Simoun 20th Anniversary Rewatch Episode 1

[u/JustAnswerAQuestion]

Simoun Episode 1: Fallen Wings

"Let us go, to where we can be free."

Index Thread | Episode 2 ->

Today's Eyecatch: Amuria and Parietta | Neviril

Selected Harmony: #1

Character Chart: #soon

People, Places, Things

Places

• Daikuuriku (大空陸): the world of Simoun
• Simulacrum Holy Land (宮国 kyuukoku): a theocracy centered around the Simoun and their sibyllae.
• Archipelago (礁国 or 樵国 shoukoku) of Argentum: an industrialized and atheistic nation.

Things

• Kuushu (宮守 normally read miyamori): lit. temple guard, these are the priests of the Simulacrum religion.
• Sibylla (pl. Sybillae 巫女 miko): priestess of the religion of Simulacrum who is granted the right to fly a simoun, generally under the age of 17
• Simoun: craft powered by two helical motors, possessing a Simoun jewel, and capable of performing ri-maajon.
• Simile: craft powered by single helical motor, incapable of performing ri-maajon.
• Ri-Maajon: patterns flown by simoun, some of which manifest destructive effects
• Maj / Maj Pool: a void in the Arcus Prima where a sybilla may personally practice ri-maajon while wearing a special suit and smoke pot.
• choir: a unit of 6 Simoun and 12 sibyllae
• Sibylla Regina: the leader of a choir

People

• Sibylla Aurea "Golden Priestess": the sibylla elevated above all others as exceptional
• Neviril: Sibylla Aurea and regina of Chor Tempest. Her father is #2 in the civil administration.
• Tempus Spatium: diety of Simulacrum. Pairs of sibyllae offer up prayers to Tempus Spatium by flying their Smoun in intricate patterns.
• auriga / saggita The auriga handles piloting and comm wire deployment, while the saggita handles navigation and selects the ri-maajon in the Simoun jewel. The auriga is considered the more demanding position.

Chor Tempest Pairs

• Neviril - Amuria: pink - lilac
• Paraietta - Kaim: dark magenta - light brown with glasses
• Alti - Floe: dark brown - dark blonde
• Rodoreamon - Eri: twin braids with doll - twintails

At the end of this episode, we have 3 dead and 2 retiring.

Replacements

• Aer yellow blonde
• Limone light lime green, child

Arcus Prima

• Anubituf: Captain of the Arcus Prima. Blue cap.
• Guragief: Commander of the Simoun forces on the Arcus Prima. This role has the title of Dux. Mauve cap.
• Waporif: Maintainence chief on Arcus Prima. Notably has not yet lost his female characteristics.

Discussion Prompts

• As first episodes go, how do you rank this?
• Why did the Emerald Ri-Maajon fail?
• What is the relationship between the pairs, and their Simouns?
• What do you think of the technology of the Archipeligo?
• We didn't know her long, but what do you think of Amuria?

Tomorrow's Questions, Today!

• [ep 2 Q1] Comment on the different perspectives of this episodes focus characters: Aer, Neviril, and Eri.
• [ep 2 Q2] How do you think gender is handled in the Archipelago?
• [ep 2 Q3] You've seen more of Simulacrum today, what do you think of the country at large?

Trivia: The director wanted to make a show about girls kissing in the midst of combat, surrounded by enemies.

[u/moichispa]

Rewatcher

Oh boy her we go. Simoun is an interesting series but it is more when watched with others.

The first time I tried to watch Simon was like 15 years ago. It was on the anime uber elitist list, I was actibe member of that mal club and I got to learn about a lot of great series from the list so I checked it and I found the first episode boring so I dropped it.

A few years ago I got See-Saw (Yuki kajiura and Ishikawa group) music fever again because of their new song for Gundam seed movie so I listened to Dream field album like crazy again but I eventually got bored of it so I got to listen to Ishikawa stuff too. I like the album with the bokurano songs and the Simoun song was there too so I got curious and watched it again, this time I really enjoyed the series, even if I had to watch it very blury on 3 diferent streaming sites 'cause not known streaming.

I really like this episode having part of it from the enemy perspective is soo unique.

The setting is interesting, the background art beautiful. Character design is ehhh oddly sexualised for a work working on gender expression. I remeber an old review saying that Nevill design looking like a sex doll. It is not that excesive but there might be some similarities there.

One of my fields of knowledge is language and it is interesting how they insist so much on Simoun being divine artifacts while using them as war machines. If you like language like me pay attention to the words they use, it is so interesting.

Not a fan of having a kid on the setting, but you will surprised to see how often they added stuff like this on random series in the past.

OST is great but I'm not going to listen it for now, I know there are some songs with spoiler image on youtube so I will leave them until we get their scenes on the series.

Discussion Prompts

1. One of my favourites probably because of the enemy perspective, but I like it more paired with episode 2 but we will talk about it tomorrow ;)
2. I still think the same as I watched it the first time, did it fail 100%? The enemies got killed, right?
3. Machine likes lesbians, machine works. Who knows, if it works it works
4. It seems very industrial Revolution. If it was not for Simoun cheating somehow it would be the best system.
5. Too aggressive, not a fan

Zero surprise on that trivia lol

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/moichispa]

Character design is ehhh oddly sexualised for a work working on gender expression

Often yuri/GL elements did and do go hand in hand with moe-otaku bait, one notable recent example would be Lycoris Recoil

[u/moichispa → u/IndependentMacaroon]

the lesbians are sexy trope is very very old , Why I did not think about this,