#paraietta

[yanguang]

mobile suit gundam (1979) simoun (2006)

[lauren-ce]

I have a pirated copy of Simoun, and in my filelist is an episode titled "Simoun Extras 8.2", which is a 3-minute cut filled with a bunch of jokes

I have no idea if this is official or not, but I think it might be because the Japanese captions are hard-baked into the video

Trigger warnings apply for anything that happens in the show proper (since some of the jokes here are in poor taste)

[arbitrarygreay]

Simoun rewatch episodes 17-20

So, there are 4 primary points people tend to get into histrionics over when attempting to criticize the show: 1) Dominura and Rimone 2) Kaimu and Alti 3) Paraietta sexually assaulting Neviril 4) The fact that Kyoukoku is a patriarchy

4 is not even worth engaging with. That is some "1984 problematic" level nonsense. 2 is also fine, which I talked about in a previous post. The show overtly has Alti say that that wasn't what she actually wanted, and even in Kaimu's recounting of events, it happened in response to wartime trauma. 3 happened in this stretch of episodes, and drumroll.....it's fine! Who woulda thought!? /s This is some "RGU problematic" level stuff. And, like, yeah you can make "2006 yuri anime" jokes which are true, but I am increasingly less sympathetic to those kinds of arguments holding water about a story's actual merits the more time marches on (see my post on Sora no Woto). In the context of Simoun alone, this is a legit move. Paraietta has been watching Neviril be drawn to Amuria and Aaeru, two people who pushed Neviril's limits, chased her and challenged her boundaries. We saw Amuria keep surprising Neviril with kisses and escalating to making out without any warning, and Neviril giving in, culminating in Amuria overriding Neviril's concerns to perform the Emerald RiMaajon. Then, Aaeru seemingly got her way after banging down Neviril's door for while, and bulldozed through a lot of Chor Tempest's other norms. Paraietta watched Aaeru throw Neviril into disarray (by insensitively pushing for the Emerald), saw Aaeru calmly take command and be correct about it in the field, and then Neviril choosing to get over her own upset and deepen her connection with Aaeru anyways. That's a lot of evidence (from Paraietta's limited perspective) for the ol' "why do girls love them bad boys". Neviril has just told Paraietta that she doesn't want to lean on Paraietta, which is the role Paraietta had taken upon herself. So, if that's not working, why not go with the opposite strategy, which evidently worked on Neviril twice before? Paraietta is just a conflicted teenager. She doesn't have the means to understand the nuances in why Neviril feels the way she does. She hasn't seen Aaeru get put into context vs. Halconf trying to force Mamiina upon Neviril, or the way Neviril and Aaeru have been able to discuss the state of Kyoukoku and the nature of freedom together. So, Paraietta tries to brazenly challenge Neviril's boundaries, and instead blunders into taking Neviril's choices away instead. That, my friends, is what we call good writing. 1 is the closest the show comes to actually letting a ~*~Les Problematique~*~ ship through, but also not really? The writing obviously knows that Dominura is a broken person, latching on to the first person who showed an ounce of unconditional affection. It's an unhealthy state of affairs, for sure, but "Dominura devotes herself to making Rimone's dreams come true instead of trying to further manipulate the local situation politically or militarily" is far from the actual problem with age gap ships. I'll talk more in future posts as more of their story unfolds. At any rate, the show is definitely indicting Kyoukoku for driving these two together in the first place. By miring itself in arrogant war, the government exploited Dominura to where she's 18 and never known an honest relationship, and then made Rimone an actual child soldier, and then forced Chor Tempest into increasingly dangerous situations where they had only their Pairs to rely on, in ships where intimacy grants power. "In a situation where everything is inescapable trauma, you can still find honest connections with people, even if those relationships are fraught with blurry lines." Shinji strangles Asuka upon the post-apocalypse beach, and that nightmare of a hedgehog dilemma is still preferable to the lie of perfect orange tang. Dominura and Rimone aren't ideal, but in the environment they're trapped in, they don't have the luxury of waiting for something better. Denying herself in service of the greater situation is what broke Dominura in the first place, and what would inevitably await Rimone in the long run (would she have to hack the enemy's hands off herself next time?). So they forge forward to seize their freedom together. Whoops I accidentally a detour. Anyways, that was just episode 18! :D 17, the Ruins episode, has a whole lot of world-building implications I think I'll talk about in a separate post. 19 and 20, of course, is all about Mamiina. Honestly, I don't have much to talk about it, as it speaks for itself. There are still more world-building implications, though, which we've touched on with our Yun discussions.

[biggumoodo]

Simoun (2006-2007)

Sometimes, i wish there’s more fanfiction of this anime

[yanguang]

[arbitrarygreay]

Can you imagine my absolute heartbreak upon learning through putting together this supercut that it only happened a grand total of 4 times in the entire show? THE MEMES THEY ARE A LIE

[jewlwpet]

Simoun episodes 18 and 19 spoilers (negative)

"If you traumatized someone you care about, you should stay away from them" is not a bad lesson; it's objectively correct. But, who needs to hear that? In general, people who actually care about someone will not do to them what Alti or Paraietta did in the first place. Conversely, people who did what they did are not going to suddenly decide to do the right thing and stay away from their victims just because an anime told them to.

Idk, something feels wrong about a main character being assaulted onscreen just to further the perpetrator's story arc.

The most charitable interpretation I can give of the purpose of the scene and the followup to it, is that it's meant as a criticism of the "rape is love" trope that you see in some shoujo/josei, where a love interest will sexually assault a protagonist because he's just so attracted to her that he lost control, and gets to maintain his close relationship with her afterward without any real consequences. I, don't watch a lot of anime like this, but Rose of Versailles is an example, all the more noteworthy because it's often praised as a feminist work (and in many ways it is an important feminist work, but this aspect of it is not criticized as often as it should be).

The criticism Simoun would be making would be something along the lines of "Well even if a character really did sexually assault someone they actually love because they couldn't control themselves, that's not an excuse, if they really feel bad about what they've done they should stay away from their victim until such a time as their victim decides they want to resume the friendship, if that ever happens." Which is certainly correct, but I'm not convinced that that premise should be entertained in the first place because it overlooks the fact that in general, sexual assault is not about attraction; it is about power.

In any case I'm not even sure if that's what the writers were going for. That's just the most charitable explanation I can think of for why they would have chosen to include that scene, not necessarily the most likely one.

All of this still isn't as bad as what the writers did in episode 12. At least in this case, only the perpetrator is held responsible. The main character responding to "My sister came onto me when I was too vulnerable to say no" with "Well I wasn't there so there's no way for me to know who really started it or who was at fault" and never realizing that this is wrong is definitely the worst thing in this anime, hands down.

[biggumoodo]

Simoun (2006-2007)