Reviews/Anime/Simoun

To begin with, this series definitely does not take place on earth. And after getting your thoughts straight in the beginning it is a very good story. How different is this world? Very. All people are born female, period. In some countries the girls get to determine their final sex at age 17. In other countries the sex is changed by hormones before birth. This world does not really have the technology that it seems to have. What technology is available has been literally dug up in archeological digs, and they have no idea who really developed the science. Time, space and religion are intertwined to where they are one. In this world you find a group of girls that are priestesses, who "pray" to their deity by flying aerobatics in aircraft called Simouns that have no visible means of propulsion.
Character development is excellent. Trying to keep the new concept in mind can be confusing sometimes. Personal relationships can be hard to keep up with. After all, everyone is female, and your best friend can become your husband, or wife, later.
The animation is also good. For me, this was one of the best series I've seen in a while and I highly recommend it.
Now for a little lesson. As I watched the action there seemed to be something familiar going on. Being a history buff I noticed that it appeared to match up with the real history of the Pacific war.
In the beginning of the series the country that the priestesses belong to is being attacked by an industrialized country. That country's skies were polluted by manufacturing processes. Their aircraft were propeller driven and operated from strange, huge, aircraft carriers. The main thrust of the war was to get the secret of the powered machines from the priestesses. Combat was by bullets from the one, and use of prayer forms done in the sky by the Simouns. Now, let's apply this to real history. Use Japan as the non-industrial country of the Simouns, and put the US as the industrial nation. At the beginning of the war there were a group a people that were considered as "gods of the sky" in Japan. Let's insert that group, the Japanese Naval Air Force into the mix. One of the attributes of the Naval aviators, and the Army flyers also, was the ability to dogfight. These men were trained to do superb acrobatics in combat, so much so that the US flyers were told to never get into a dogfight with their counterparts. The US strategy was to dive into the enemy and leave.
Throughout the Simoun story the girls are sent on senseless missions, or missions that they are not trained for. Even their Simouns become obsolete compared to the enemy, just as the American aircraft began to out fly the Japanese. As the series moves along you can begin to feel the real history more and more. In the end the Simoun aircraft carrier is seen laying in a shallow sea, abandoned. There is a picture of a real IJNS carrier scuttled in a Japanese harbor that this scene mirrors.
review by Jay