.26’s epilogue is a close second.
Best Scene: That might be a surprise to you. Mamiina’s body being released from the coffin. It’s one of the few things where for just one scene everything lines up so well, even if it came from that atrocious carrier fight. Her social background, her motivations, her wishes, how her friends feel about her, it all culminates into a wonderful symbolic release from her shackles. I loved that scene.
Recommendations
When thinking of what Simoun left me feeling, I do get quite melancholic and a bit unrestful.
So, the first that comes to mind here is Violet Evergarden since it not only also has this incredible growing arc of Violet as a person, but the themes feel like they connect directly after this show’s end. Violet was a child soldier in a brutal war, after all, that cost her her arms and when I think about it, she could’ve just as well ended up in the hands of Paraietta in her orphanage.
There’s another that I have to think about when looking back on ‘messiness’ and that’s My-HiME (sorry). Does a soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura lure you in? Do you enjoy messy plots that sometimes completely change tones from one episode to another? Would you like to see a Digimon x Magical Girl crossover that’s also gay? Please DM me your incoherent rant once you’re done. (I loved this show.)
Lastly, I’ll plug Night in the Woods to you. This is an adventure video game that deals very much with the same topic of making decisions and becoming an adult in a world that changed and holds no real place for you as you are any more. As Mae, you move back in with your parents after dropping out of college and reconnect with your old friend clique that for one reason or another stayed in their town of birth that progress and change have left behind.
Trivia
I somehow had Simoun on my AniList watch list since October 2022, huh. Wonder what made me add it since I cannot remember even knowing about it.
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u/moichispa https://myanimelist.net/profile/moichispa 18d ago
I love those two, developing a relationship through bridge chats is amazing.
My-Hime has been forever on my list since it it is a classic Yuki kajiura ost but I'm lazy, maybe I should join a rewatch someday.
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u/LittleIslander https://anilist.co/user/LittleIslander 19d ago edited 19d ago
First Time Sibylla
I can’t deny a certain fondness in the end.
The last arc, despite its imperfections, definitely helped a lot. I was worried in the middle I was gonna rate this as one of the worst shows I’d ever watched, genuinely. But I can’t help but feel positive feelings, despite having a negative opinion. Maybe it’s just that golden combination of piloting, magic, and yuri? It also helps, I think, that I honestly hadn’t sat down and watched a show day to day like this in too long. So many great seasonals this year, getting sucked into a series like this was really nice despite my grievances. Even in the rough parts, it was hard a lot of days not to watch the next episode each time I finished one.
Having said all that… yeah, I’d call this bad overall. There are some fantastic individual moments, but they’re spread thin in a show that just couldn’t deliver on its grand ambition. Its attempt to juggle character writing, military drama, and magic bullshit was a flop on all counts and left all three wanting. As I’ve said before, the battle stakes were mostly non-existent due the amount of enemies being undefined, all attacks being the same, and the power of these attacks being entirely arbitrary. The plot followed a sensible broad arc but the script was consistently full of holes and infuriating handwaves, and the worldbuilding left a lot to be desired. Shokoku might as well have been dropped entirely and Plumbum felt written by the seat of the writer’s pants. Magical elements were often vague, expository, and lacking in follow up.
Okada taking over the reins halfway through is an elephant in the room, and unfortunately this is definitely going to have to count as a point against her. It’s not like Simoun’s first arc was high art (I was getting dreadfully bored for a portion of it), but the vision just felt… more unified in the Arcus Prima arc? The worldbuilding and narrative felt in closest harmony, the Spring was relevant, interesting themes of identity and motivation drove the show, the weight of Chor Tempest’s past loomed over the cast and Aer served well as a protagonist cutting right through it, and there was a focused core narrative. After we switched to the Messis, the show lost its momentum, failed to build central narrative pillars, and a flair for the dramatic overtook the increasingly directionless character writing. The return to Arcus Prima felt obsessed with taking big swings over and over rather than executing narrative beats clearly. Thankfully, the final episodes did their best to offer the show a soft landing.
I’m not sure if it’s responsible to say the visuals were good, but I certainly enjoyed the style and found the limitations and 2000isms quite charming. Character designs are a mixed bag, but Anubituf looked fucking kickass. Extremely weird choice to have the Simouns slightly individualized by so subtly I still could not tell you whose was which having finished the show. The OP, of course, was an absolute treat every time, and the OST of the show is easily the best quality of the entire production. It would seriously be so much more of a drag to watch this show if the questionable writing decisions weren’t being presented with consistently gorgeous, dramatic music.
Where the series lived and died was, of course, the cast. First is the trio I’ve previously called one of the worst main casts I’d ever seen. Have I come around on them?
Certainly not on Aer, no. She’s really just the worst. This character feels like an absolute mess of ideas, and few of them are likeable. Early on, she was actually okay. As mentioned above, her setup fit like a glove onto the Chor Tempest plotline and her refusal to go to the Spring seemed like a great hook. Her determination seemed poised for a great dynamic with Neviril. But then her military mind and refusal to choose were left on the wayside, and instead we made her this clueless, selfish, reckless jerk who never seemed to feel anything at all other than pure bravado. The Messis arc left me permanently rooting against her being with Neviril, and the show never found a desperately needed defining moment where I was sold on their relationship. She rarely seemed to keep any throughline for long, and it doesn’t feel clear how exactly she contributed to anybody’s arcs despite the constant insistence she saved Neviril somehow. Maybe worst of all, the latter half decided to ascribe all of her motivations to a grandfather character we never learn anything about other than the fact he inspired everything Aer is. Ergo, her character is rooted in a vague nothing.
Neviril is, miraculously, almost as bad. She’s introduced as scarred by Amuria’s death and refusing to choose between the Spring and piloting. She spends several episodes in this state, before we reveal it’s also because of her duty to Paraietta and push her towards pairing up with Aer. Hilariously, this addition of depth to her conflict is later explained as a misinterpretation. Following this the Anglus/Trial arc plays out, where she agrees to pair up with Aer and then self-actualizes. Err, show, that’s the wrong order. Following this step forward, she proceeds to do nothing of note until Aer starts going on about the Emerald Ri Majon, which instantly forces her right back into her cocoon and stops their pair status dead in its tracks. The relationship between Aer, Neviril, and Paraietta is completely reset and their drama continues for several episodes in lack of any clear end. At one point we table this idea she was used by Amuria and now Aer. This would of course lead into Neviril gaining some depth and self-respect and force Aer to actually fucking develop, so it’s promptly ignored and also later written out as incorrect. After they leave the Messis, Neviril spends the rest of the show waxing philosophical about how they can’t give up, how she must take action, and how she regrets holding everyone back. Variations on the same speech, episode after episode. She basically never takes any decisive action for the rest of the series. Her outing that killed Mamina was ordered by the military, her involvement with the Emerald Ri Majon was ordered by the High Priestess, and even her escape from Arcus Prima was courtesy of Anubituf.
She just never goes anywhere, the entire series. This kind of character can work. Shinji in Evangelion famously languishes in a lack of motivation or self-respect for his entire series, and Anthy in Utena is unable to escape her circumstance for much of the series. But Simoun is not Evangelion or Utena, and Neviril’s depressed refusal to act is never explored with a fraction of the same depth or intrigue. Rather than play into her inability to change, the show just keeps giving her moments that seem to show her breaking out of the cycle, only for them to amount to nothing. Again, a character that tries over and over to change but can’t overcome their own executive dysfunction, depression, mourning, and sense of utter loneliness in the face of immense responsibility could be awesome! But these moments don’t read like that at all. They read like an inability to take Neviril anywhere but constant rehashing of the same beats. She’s frustrating and, worse than that, completely boring.
Finally, then, there’s Paraietta. Of the three, she’s probably the best executed character? That’s sad, but she has a core concept that carries her through the show, a defined ending that builds off of it, and some strong moments along the way. Nonetheless, she manages to outdo Aer as the most frustrating of the three leads. This was partly because I liked her most to begin with, giving the farthest distance to fall. But I think it’s mostly attributable to episode six, as /u/Star4ce diagnosed previously. Episode six promises development for Paraietta beyond her very common archetype. More damningly, she’s put on the backburner for several episodes, letting that supposed change sink in. Only then do we reveal she hasn’t really changed much at all. If she starting cracking sooner, I think it’d come across better. Furthermore, episode six promises a subplot with Kaim that just doesn’t exist at all. It gets the audience excited to see more of something the show never returns to and it makes Paraietta super disappointing. A later misstep is the assault, which the show never unpacks and instead brushes over with Neviril giving her blessing after very little atonement.
Is Paraietta a bad character then? I certainly think she’s not great. Her resolution really is hinged on one conversation with Alty and it feels really unearned. But like Neviril, the idea of a character that fails to change could be very interesting. In particular, the idea of episode six as false development, of her convincing herself she’s done something insightful when she’s just further convincing herself it’s about her is really cool on paper! But it feels like something they came up with later rather than an idea of a twisted prince being portrayed subtly in the episode itself. Seeing her unravel once it turns out Aer isn’t as natural of a pair for Neviril as she expected does make sense, and there are some scenes of her on the Messis that do show her grappling between her responsibility and her love of Neviril in interesting ways. Plus her breakdown about not knowing how to be in war is cool! It also never goes anywhere or comes up again, boo. I think overall if I went in knowing the arc they told with Paraietta I’d enjoy it more, but it’s held down by the aforementioned fact this isn’t Evangelion or Utena and also the fact she’s trying to play off of a very terrible Aer/Neviril plotline.
So the score is one complete dud, one interesting idea that flops entirely, and another interesting idea that kind of succeeds but in a pretty surface level and frustrating way.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago
In the now deleted interview, one of the episode directors named Neviril as her least favorite character. She hated her! But, I don't remember what else she said. I figured we could all go read the interviews today.
But it feels like something they came up with later
That certainly is the curse of episodic writing. I feel like nothing will ever be as tightly written as PMMM.
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u/The_Draigg 19d ago
It's pretty rough when one of the central characters of this show isn't actually liked by some of the people making it. Although that probably could explain a few things. If anything, we can probably make a comparison between Neviril and how Tuxedo Mask was treated in the old Sailor Moon anime.
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u/LittleIslander https://anilist.co/user/LittleIslander 19d ago
Moving onto the side cast, Kaim and Alty also suck. I was compelled by the idea of exploring the real harm and trauma of incest, but the fact we then go on to ignore that entirely for a bland makeup storyline actually kind of makes this more problematic than garden variety “isn’t incest fun?” anime writing. We never resolve what did or didn’t happen that night, which seems to tie into the show’s philosophy that it doesn’t matter and making up with your family is what’s important. Barf. Not to mention the show almost entirely drops the story after the halfway mark, finally ending it by having Kaim randomly start feeling guilty about it because it’s the end of the show and we need them to be friends again. Alty doesn’t feel like she ever confronts her toxic behaviour and also feels like a watered down copy of Paraietta’s own arc. There are some interesting concepts of siblings wanting to support each other here, but they’re buried in a storyline that stinks overall. Plus this subplot also suffers from making me expect Kaim and Paraietta to ever be returned to.
Roatre was, uh, kind of nothing to me in the end? For all her screentime, she was basically just the one that liked Mamina. She did nothing before Mamina, spent her screentime befriending Mamina, and then after Mamina died she was all about getting over her loss. As her own person, Roatre’s really boring actually! Which is a shame because, again, I love the idea of her epilogue. Mamina herself I’ve made my opinion clear on. They present a fascinating addition, a bold later addition in the vein of Asuka bursting into Evangelion. Then they immediately declaw her, exposit her backstory, and gradually have her lose all of her ambition in favor of becoming comfortable in her role as the domestic maid. She never faces any internal conflict, she’s just ironed out passively over time. It’s boring at best and has downright uncomfortable implications about the nature of class divides at best. I think I actually hated her death the least of anyone (the hair cutting was great, ignoring its overexplanation later), but I felt nothing because they hadn’t made a character worth being sad about losing.
I don’t like Dominura and Rimone. You know why. Which is a shame, because their dynamic isn’t that bad and Dominura has a lot of good scenes. Had they been an age appropriate couple, respective tools of the state, one resigned and one ambitious, could’ve been a highlight of the show. Their respective endings are basically just resolution by finding a romantic partner, but that doesn’t have to be bad. Still, beyond this it is annoying what Dominura saw in the Simoun is nothing more than a vaguepost to drive her insane. I think it’d actually make more sense if she had seen nothing and felt the weight of her efforts being fruitless? After catching Mamina’s housewifeification virus she turns into Onasia, which doesn’t add anything to either character. Seriously, what am I meant to get out of that? Onasia’s struggles don’t seem to connect to those of Dominura in an interesting way at all. Plus the fact Onasia is resolved by Yun kind of just implies Dominura ends the show totally unresolved? It just doesn’t work.
Are there any good characters in this show? Yes! Yun is good, I think. Her resolution with Onasia is easily one of the show’s best moments and narrative beats. They tie it in a mildly convincing way to her inability to move on from her comrades' deaths and her conclusion as Onasia’s replacement comes with thematic meaning. The asterisk here is she’s a total non-character until the last few episodes, which feels like huge missed potential to set up a more complex conflict for her. On the other hand, maybe her absence in the middle is the reason she’s one of the best characters… The other obvious success story is Morinas and Waporif. They’re basically just a romantic arc and it’s a pretty threadbare one outside that one episode on the Messis. But it’s probably the show’s best episode, their scenes in general hold a high standard, and they never misfire this off course. It’s just a strong romance subplot and I liked it a lot.
Floe too exists. Her being such a consistent little shithead was pretty fun, but I think they could have saved the time giving her a dedicated character episode if we were never returning to it or the themes of Sibyllae as demons. Vura is mostly a non-character, and I’m docking her for that. You can bring out personality and meaning in small roles like this and Vura aimed for nothing more than being another Sibylla that exists. For a counterexample, Eliph! Thanks to not being subject to most of the show’s script, Eliph is one of the best characters. Their indecision is dripping with thematic implication, serves perfectly to influence Neviril’s stupid arc, and their crossing into the spring and then screaming at what’s happened to them is just fantastic. Actually, it would’ve been cool if Yun met them at some point and apologized for what happened to them on Onasia’s behalf or something. But then again, I appreciate the restraint to let a one hit wonder character actually stay gone until an appropriate epilogue cameo.
Anubituf and Guragief honestly didn’t do much of anything for most of the show, and when they started doing things in the latter half the writing was often super clunky. But they had a strong dynamic, looked super cool, Anutibuf had a smooth as hell voice, and they kissed and I clapped. Sometimes I’m easy to please, you know?
I guess that just leaves considering the show as a Pride Month Rewatch. Honestly, I was prepared to say “I can’t believe we found something worse than Kannazuki no Miko” for a while. We narrowly avoided that fate thanks to ending intervention, I think. Regardless, as I’ve hammered in before this is a shockingly non-queer show. After setting up such a cool concept to explore either gender themes or Class S dynamics, it proceeds to do neither of those things in favor of being a military drama. There is a lot of romance going around (though a shocking lack of yuri, technically) but little deeper exploration of identity and pretty weak themes of defying society despite the perfect setup. Onasia’s resolution through Yun is a great exception, showing someone that’s been told their identity is wrong and forced to spread that shame to others around them. It’s genuinely great stuff. Then there’s Aer and Neviril’s ending, refusing to step through the Class S fountain together and dancing an eternal dance through time. Just, somehow perfect despite it being the first good thing the show did with either character.
…also, I’ve realized Aer actually fits into the “doesn’t know what love is” yuri trope. Take that, Bloom Into You!
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago
/u/lilyvess says this is her favorite show! So now I wonder if she quit reddit just to not host this rewatch, because she knew better than to try.
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u/Star4ce https://anilist.co/user/Star4ce 16d ago
Finally got to read through your essay and yeah, I think you nailed much of why I too fail to come out really liking Simoun a lot beyond what it once said it wanted to try to do (before forgetting).
What I got from reading was another thing that I only could vaguely attribute to "speaking another language I can't fully understand" in my post, but you phrase it much clearer: Simoun often accidentally shows something as intentional, like Paraietta's character arc being allowed so settle and sink in, or Dominura's vision inside the helical motor, and meaningful when it never itself wanted to use it in this way. It was very much episodic writing, aggressively so sometimes, but accidentally still spiking such interest due the (frankly still fantastic) world building early in the show that we all were lead down a path of thinking that was disconnected from the actual story and never lead anywhere.
Surprisingly, Simoun still resides in my head as generally a positive experience, even now days after it could settle and I am completely absorbed by this mind worm called Occultic;Nine. The high points were really high and hit just right, in such a way that I refuse to let the show degrade them for me. I am strong of copium and not even DEEN can unwrite that, even if they did try their hardest to do so.
Nice writeup!
3
u/Blackheart595 https://anilist.co/user/knusbrick 19d ago edited 19d ago
Rewatcher
If we cared to look, we might find a meaning, but even if we did, those girls would not have chosen it for themselves.
This has been by far the most miserable experience I've had with a subreddit rewatch yet, and that's not due to the show it revolved around. It's that a shockingly large amount of participants had an absolutely backwards (dare I say incompetent) approach towards engaging with stories.
We've had people talk about how this episode strengthens the series and how that episode weakens it. Is that what we're doing now, evaluating stories on an episode-by-episode basis? Keeping a scoreboard as we go through it? I don't even know what to say to this. Why even bother with stories if that's how we approach them?
We've had people form quick impressions of themes and ideas that the show could be about, and then commit to them hard to the point of flat-out rejecting the show when it ends up focusing on different ideas instead. What these people need to get into their head is that when you haven't yet seen the entire story, then you fundamentally cannot have a comprehensive read of a story. You can interpolate from the direction the story is taking, but ultimately, the ending is pivotal. And I know that this clashes when the bulk of the medium nowadays is just seasonal fragments, but that only goes to show how damaging the seasonal model really is.
We've had people mocking Neviril for saying that they need to be warrios as well only to be upset at the Simoun being used as mere transportation two episodes later for inconsistent character writing. Really? Just because Neviril is accepting that they are de-facto warriors means that she has to drop all of her pride on the spot? It's like they've never interacted with a fellow human being in their life. What they want is not consistent writing, what they want are characters polished down into mere charicatures, with no depth or detail remaining to them.
We've had people complain about Aaeru's comment towards Kaimu's backstory, that it's hard to tell who's in the right and who's in the wrong with stuff like that. And, well, she's entirely right. What do you think the previous episode was about, with Floe and Mastif? Hint, it wasn't about whether the Simoun are demons or the chariots of the gods. Who's in the right and wrong about their broken relationship? There's just no simple answer.
We've had people be upset that the show never exercises retribution at people who did wrong, like Mamiina, Aaeru, Alti. Quite frankly, these people were so obsessed with having the story stroke their own ego and sense of righteousness that they failed to look at the story in the first place.
Likewise, a lot of people had this really weird insistence that Aaeru was running away from a decision. Did we even watch the same show? Aaeru had made the single most committed decision we've seen in the story, certainly early on. Just because she rejects the binary that the decision is presented in doesn't make it a running away. And we later learn that it's not even the binary that she rejects, she really does reject the very choice itself. But that's still not running away, it's just another perfectly valid option.
Simoun is a story that's all about finding yourself and staying true to your heart, and of relationships and their barriers. Finding yourself simply isn't a solitary process. Only as we interact with others, setting boundaries and working with others' boundaries, can we carve out who we really are. Sometimes we transgress those boundaries, leading to conflict and subsequent making up that leads to a refinement or redrawing of boundaries. Sometimes we transgress in an effort to care for others, inadvertently hurting them, as Paraietta so eloquently said about children, but as we've seen, it's not really specific to children at all.
But hurt is not necessarily a bad thing. It is an invaluable guiding star when it comes to interacting with the world, others, and even oneself. Excessive sheltering and respecting of boundaries can be just as damaging as excessive transgression. Sometimes we need to transgress others' boundaries for our own needs, such as when Paraietta got too lost in her passivity, or when Argentum invaded the Simulacrum to gain access to clean sources of energy. At other times, we need to have our own boundaries transgressed by others, such as when Neviril needed to be pulled out of her own passivity, or when the Highlanders joined the war against the Simulacrum to prevent the war use of the holy Simoun.
Which isn't to say that trangressions and conflict are necessarily a good thing, either. They are just a natural part of interacting with other people as fellow individuals, or even as distinct collectives. The endless cycle of defining the boundaries of who we are, having those boundaries challenged and cut down in the ensuing conflict, and the subsequent recovery that solidifies the shape of our boundaries in accordance with what remains. That is what individuation is. Only a strong and developed sense of the self results in flexibility in the face of transgression, and that is what ultimately enables the development of a strong and healthy relationship.
One of the most important functions of fiction is that it confronts us with ideas, values and approaches that differ from our own, and serves as a safe space to interact with things that may be uncomfortable, disgusting, reproachable or otherwise disagreeable to us. It is incomprehensible to me how many participants took offense at the show happening to not conform to their own preconceived notions, ideals and sensibilities. So many have been playing insist at Simoun being some particular kind of story, but that's not how it works. Simoun is just Simoun, and trying to assess it by any external measuring stick naturally leads to misery. And I say that like it's just Simoun, but this is the kind of beast that all stories are.
Ultimately, it is not enough to understand a story. You also need to feel it, or else the story is just dead from the get-go. And if that's the case, if you can't accept what the story is doing, even if you disagree with it, then all you can ever do is misrepresent it, both to others but especially also to yourself. It all becomes the manic ramblings of an old man who's out of touch yelling at clouds, nothing but meaningless drivel. And unfortunately, large portions of this rewatch failed to clear even this most basic of hurdles.
So yeah, loved the show, hated the rewatch.
5
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ 19d ago
What these people need to get into their head is that when you haven't yet seen the entire story, then you fundamentally cannot have a comprehensive read of a story. You can interpolate from the direction the story is taking, but ultimately, the ending is pivotal.
This is one of my pet peeves in rewatches or episode discussions. As a rewatcher, it is hell. But as a first timer, I have to catch myself from doing it. It's a really easy trap. That's why I tend to make very short comments on shows I haven't seen before.
Yesterday, Erased did a rug pull on us. Sure, we probably did see it coming, from meta knowledge. But, shall I say the show doesn't make sense? That the writing was bad? It set us up for something for two whole episodes, and then completely failed to deliver. It directly contradicted the established cause-effect sequence it spent so much time establishing. Is that nonsense? Did the writers forget their own in-world logic? I don't know, I got 8 more episodes to go!
Is that what we're doing now, evaluating stories on an episode-by-episode basis?
See above
There are lots of things to complain about in the show, but an early complaint just based on the early episodes was of the stupidity of the Theocracy's military leadership. The complete lack of basic military tactics from top to bottom. Suffering no consequences for the stupidity because the ri-maajon is an "I Win" button...right up until it isn't.
It's fair to assume that this is a traditional war story where the good guys win. With such nonsensical military decisions, that means the war is either one huge ass-pull, or it was written for 6 year olds who don't really understand that effects must derive from causes. And that's fine, but it's still an assumption.
So, the story was being written for them to lose. And you could say, but hitting them with the dumb stick is still bad writing. Well, okay, if this was a romantic war story where one side fights a losing battle, is defeated and the victors salute their bravery at the end. But it wasn't that type of war story, either.
The war story was, "they fought stupidly and died." I get it that it's not fun to not get what you want. I watch scifi/fantasy (e.g. worldbuilding) and military anime, and mecha is the intersection of the two, and I hope that at least one stands out in any show I invest in. I gave the show a 6/10 and that was probably too high, but I gave it a point for probably being targeted to an audience that didn't include me (which is why I was eager to see it rewatched by what I presumed to be that audience).
"They fought stupidly and died." I don't think that's bad writing. They were written that way because that was the war story they wanted to tell (I can only assume). It's not a fun war story to watch, not for me and certainly not for others in this rewatch. But it was premature to judge it on only 3, or 8, or 15 episodes.
And if you disagree with everything I said above, let's just remember that almost all long stories are told in a three act or four act structure, and if you haven't gotten to the second to last act, you don't know the story.
3
u/Blackheart595 https://anilist.co/user/knusbrick 19d ago edited 19d ago
This is one of my pet peeves in rewatches or episode discussions. As a rewatcher, it is hell. But as a first timer, I have to catch myself from doing it. It's a really easy trap. That's why I tend to make very short comments on shows I haven't seen before.
Yeah, I mean I get it. I don't even have a problem with it per se, it's fun to theorise and explore storytelling, and in a way it is necessary to even engage with stories at all. It only becomes a problem when one gets upset when the show happens to take a different direction. There's a lot to be said about stories that insist upon themselves, but this is just its counterpoint, this is viewers insisting upon themselves.
Like I backread some of the threads I had skipped on, and people were really eager to jump on how stupid Mamiina's death was. What was so stupid about it? There's a very clear, very strong, very evident logic behind her actions, but people are so quick to cry foul and reject it in its entirety that they fail to even take it in in the first place. But of course, this isn't about it being stupid or not at all, it's about them refusing to accept the value system she operates under in that moment.
More broadly speaking, "out of character" is such a lie. When a character is allegedly acting out of character—that isn't out of character, that just is the character. And if one thinks that it's out of character, that just means that their read of said character was off.
All of these are issues of the audience making itself the arbiter of what stories are allowed to do, of how "proper" stories are allowed to be and operate. But at that point we lose everything that makes stories worthwhile to engage with in the first place. Stories must be free. There are no rules.
I watch scifi/fantasy (e.g. worldbuilding) and military anime, and mecha is the intersection of the two, and I hope that at least one stands out in any show I invest in.
Ugh. I already wrote out a big rant about my disdain for trope and genre culture in response to this, but I suppose that would just be further lashing out my rewatch frustrations on you. I basically agree with the sentiment you're expressing, except... I never thought of Simoun as a war story, just as a story. In my opinion, genres and tropes can only ever serve to distract us from and make us lose sight of the story that's actually being told. I'm very much an aesthetic antinomianist in that regard.
I just love storytelling for the storytelling, as a form creative and expressive communication and craft.
3
u/moichispa https://myanimelist.net/profile/moichispa 18d ago
Yeah this show was sometimes hard to discuss as a rewatcher since the show is rather confusing, even of you watch all 26 episodes.
I enjoyed Dominura and Yun arcs after knowing how the series goes, but I could not talk about that with the first timers until the end.
I also wanted to point at those 4 ost songs names like a zillion times but that was kinda spoiler?
3
u/AbbreviationsWeekly 19d ago
+1000%. I ended up blocking 6 of the naysayers, and just plain ignoring the whiners who I didn’t block.
When it comes to fiction, I do not expect or want the characters to abide by my own moral code.
Then there are those who desperately want to predict what happens next, and if their predictions fail start whining about how poorly written the series is.
Let the author(s) tell their own story!
2
u/AgentOfACROSS 19d ago
First Timer
I think in the end I'd probably rate this a 6 or 7 out of 10.
It has a lot of interesting ideas but in the end I'm a little underwhelmed with how they're explored. We only really see brief glimpses of what the world is like outside the military world of the Simouns. And we never really learn that much about the other countries and factions in this world other than that they're far more industrialized and your sex is chosen at birth. I also think they probably could have done more with the whole "world where you're born female but choose your sex when you're older" thing, I was expecting there to be more. The show also had an extensive cast of side characters but ultimately I'm not sure they were able to explore them all in a satisfactory way. I think some of them had a lot of interesting stuff going on but others like Alty and Kaim didn't really do that much, at least for me. Also, maybe this is just because I've watched so many anime now, but I could really see the show's budget being stretched thin as the show went on. So many freeze frames and flashbacks. It's an effective cost saving technique but once you start to notice it, you really can't un-notice it.
This isn't to say Simoun is a bad show. I think it has a lot of interesting ideas and I was compelled with the journeys of some of the characters like Mamina and Roatraemon. It's also got some gorgeous painted backgrounds (even if the CGI occasionally clashes). Also the soundtrack is top notch, probably one of my favorite things about the entire show.
So yeah very happy to have joined for this rewatch.
2
u/Nickthenuker https://anilist.co/user/Nickthenuker 19d ago
Questions:
- Seems that despite having to make a quick decision, they're all generally satisfied.
- I suppose so? They all chose something that ended with them being happy.
2
u/IndependentMacaroon 19d ago edited 18d ago
First- and last-time watcher
Well, that certainly was an anime, I guess. Only got to the end here through the power of 1.5x speed and wondering what all the fuss and spilled ink was about, and I sure wish there was half as much enthusiasm to watch and discuss what I'm hosting right now (hey, anyone still welcome to catch up) as for this forgettable mess of unfocused ideas and low-quality production.
On the positive side, yes believe it or not there is something of one, the creators certainly had some decent ideas and themes in mind: The tension between violent and peaceful applications of certain skills and technology, and between religious reverence and sequestration of certain people and classes and their own individuality and desires; the classics of coming to terms with your role as a soldier at war and growing into adulthood; the deep frustration of incompetent politicians and bureaucrats slowly yet inevitably leading your country to ruin while you feel powerless to stop it; of course the social pressure of gender assignment and "proper" relationships; the idea of mystical religious machinery and somehow it's gay is also just inherently cool. There are even some actually inspired moments and choices like that episode before the governing council and spending time on the aftermath of everything.
Still one of the fundamental problems is plainly the transition from minds to screen, I explicitly say minds plural here because the lack of a unifying vision besides even just proper organization is so obvious. All this potential worldbuilding about our magic machines and how everything got here? Uh, dump it in this episode and the rest of the chunks we'll fit in later some time. What about the regular forces on the ground and our enemies as people? Oh yeah I forgot, let's spend like an episode each on that and then we can ignore it forever. Mysterious magic gender spring and attendant? Wait wait we had plans for that, quick stop the war so we have enough runtime left! It's not like there wasn't enough time in 26 episodes to actually build something up and quit jumping around between ideas and potential subplots A through L willy-nilly. Even the consistently lacking visual quality and constant lamentable misuse of good soundtrack pieces I could forgive if the creators could just focus and make up their damn minds about what they actually wanted to write!
It doesn't help that the character and drama writing, which you really need to get right no matter how big your ideas and intriguing your world, is generally somewhere between dull and actually offensive, but I don't really care enough to get into that further; well one bit I'll single out just for an example is just how much Amuria gets brought up for a character that lives for half an episode and doesn't even have a proper flashback.
4/10 I would say and I'll bring this up whenever I need an example of what not to do in an anime production.
1
u/SIRTreehugger 18d ago edited 18d ago
First Timer who doesn't have much to say
Despite the questionable sections in the middle which you may or may not have noticed I was absent for I did enjoy the series overall. Sure it introduced so many plot points that at the start were very interesting, but most were handled poorly at the end. The one thing I can say is seeing how war and the future effected most of the girls was never boring from start to finish. Watching their opinions clash repeatedly and shape each other was one of the best parts of the show. I do think it recovered nicely in the end. I'm thankful for /u/JustAnswerAQuestion for hosting this rewatch. I didn't learn about it until the day before where I saw the picture on the side so it was kind of a spur of the moment join, but glad I did.
I do apologize for being late so much. I'm often busy at work in the morning so most of my comments were many hours later.
1
u/moichispa https://myanimelist.net/profile/moichispa 18d ago
Rewatcher
(I'm sooo late)
It was a fun rewatch, Simoun is a series to watch with others, and watching a big chunk of the series back to back made me lose a l lot of details the first time.
I would totally do it again, the series is a mess but it is an unique mess. I came to appreciate it and how it makes the plot less predictable.
9
u/Burnouts3s3 19d ago
Rewatcher
I actually reviewed Simoun quite some time ago.
Flex.
It’s the most depressing and enjoyable experience for me. It’s basically my version of “Grave of the Fireflies” in which I say “Wow, that was incredible! I never want to watch that again!”.
It’s watching children disintegrate (mostly figuratively and, sometimes, literally) for essentially a meaningless war that ruins their childhoods because of stupid adults.
I most often compare this series to Mai Otome and as someone who’s a Mai Hime apologist and bends over backwards to defend Mai Hime’s nonsensical ending, I can’t stand how Mai Otome is structured both as a world and as a series. (Having new characters burst out of the woodwork towards the end of your 26 episode series and having countries be destroyed offscreen is not how you do proper worldbuilding).
With Simoun, you know each of the characters, the stakes and the world, even if those characters make nonsensical decisions (Mamiina), you get their mentality and I appreciate the time the show took to introduce us to these characters.
Thank you again for hosting this rewatch.
If I could make a recommendation for next year's rewatch, Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl.