Simoun(2006) (シムーン Shimūn)

D: Junji Nishimura
W: Akatsuki Yamatoya
     Fukyoushi Oyamada
     Junji Nishimura
     Mari Okada

ANN 7.578
MAL 7.51
IMDB 6.7

Simoun is a fully realized Yuri Anime set on the alien planet Daikūriku (大空陸) ("great sky land" or "heaven's shore") where all the humanoids are born female.

In the Matriarchy of Simulacrum, girls will choose which sex to become, but in the Patriarchal counties of Argentum and Plumbum, the girl children at birth are assigned a sex, and then forced by various chemical methods into their assigned roles. These two countries are very male dominated and war-like, while Simulacrum is a peaceful, idyllic country where even the men are very feminine, and far in advance technologically than are Argentum and Plumbum who both lust after Simulacrum’s riches.

Simulacrum at some point prior to the Simoun series, discovers the technology of an ancient civilization which use to live and thrive on Daikuriku and these are the mysterious Simouns. That ancient people are now extinct and left no records.

The best the scientists of Simulacrum can determine, the Simoun’s were used for religious rituals in that by drawing certain patterns in the sky, called Ri-Majon, these patterns create different effects. One theory holds, that these lines in the sky are cracks in the time-space continuum and allows the intersection of different dimensions. The Simouns were used for prayer or so it is believed.

Simulacrum figures out how to run the Simouns which require two paired girls, and the Simouns can sense the feelings of each girl for the other. If the pair is not tight together with their feels, the Simouns do not function properly. And the relationships of the pairs are intense emotionally, and form the basis of the story.

The machines are literally turned on by the two paired girls kissing to prove how tight they are together. We follow one squadron of Simouns called Chor Tempest composed of the 12 girls in the chart above who pilot 6 Simouns, and they are used as war machines, to destroy the more primitive machines of Argentum and Plumbum.

The Simouns have to be some of the coolest advanced tech machines in all Sci-fi.

But this story is not Sci-fi, but rather Yuri and the core of the story is all about the fluctuations in the daily lives of these girls in Chor Tempest, and the various states of their love for each other. Love affairs are fully accepted by this society.

When my fav character Aer or Aelle first meets Neviril or Neville, she tells her in full public ceremony that she would like very much to get down with her, you know, like let's get it on babe. The scene plays and no one is embarrassed.

If you are homophobic, you probably will not be able to get into Simoun. A more real problem for non-hateful people, is that Simoun is a FRU (Fully Realized Universe) much in the style of “Lord of the Rings”, and the artists behind Simoun take no prisoners. The enormous detail of this universe is magnificent. But the technical specs would take many pages to describe so there is no mention here of how all this works. And the artists who made Simoun will not stop their story at anytime to bring you up to speed. The characters will just start using terms and definitions which have real meaning in their universe but which will cause you to go “What was that?”. Now many hard-core sci-fi fans live for this kind of story which really has the potential to transport your feels to someplace really, really “Other”, and Simoun fully delivers. There is a feeling of dread and sadness which hangs over this story, you can feel it. There is no English dub, so if you attempt this one, you will have to fully concentrate. Highly recommended, a masterpiece for that certain group of people who like Mauve Simouns on FRU Street, a straight street by the way.

OMG, I want one!! FRU-FI, don't bother me!