Re: Simoun
Apr. 30th, 2010 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetI HAVE BEEN MEANING TO DO THIS FOREVER.
I finished watching Simoun, like, aaaaages ago, and now I have some thoughts to share, yay \o/ Or, uh, possibly not yay, as they are not all positive thoughts. In fact, most of what I will be sharing are criticisms.
Regarding the subtitles (which previously prompted deep thought/discussion-ish things): While I'll take Erica Friedman's word that the anime itself was well translated/adapted, I felt that the subtitling was poor. All the subtitles were always the same color, which sometimes made it difficult to tell who was speaking, or who was saying what.
Additionally, it took me until pretty much the last disc to figure out that whenever the subtitles said "Foreign" in italics, when someone spoke and it wasn't Japanese, they weren't just saying the word "foreign". I assumed through most of the anime that it was a pejorative, except that made little sense when the phrases had different lengths and sounds to them; I continued to assume this, however, until I realized that what the translators meant was that the characters were speaking a foreign language. I think it would have been nice if they could have differentiated the description and actual translated words a little better; just put some extra punctuation around "foreign", like [foreign] or *foreign* or something.
Regarding the yuri (and romance in general): Unpopular opinion time!
* My OTP was totally Rodoraemon (does her name sound like a Digimon to anyone else?) and Mamina. I was totes bummed when Mamina up and sacrificed herself to whatever. (Someone write me a "no Simouns" AU where they live happily ever after, okay?)
* I totally shipped Waporif and Morinas, which rocked, but wasn't technically yuri
* Okay, yes, Anubituf and Guragief won my heart over and then some. Still not yuri
* While they all chose to be women in the end, Paraietta, Kaim, and Alty didn't seem to end up with anyone? I mean, Kaim and Alty were living together, but that could just as easily be because they're sisters as because they decided to do the incest thing - which isn't the vibe I got from them at the end of the series, TBH
* Look, I like Dominura/Ramune Rimone and Aeru/Neviril, but as far as I can tell, they were kinda perpetuating one of the classic yuri tropes: Girls falling in love with other girls is something they do before they grow up; since Dominura, Rimone, Aeru, and Neviril (and Yun, but she's not coupled with anyone) are all now eternal maidens, they're fulfilling this trope and then some.
Regarding the gender issues: There's a lot of stuff in this universe that I reeeeally don't get. Possibly chief in my mind is how the hell they have such a patriarchal culture when everyone - everyone - is born with a female body.
Perhaps more importantly to me at the moment, I... don't see why everyone had to be born female in the first place. I think it could have been managed fairly well if the people were born neuter, and then had to choose a gender when they came of age, or something. Or maybe they could have been born with a specific gender, but couldn't reproduce until a coming-of-age ceremony, where their career was also decided. (I think I like the second idea better, since it would work for the one nation that physically altered every other infant or something. It also has less of a trans* exploitation issue.)
Criticism out of the way, it was still a pretty damn amazing story. The art was gorgeous, with some of the best eyecatches I've ever seen, the music was beautiful, and the characters themselves were interesting, complex, and well thought through. Their interactions were engrossing to watch. The plot pulled me in, made me wonder what would happen next. For all my issues with it, I did enjoy it. The issues still remain, though.
I finished watching Simoun, like, aaaaages ago, and now I have some thoughts to share, yay \o/ Or, uh, possibly not yay, as they are not all positive thoughts. In fact, most of what I will be sharing are criticisms.
Regarding the subtitles (which previously prompted deep thought/discussion-ish things): While I'll take Erica Friedman's word that the anime itself was well translated/adapted, I felt that the subtitling was poor. All the subtitles were always the same color, which sometimes made it difficult to tell who was speaking, or who was saying what.
Additionally, it took me until pretty much the last disc to figure out that whenever the subtitles said "Foreign" in italics, when someone spoke and it wasn't Japanese, they weren't just saying the word "foreign". I assumed through most of the anime that it was a pejorative, except that made little sense when the phrases had different lengths and sounds to them; I continued to assume this, however, until I realized that what the translators meant was that the characters were speaking a foreign language. I think it would have been nice if they could have differentiated the description and actual translated words a little better; just put some extra punctuation around "foreign", like [foreign] or *foreign* or something.
Regarding the yuri (and romance in general): Unpopular opinion time!
* My OTP was totally Rodoraemon (does her name sound like a Digimon to anyone else?) and Mamina. I was totes bummed when Mamina up and sacrificed herself to whatever. (Someone write me a "no Simouns" AU where they live happily ever after, okay?)
* I totally shipped Waporif and Morinas, which rocked, but wasn't technically yuri
* Okay, yes, Anubituf and Guragief won my heart over and then some. Still not yuri
* While they all chose to be women in the end, Paraietta, Kaim, and Alty didn't seem to end up with anyone? I mean, Kaim and Alty were living together, but that could just as easily be because they're sisters as because they decided to do the incest thing - which isn't the vibe I got from them at the end of the series, TBH
* Look, I like Dominura/
Regarding the gender issues: There's a lot of stuff in this universe that I reeeeally don't get. Possibly chief in my mind is how the hell they have such a patriarchal culture when everyone - everyone - is born with a female body.
Perhaps more importantly to me at the moment, I... don't see why everyone had to be born female in the first place. I think it could have been managed fairly well if the people were born neuter, and then had to choose a gender when they came of age, or something. Or maybe they could have been born with a specific gender, but couldn't reproduce until a coming-of-age ceremony, where their career was also decided. (I think I like the second idea better, since it would work for the one nation that physically altered every other infant or something. It also has less of a trans* exploitation issue.)
Criticism out of the way, it was still a pretty damn amazing story. The art was gorgeous, with some of the best eyecatches I've ever seen, the music was beautiful, and the characters themselves were interesting, complex, and well thought through. Their interactions were engrossing to watch. The plot pulled me in, made me wonder what would happen next. For all my issues with it, I did enjoy it. The issues still remain, though.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 05:13 pm (UTC)I don't see it on CrunchyRoll, and it's not up for streaming at the Media Blasters site (MB being who licensed and released it), but it looks like there's DDL links for the whole thing over here?