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I do not know if Simoun keeps me thrilled with its production values.
To be honest the first episode did not make much progress to properly introduce the story. We know there's an ongoing war in Daikaraaku, because one faction desperately attempts to bring into the light the mysterious technology of the Simoun machines.
However, it does not solidly establishes their motivations at first hand whether the faction is jealous that the Simula operate and handle a better, advanced technology or feel that the Simoun is dangerous at wrong hands and will easily turn the tide of the war in favor of the Simula, leading to an unreasonable fear of the warring country of being ruled and oppressed.
Moreover, the animation does not convinces me. Why? I'm not fond of the palette used to animate the 2D settings and landscapes; positive sure is watercolor. The 3D CGI animation for the Simoun does not feels to blend within the watercolor scenarios.
When I look at the animation cinematics it seems as if I'm watching a montage with the Simoun pasted over the 2D background settings.
Nor do I approve or praise their use of the soundtrack throughout the episode. It did not feature much musical variety. I quickly got bored listening to extended pieces of symphonic music from the serene scenes to the climax. It could had been played with different tracks featuring opera scores and different styles of classical music, for example, like Escaflowne or Aquarion did.
In short, the musical tracks played did not capture or emphasized the angst and warlike atmosphere.
Then, I just came about a week from finishing Mai-Otome, and Simoun delivers a similar premise. War to take control of a powerful technology that the other party employs to, figuratively speaking, safekeep world's peace in accordance to God's will.
Simoun machines playing the Remergion dance either correctly or incorrectly easily obliterate entire fleets with little effort, and Auer portrays her best to mimick Arika except she isn't much with the 'dream' fad and hops into the heat of the battle right away; please no "oba-chan" references from Auer.
At last, the pace flows disjointly jumping from characters to others without making consistent connections: 1) Neville & Amuria, 2) the Elders discussing the war, 3) the girl who contends the Simoun as devil technology, 4) Auer's arrival to the academy. Only the quasi-religious theme is the link that unites their actions.
Two positive things I'm posting in this review are that I found the design of the Simoun something unique, never I saw in other fantasy mecha anime of the genre.
The rotating wheel of the lower half looks like a monocycle.
Simoun technology also displays insight of how would Industrial Revolution technology evolved without the rise of computers and information networks. Simoun evokes the same sky-war, machines theme like Last Exile.
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