Xam’d felt like a cross between Eureka 7, Fractale, Rahxephon and Heroman. Now with that many cross betweens i would think it could give it an air of originality about it but i never really felt like i hadn’t seen it before. Felt? Did i just say felt? Damn, i always hate that expression, like i could touch it or something. Anyway. The story is of this kid who turns into this thing but is some what saved by this person who belongs to this crew and this kid and this person get to fight quite a bit and a lot of morals get thrown about. It really was quite good though. It also appears to have a fantastic setting but everyone seems to have Japanese names. Not sure if i missed something about it being a future world. I don’t think i did.
What i quite liked about this show was it’s blend of genre. It was at the base of all things; Action adventure. That didn’t stop it from delving into fantasy, sci fi, romance and drama. Particulaly the romance was played quite well in my opinion. It was never mushy or really vague, it was just there. It also focused a little on other peoples romances like the protagonists parents and that female captain who doesn’t wear very much.
Art was nice. Yes nice, just nice. Not amazing or anything. The animation however was amazing. While the art was simple and very standard it did give variety to the creatures and buildings etc. This probably helped the animation move better. Everyone moved smoothly and made the fight scenes a whole lot nicer to watch. That is all i have to say about the art. Damn my note taking, why did i not focus on the art? Now i have to uses these few sentances to pad the paragraph out to make it look longer. What? Don’t judge me.
The opening and ending songs were honestly not that great. They were a little different from the jpop you would usually get, the opening using autotune or something on the voices. They were both in English too. The opening also had a weird choice of lyrics that did not make sense to me for the most part, might because it was Engrish rather than proper English. The ending however was slightly better sung. Well it would be, it was sung by a person whose mother tongue is English. Now these to theme songs were mediocre at best. The background music was however far better. I will be honest, i didn’t notice the musc during the first two thirds. It probably just never stood out to me. However during the end few episode it did stand out and episode 23 in particular had a really nice orchestral piece playing and it made the scene far nicer.
I watched this mostly in the dubbed English and though i won’t put it up there with the Baccano’s of dubbed anime. It did seem well acted, the two sister being voiced by my favorite voice actresses.
Characters were cool. I guess. There were a few that annoyed me like the red head who tried to save everyone. But overall they all had the ups and they all had there flaws and these flaws gave them character. ‘Gave them character’ that doesn’t sound right. Oh well, i’ll leave it in. All the important characters seemed to change as they grew with the show. The protags (my new name for the main character of shows now) paraents started of disliking each other, mostly on the Mothers part, but came together through tribulations to show they really did love each other. That may be a spoiler. Doesn’t matter, i was lying anyway… Yea.. i was.. err. lying. Oh i should also probably mention there are a few bratty kids in this show, so if they annoy you like they do me you might want to have something in the room with you to punch everytime they speak. It would have helped me if i did.
Now a quick aggregation. It has a fairly confusing plot that if you don’t want to watch a second time you should really pay attention the first time. The characters are the best part of the show. I liked them all. Well apart frome that guy and that guy. Oh and that person and the thing and that other guy. But mostly they were enjoyable. Sound is amazing. Well the opening less so but the rest was amazing. Now as a summation for my aggregation; There is a reason why i didn’t mention a single persons name.
Good show. Go watch it.
