OWARINAKI TABIBITO - No Make Girl’s Endless Journey

Simoun ep 1

It’s a real shame that Simoun is a commercial flop, because it’s the sort of anime they really should make more of. It’s not plot-driven (there is, however, passage of time and events, set in the background) but rather tells a story of a group of girls and how they react to being part of a war. While not wholly realistic, there’s something very humanistic about their fears and insecurities and hopes and wants and petty fights and time-spanning dreams.

Unfortunately, you get none of that from the first episode. Some people have labeled the first episode of Simoun as one of the worst first episodes in anime. Well, if you consider where the anime went from there, I’m inclined to agree.

I’ll admit, like most other people who checked it out when it first came out, raw, no less, I did so because it was billed as the new yuri anime of the season. The problem was that 1) even knowing Japanese, I had no freakin’ idea what was happening, 2) the kissing was over the top, 3) too many characters, and 4) no like chara designs!

Well, the last is a matter of personal taste, but I think, rewatching this on DVD, overall this episode suffered from being just too radical. For instance, it begins with huge mechanistic airships in stormy weather, bringing to mind Miyazaki anime like Laputa. It opens with a narrative by a female voice, telling us of the dissatisfaction a country has against the Holy Land which holds magical Simoun that they refuse to give up the secrets of. The voice is actually a he, a soldier who is part of a massive invasion force to the Holy Land, so that they may take the secrets of Simoun for the betterment of their country.

Then you switch to the Holy Land, a beautiful clean country where girls are priestesses who fly magical chariots of God. We are introduced to a bunch of girls who are ostensibly the main characters of the show. There are also a bunch of old men and women, all who speak in female voices. An explanation is given of Ri Maajon, which is the act of drawing lines in the sky with Simoun as prayers to Tempus Spatium (God). Our Simoun troupe see the invasion force, and use their Ri Maajon with destructive effectiveness against the hundreds of enemy fliers. But the numbers are too much, and so Neviril and Amuria perform the greatest of all, and as yet untested, Ri Maajon - the Emerald Ri Maajon. They seem to succeed, until Neviril sees an enemy soldier right in front of her and loses her nerve. There is a massive explosion, and while Neviril and her Simoun limp out of the hole in the sky, Amuria’s cockpit is a wrangled mess.

Then we learn that the fight has caused several other losses, and two surviving priestesses have decided to “head to the spring” and choose their sex. Two new characters arrive, and one is to be the main character for the series, judging from the opening. But by this time, you’re already lost…

I think the idea of having half the episode narrated from the point of view of the enemy soldier a very interesting idea. I think this failed because it didn’t give the episode much room to establish who you, the viewer, were supposed to watch. Then, the whole female voice thing just threw me for a total loop - very disconcerting. Then you had characters being introduced, and then characters dying off just as quickly. Unfortunately, you are not explicitly told that Amuria died, just that Neviril had lost her Pal (partner), and so much of the distress is a mystery. Oh yes, and before I forget, you get about 50 million new bits of vocab thrown at us, not to mention a very complicated setting for the political and social setup of this world. Plus the bizarre physiology involved. And then more characters on top. All in 25 mins.

I know the production team tried really hard, but this was a perfect example of too much, too fast.

On the other hand, if you watch the entire series then go back and see this ep, it’s quite amazing how well thought out the world is. They put a lot of work in to developing a completely different reality, and while much of it was never explicitly revealed in the course of the show, the thoroughness shows through.

So, basically a very good show that is killed by its own too-ambitious debut. Ah well.

BTW, did I mention that the music is weird too? It’s absolutely great stuff, but I for one had not even dreamt of using a waltz for an aerial dogfight before seeing this, and that threw me too.

What can I say… I’m just really glad they made this anime. One Simoun for every 10 ero-game adaptations… that’d be a nice balance.