Simoun

Episode 1 by Doremi:
http://a.scarywater.net/doremi/%5BDo...5D.avi.torrent

"Original designs by Jin Seob Song.
The story takes place on a planet different from the Earth. They call their planet the Great Air Continent. There, they are born as female. When they become 15 years old, they go to the "spring" and choose their sex to become "adult".

They are at war; the country where the main characters live is invaded by the next country aiming at their superior engine. Day by day, the situation is getting severer. To intercept their attack, they convert the two-seater plane for ceremony, Simoun, into a fighter. Also, they organize an air squad, "Call", which consists of "Mediums". They are girls who don’t decide their sex yet.

The girl who can operate "Simoun" is called "Simoun Siwula". Because they have special abilities, they can choose when they become “adult” by themselves. However, since the war broke out, they`ve been forced to continue to be pilots, i.e., "girls". "

http://www.simoun.tv/
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ency...me.php?id=6287
http://anidb.info/perl-bin/animedb.p...anime&aid=4239
http://www.animenfo.com/animetitle,3...yb,simoun.html

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2343/simounhj2.jpg

I randomly picked this series when looking for some futuristic action to balance the drama / simple shounen stuff I've been consuming lately. I picked this up after reading some other description than the Animenfo one up there, which is, to put it politely, quite inaccurate.

Still, the basic setting is girls of various ages serving as priestesses, whose function in the theocratic society should be to perform aerobatics with two-seater machines. The planes are powered by ancient, superior engines found only in that land, excavated from ruins. The aerobatics consist of drawing figures in the sky, and when those figures are completed, interesting things can happen - like blasts the size of tactical nuclear explosions...

However, the rest of the planet is apparently faring much worse, and are living in gray and smoggy industrial societies or in otherwise compromised environments. And they all think that by getting their hands on those superior engines (that can be used for everything from planes to trains to carriers), they would remedy their poor conditions. And so the theocracy is at war with every neighbouring country (some nice foreign policy...).

What makes this series dubious, however, is that all people are born as females. And males are produced from the females by various means, for example by going to a mysterious spring at the age of 17, and choosing which gender you want to be. Still, when you have lived 17 (or sometimes more) years as a female, you won't make a proper macho anymore. And this is evident in the show. The military aspects of the theocracy, especially, are ridiculous. I guess you just need proper men to build proper military...

Aside from the fact that every show with twisted female - male distribution is suspicious by default in my mind, this show isn't half bad. There are some novel ideas, and while the bishoujo elements here and there are somewhat aggressive, as a whole it looks like good entertainment. Of course I haven't seen the whole series yet, but I intend to finish it unless something unexpected happens.

Doremi has dropped the series, but Simoun-Fans seems to be doing good work.

Episodes 1-13 Batch xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episodes 1-13 Batch h264 - Simoun-Fans

Episode 14 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 15 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 16 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 17 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 18 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 19 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 20 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 21 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 22 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 23 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 24 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 25 xvid - Simoun-Fans
Episode 26 xvid - Simoun-Fans

Episode 14 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 15 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 16 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 17 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 18 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 19 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 20 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 21 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 22 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 23 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 24 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 25 h264 - Simoun-Fans
Episode 26 h264 - Simoun-Fans

The h264 version seems to be uploaded already also on Boxtorrents, so the whole series batch can be conveniently downloaded from there. No such luck with xvid, though. Maybe they will add official batches of the second half at some point on scarywater.

I just watched this series, it;s decent..

The ending is just horrible. No story, no ending to the previous episode or past episodes. Just some nonsense ending that shouldnt have even happened. :/

I give it a 7/10

mmm... i remember seeing the first eps of this... don't remember if i dropped it or because there was just no release... i kinda remember liking the story of the main character! checking it out again!