Well I just finished watching Simoun and I have to say it was surprisingly very good, considering I just picked it up at random 'cause it had pretty girls on it. lol.
The story was pretty good, but definitely very girly although that was to be expected when I found out everyone is born a girl. Though I have to say it wasn't so girly that I couldn't enjoy it, I guess because some of the girls had man-like personalities at times. There are "men" in this world, but they were all girls at some point in their life before they chose to become a male. (which is only slightly made creepy due to the fact that every voice in the show was a woman, despite belonging to a male or female character) That process was all magical and mysterious and basically had something to do with altering time and space and that hooplah. Well, that hooplah actually plays a pretty large roll in the story considering the Simouns are 'divine craft' and thier motors have the ability to alter/control time and space.
Anyway, I don't want to get ahead of myself too much. The main point is I really ended up enjoying this series. There was a lot more too it than I thought, most of it though was character building and relationship building threw the course of an ongoing overall world story. There's so many different things going on with each girl or as they are referred to in the anime 'Simoun Sibyllae'. (the main story is about these 12 Sibyllae in particular, that are part of a 'chor' (basically like a squadron), Chor Tempest to be exact. At the beginning they are known as the best chor in the world basically. And I'll leave the rest up to anyone who wants to check this one out.
Another reason I give props to this anime is that it's one of the few that gives you a glimpse of the characters after the main part of the story is over, time passes and they look different. I always enjoy stories that do that, to me it gives a more "completeness" feel to the anime.
Simoun also has rather pleasant music. Infact the only thing I didn't like initially was that they use a lot of still frames at times and they have a look like they were painted with a brush and easel, but I eventually looked past this and started to enjoy those scenes... however they are still glaringly apparent when they are being used.
