Simoun 01

On the planet "Daikuuriku" (Great Skyland), there are all female pilots of wondrous flying weapons called Simoun in the country of Kyuukoku. The story begins with the narration of a pilot of inferior flying machines from a different country as the Simoun pilots. The voice is that of Enma Ai, the Jigoku Shoujo...er, I mean, the seiyuu Mamiko Noto. Their mission is to discover the secret of Simoun, no matter what it takes.

They then introduce the major pilots of the Simoun ships, with focus on the pink haired Nebiru and her co-pilot Amuria. The two 17-year-old girls shockingly kiss, as do all the other pairs of pilots, then they kiss the curved glass which houses a spherical object. They fly in formation, and later a pilot hears a noise; they see another Simoun ship on fire and falling to the ground below. They manage to communicate with the dying pilot within and she says that their entire squadron was shot down. Later, they encounter the perpetrators and destroy most of their ships using the power of the sphere in their vessels (they imagine a pattern in the sphere, the Simoun ships duplicate the pattern, and the energy formed destroys the other ships). They chase the remaining two enemy vessels and see a huge fleet of enemy ships. The Simoun pilots are dismayed but fight, but it the numbers of the enemies seem too much for them to handle. Angered, Amuria, who wants to become stronger, urges her partner to fight. They kiss once more and caress the sphere, creating an incredibly complex pattern... the energy formed begins the destroy the huge number of enemy ships. However, one of the enemy pilots (the one who did the narration) comes quite close to their vessel, and Nebiru makes eye contact with her. Amuria warns too late about making eye contact as it disables their ability to kill... Nebiru freaks out and a black energy pattern begins to form; it is even more devastating, and most of the enemy ships distegrate while the rest of the Simoun squad flee the firestorm. The enemy pilot seems to fall, her helmet and clothing begin to disintegrate.

Back on their main ship/city, the surviving pilots are depressed about the incident. They introduce three more characters, the kids Furoe and Rimone, and another pilot named Aeru, who wants to fight. We also see Nebiru (I think) in some other place, with different clothing, and she seems to be able to fly.

Overall, this anime had some high quality animation, especially the CG graphics. The music was good. The story seemed a bit slow-paced, but I guess that's to be expected as they have to introduce the world and the characters. My Japanese wasn't good enough to understand everything completely (I'll have to watch this again to understand it better), but I think I got the gist of what was going on.

Incidently, this show's time conflicted with another anime I wanted to watch: Yoshinaga-san Ke no Gargoyle; I had to tape that on the VCR while I recorded this show on my computer. Y..Gargoyle was pretty good too. Some slapstick humor (the main character keeps kicking his gargoyle protector around), but it had a proper story for the first episode, delving into trust and forgiveness.

Pics for Simoun (click to enlarge):