I had no idea what Simoun was when the first volume landed on my doorstep in 2007. All I knew was that it had some interesting character designs, and that it was coming with a lot of hype. What I got was an interesting yuri love story wrapped up in a somewhat unique war story, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I watched it again in preparation for this article, and frankly, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. It had been far too long since I’d watched it.
The world of Daikuriku is one of constant strife. The theocratic nation of Simulcrum has been granted the knowledge of divine technology, which they have used to the betterment of their society. The problem, though, is their belief that the technology is their divine right, and they have refused to share it with the rest of the world. As such, they are the target of constant warfare as the other countries continue to try and gain access to the technology.
The heart of Simulcrum’s defenses are the Simoun: aircraft built with the divine technology capable of drawing on the goddess’s power to defeat any enemy. The Simoun are piloted by Simoun Syllibae, young priestesses who have yet to make the pilgrimage to the temple of Tempus Spatium to choose their genders and graduate to adulthood (all children in Daikuriku are born female; gender selection is part of the passage to adulthood). But Simulcrum’s over-reliance on the Simoun has blinded them to the reality that the rest of the world is catching up, and the priestesses are thrust into a more involved conflict than they had ever anticipated, causing many to begin questioning the long held belief of divine selection.
On its surface, Simoun is a war series. From the moment it says go, we’re placed on a war footing, and we never really come off it. We also spend a lot of time with the various Syllibae wondering about their place in the world and whether or not they were truly intended to kill their enemies. It gives us some really good philosophical wonderings about the nature of war and whether it is ever worth fighting. It is one of the best series I have seen in this way.
A neat approach this series makes with this approach too is that we are placed in Simulcrum, and our main characters are Simoun Syllibae. Typically, in war stories, we are set up to root for the young upstart nations/heroes fighting against the oppressive machine. But in Simoun, it is the upstarts who are presented as the other, the enemies attempting to destroy the peace that Simulcrum had long established (or forced down the others’ throats, perhaps). Simoun wants us to start out rooting for the side that we should be seeing as the enemy, and it does a good job of doing it. That way, once the people fighting for Simulcrum begin questioning what it is they are doing, we have a much more solid base to work from to be interested in their problems.
But while there is a war going on, Simoun is (at its heart) a love story. The series opens up with the first battle of the new war. Chor Tempest (the elite among the Simoun Syllibae) are drawn into a conflict where the technology and abilities of their enemies take them by surprise. While Chor Tempest eventually emerge victorious, it isn’t without loss: Amuria, the co-pilot of Chor Tempest’s leader Neviril, is killed. Neviril is devastated by this, as it seems that her feelings for Amuria ran deeper than just comrades and co-pilots. As such, she retreats into solitude and all but abandons her post.
Enter Aer, a new Syllibae who has no use for the old-fashioned notions of the divine rights of the priestesses. She is only interested in fighting, an approach that tends to find rejection among the priesthood but one that is necessary in this new age where just showing up no longer means automatic victory for the Simoun. In her desire to be the best of the best, she is determined to bring Neviril out of her funk, and her efforts eventually raise feelings in the both of them they didn’t know they had as they begin to understand each other better.
It is this burgeoning love between Neviril and Aer that really drives this story forward. While the world around them is slowly falling apart, the relationship they forge is what enables them to keep going and find their own path. Aer’s strength gives Neviril the initiatve to 
ultimately stand up for her herself, and Neviril’s steadiness tempers the warmongering path that Aer was previously on, and in the end, it is only the passion they find for one another that matters.
As you might guess with the fact that pretty much the entire cast is female, Simoun is most definitely a yuri title, and really, my only complaint with it (aside from Neviril’s china doll appearance) is that it can never seem to decide how yuri it wants to be. Sometimes it pushes the envelope, and other times, it backs off. It’s almost as if it wants to push the envelope but is afraid to. Either approach is fine with me, but I would have liked it to have chosen a path and stuck with it.
But aside from that, Simoun is a really fascinating title. It gives us some interesting philosophical discussions about the nature of war, and keeps us interested with the developing relationship between its two protagonists. When it released ten years ago, yuri wasn’t as prevalent as it is now (though it certainly wasn’t new by any stretch), so the passion between Neviril and Aer came off more strongly than it might these days, but it still definitely holds up well. I think this is because while I found the yuri inconsistent, it also doesn’t fixate on it, either. The passion felt between these two (and some of the other characters) is part of the story, not something gratuitously inserted to try and help sell more copies. It’s just part of the nature of the characters and plot, and that’s the best kind of yuri (or any kind of romance, really).
On a final note, I just want to say that Simoun also has a beautiful soundtrack. From the moment I first watched it in 2007-8, the OST has had a regular place in my music rotation. It does a perfect job in the series of setting the mood, and its uniqueness in composition makes it great to listen to in just about any situation. It’s gorgeous.
Simoun is a title that I really wish had gotten more attention than it did when released. It came out in the US on the tail-end of releases coming out as individual volumes, so its sell-through wasn’t terrific, but it did ultimately get a box set release which is still available (not sure if it’s technically “in print,” but it’s still certainly available, as is the OST). It’s a title that really didn’t make too many waves on this side of the Pacific when it was released, and it seems to have been lost to time (as well as the wave of “cute girls doing things” anime) in the years that have followed. It’s a wonderful story with some really interesting takes and approaches on old themes, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to check it out again.
