Xam’d: Lost Memories

One part studio Ghibli and one part Eureka Seven, Xam’d is a different entry into the mecha genre. In the world of Xam’d, the mechs are living things evolved from people (aptly called Human Forms). That’s right. The pilot is the mech.

Xam’d begins on quiet Sentan Island. The island is cut off from the war between the Northern Government and the Southern Continent Free Zone…until the first episode anyway. Enter Akiyuki, a teenager from a strained family, and his friends Haru and Furuichi. Their school bus explodes in a terrorist attack and a strange light shrapnels into Akiyuki’s arm. Moments later he transforms into a large white creature (mech) called a Xam’d and rampages through the city fighting creatures dropped onto the island by Southern government. He is stopped by a mysterious girl called Nakiami who helps him return to his human form. She offers him an ultimatum: come with me and live or stay here and turn to stone. (Turning to stone is a side effect of becoming Xam’d.)

Xam’d is produced by Bones, but has many of the same animation qualities as Ghibli. However, unlike both studios usual work, many animated sequences in Xam’d varies noticeably in quality. Many high action sequences break down into color swipes.This may be a stylistic choice. Many scenes reminded me of FLCL, but I tend to prefer crisp animation for action sequences.

Xam’d could almost be placed into the world of Eureka Seven. Not only do the characters resemble E7, but many of the same uniforms and technology also appear. They don’t surf on the wind, but they have the same rainbow colors on the sky kayak take offs and thrusters.

Perhaps because I didn’t watch the show consistently, Xam’d seemed hard to follow. Sometimes episodes dropped you into a scene without a warning from the previous episode. The latter part of the 26 episodes felt rushed. I felt lost after the first half of the show.The world never developed, and the characters always knew more about what was going on than was revealed to the viewer.

I read that the anime’s writers wanted to do a different type of narrative: one that only reveals what is needed to understand the current scene. It is a fractured way of telling a story: world development and story mixed and told at the same time. I flat out didn’t like the confusion I felt.

Interestingly, the anime was released initially on the Playstation Network video download service before seeing television air time.

Although it lacked a lot of deep characterization Xam’d is a different take on the mecha genre. Mostly it is an interesting (and hard to follow) effort to change the normal way of telling a story.