Aozora no Miko
August 10, 2006 | Television, Eye Candy | Simoun
Omo beat me to it, but I want to point everyone toward these incredible vector traces of Simoun eyecatches, courtesy of NegativeZero. Typically, I don’t use vector traces for desktop wallpaper, but these are too attractive not to use (notebook | desktop). I look forward to seeing more.
And, speaking of Simoun, I have to say this…
When the show first started, I ignored it. Later, I figured I’d give it a try. Initially, I wasn’t sold. But I kept watching. And now? One of my favorite shows of the year. No doubt about it.
Just one question before I consider jumping onto the bandwagon.
What is the general mood of Simoun?
Mood? Hmm… straight drama, I suppose. It’s part character drama, part political intrigue, part war drama. It deals with some serious issues, but it’s not so serious as to be morose. The fantasy setting and the cute girls takes a lot of the edge off.
Be aware that the first episode (first few episodes, for that matter) doesn’t really do the show justice. It takes a little bit of time for everything to fall in to place, and the show feels a little flaky until that happens. It was around Episode 8, I think, that the show finally “clicked” for me.
>straight drama
Ummm….
Yes, I’d agree with Jeff there. I also pretty much wrote the show off as boring, too strange for my tastes and too much jargon flying around for my liking. This was after 4 episodes or so. I stuck with it though(at the time I wasn’t quite sure why) but now I’m glad I did. The last few episodes have been very good and I’m now officially hooked on it. It’s just a shame that some people seem to be turned off by it because of the yuri aspect(strange as that may sound) but really it is so minor in the grand scheme of things when you look at the stuff that the show really deals with. More often than not it usually just boils down to the kisses they do to activate their simoun.
Looking back on the spring season now, having finally reached this stage in the show(ep11), I’d say it’s among my top five(SuzuHaruhi, Saiunkoku, this show, Black Lagoon and Higurashi) for that season. One of my favourites for the year as well, no doubt about it and I can see it featuring in my top 10 for the year at this rate especially if it continues on in the form it’s been in the last few episodes(and reading the big thread on animesuki, it seems like it does). It’s probably not something I’d readily recommend though, mainly in part due to the difficulties I had in getting into the series, so I can imagine what it might be like for others if they don’t click with the show from the start.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Simoun-fans and Doremi for subbing the show, however large that contribution may have been. Had it not been for the availability of the subs I’d have probably dropped the show long ago, which with hindsight would have been a shame.
Kabitzin, it’s always about sex with you! ;)
It’s funny to see two separate bloggers whose writings I read quite regularly talking about their enjoyment of Simoun, because this morning I finally got around to checking out the first episode, and was pretty underwhelmed. I suppose I’ll watch a few episodes to see if it does grow on me, as overall the concept of the show had me very excited, and I’d hate to miss out on something wonderful.
Have you been watching the raws, or just the subs?
“I finally got around to checking out the first episode, and was pretty underwhelmed. I suppose I’ll watch a few episodes to see if it does grow on me….”
Episodes 3, 4, and 5 are a bit slow; things get a lot better in 6 and 7, and 8 goes over with a bang. And the entire second half of the series so far has been one “wham” episode after another….
I thought episodes 1 and 2 were brilliant, but they have a very different tone from the rest of the series — grimly serious, and idea-driven, with much less of the character drama that drives the rest of the show. The second half of episode 2, though, is wonderful.
question… on those wallpaper pix, i notice its winxp, but what is making ur icons look so glorious?
I’m glad to see see that the show is slowly but surely gaining a bit more of the recognition in the community - It by far deserves more recognition and noise around it than it gets. I’d even say it’s the most underrated/shunned good series of the year, though as Omo pointed out, there’s clear reasons for that. Aside from the mentioned fansub and gearing problems though, I’d say there was also a target audience problem - Initially the show was rallied (and with episode 1, it really seemed to be the case) as the ‘lol 2nd zomg lol yoori series of the season’.
The problem thus arose that a good deal of people who’d otherwise likely enjoy the thing flunked it out of the window immidiately without further questions because of dirty-dirty yooori moe fanboy pandering. But when the show didn’t turn out to be as panderingly yooriffic in the vein as it’s touted counterpart Strawberry Panic, the yoori fanboys slowly dwindled in numbers and abandoned the series as it got further in due to a ‘lack of action’. So who were left? a small number of people with more all-encompassing tastes that were willing to see where the show was really going.
Yeah, it’s no wonder there’s so little noise about the series.
Me personally, I was initially in it just to see the Yoori promise in action, but hoped for something more than that, but it didn’t really show signs of going in the direction of the expic scale of conflict (á la Exile) that I initially expected/wished.
But after watching the show for n-amount of episodes mostly hoping things would ‘catch up’ and because I quite liked the designs and material in the show, It had a sudden realization of ‘Hey, I’ve been hooked on this show for a while already and I didn’t really realize it until now’.
…Since then I’ve been awake at 01:30 pm on monday mornings hoping I’d have a chance to download the next episode raw before going to bed. It’s been a good while since a show got a heavy of a hold on me personally as Simoun has, the last one probably being Starship Operators - though not really in the same way - Actually, I think I’d have to go as far back as Scrapped Princess to come up with something that pulled my strings and had me personally by thread on an equal level.
On relation to that, rq of Moetry has an interesting take on the subject of what partly makes these type of otome-characters (beware of potential SPOILERS those who haven’t watched the show) http://memo.donmai.us/post/view/882, so aspiring, and I thought it was a nice breakdown on some of the essence that is at hand.
And if someone already didn’t do it, go read Omo’s entry on the show that Jeff linked. It hits a lot of things on the head.
Grandmamiina for life~~
I hate “jumping ship” on a fansubbing group, but apparently I really, really need to give up on Doremi getting caught up on this show in a timely fashion, don’t I?
Le sigh. Off I go, to see the half-dozen episodes I’m behind so far…
>GreyDuck
– Actually Doremi jumped ship on you, they dropped the project a while ago.
Another Simoun fan here. Simoun definitly deserves more fans then it has but I consider myself lucky to have stuck with it. Right now I’d say it’s my #2 show of the year behind Haruhi.
I think Mooey’s got it. There is a serious mismatch in terms of expectation, and it’s hard to market a lukewarm adolecense coming-of-age war drama that doesn’t have the flair of, say, Utena or FLCL. However thematically Simoun fits right in line with those great shows and I think it does a good job telling its story for the most part.
But to be fair, it does have some serious weaknesses–I for one never really liked Studio DEEN’s style of gorgeous-slideshow of an excuse for anime. The mecha design (a Korean?! zomg) are unique and while they fit the LOLOL mikoyoori theme, it isn’t quite exactly attractive. Coupled with the howling SFX as if Vader’s Custom TIE was shining light up your ass… It is purposeful juxtaposition, maybe, to the graceful Ri Maajons the Sybillae perform in their practice, maybe? Jarring and hard to get used to, definitely.
Plus my problem is just what the hell is going on? And as you’ve all said things don’t click about 8 eps in. Certainly we don’t get Granny or Dominura until then :)
A little boon for me is how there are some HD Simoun encodes, and it is easier to get scripts for this show than most other :D SOOOOO apperciate all the other Simoun fans that picked up the slack at subtitling and making it possible for the rest of us to enjoy~
“I really, really need to give up on Doremi getting caught up on this show in a timely fashion, don’t I?”
Given that they’ve dropped the show, that would be a yes.
From reading the above comments about “one of the most underrated show of 2005″, I’m willing to give it a try. I’m all fired up on intending to watching this!
If only my HD space isn’t dwindling below 1GB. Some fansubbers dropping the series due to lack of interest/time/fanbase is a minus. OTL
“Looking back on the spring season now, having finally reached this stage in the show(ep11), I’d say it’s among my top five(SuzuHaruhi, Saiunkoku, this show, Black Lagoon and Higurashi) for that season.”
Heh, you haven’t even reached the good part of Simoun. Just wait till you see episodes 14-16. :D
I believe that there were some .ass-files somewhere in a thread in the animesuki-forums.
glad to hear it :)
At the moment though I’m content to wait for the hardsubbed versions to be released from Simoun-fans. I have plenty of other shows to be watching as well so it helps to pass the time between episodes.
I find it interesting that for a show which supposedly promised yuri because of the way Simouns were activated, that there’s less of that and more drama. Things do start slowly, though - I don’t think it gets really serious till about Ep 4-5 or so, then you bring in the other intrigues.. and well, they’re up to 18 now, last I looked, although Simoun-Fans hasn’t gone past 11 yet.
Thanks for the promotion. :) I’m glad people are liking my trace work.
I never really wrote Simoun off - I liked it from the beginning, but I’ll admit it started kind of slow and underwhelming. Once it got going though, I thought it was quite odd that everyone seemed to hate it, given that it’s actually pretty good. Plus it’s been the first thing in years to actually have a pile of shots that I wanted to trace. The last series that did that for me was Konomini in 2004.
I really like Simoun - It doesn’t really take itself too seriously and its good to watch if you dont really want to get caught up in twisty storylines and depressing long ass shows.
Also, theres lots of girl-love.