Forum - View topicREVIEW: Xam'd: Lost Memories DVD 2
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Otaking09
 Posts: 637 |
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Wait... does that mean that you thought the plot of Eureka Seven never completely made sense? Aside from spoiler[Dewey's schemes getting a little to vague] Eureka 7 was a pretty sound show. And most of the filler was, IMO, some of animes best filler given that it was great character development fodder. Still... if Xam'd's biggest problem is the failure of clarity combined with condensing itself then... yeah I can understand. E7 may have left a few things not exactly 100% solved, but it told one of my favorite romances, built upon one great pair of protagonists, and finished things off with a bang. I dunno Key, that sound right? Or anyone else? |
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Big Hed
 Posts: 1607 Location: Melbourne, Australia |
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Filler, in Xam'd? There's precious little content that could even be arguably described as filler in my opinion--all of it pertaining to moments when the show slows down to develop characters (I'm thinking specifically of when Nakiami meets Yunbo, and some of the bits on Sentan). While this material isn't strictly necessary, there's no way I'd call it filler.
I think that's one of Xam'd's many strengths over E7, in fact. No filler episodes (and the characters are much more sympathetic too, partially because of moments like those I mentioned above). As for the plotting in general, I'm still of the opinion that the main threads wrapped up neatly--personally, I thought being familiar with RahXephon helped with that rather than E7. See below for a rundown. The Hiruken Emperor was tormented by the aimless nature of his existence in the Diamond Tower (that's what it was called IIRC), and so he recruited elements of the Northern Tribes--such as Tessik--as harbingers of sorts in order to spread calamity and ready the world for rebirth via the Quickening Chamber. In this process, the Northern Continent's public (by way of a longstanding political rivalry with the Southern Free Zone, I assume) becomes co-opted by the Hiruken fanatics, hence their deployment of Humanform weapons. Sannova and her followers (who include Nakiami) are of course exiles for refusing to heed the Emperor's word, and they battle to save lost Hiruko--by creating and training Xam'd--so that the world's memories can be salvaged and avoid rebirth. The Zanbani and crew are among the non-tribal factions that have effectively allied themselves with Sannova and her cause cause. The Southern Free Zone, somewhat unwittingly, is the third party here, and of course vital to delaying the Emperor's plans by virtue of being militarily/politically comparable (again assumed, but seems more than likely--we know that hostilities date back at least seventeen years) to the Northern Continent, meaning that it serves as a bastion of stability amidst calamity elsewhere. Their employment of Tessik scientists and subsequent Humanform weaponry is merely a practical concern as part of an ongoing arms race with the North. Enter Sentan, and Akiyuki. This is simply a case of him being the main character, and being in the right place at the right time. He is the latest... victim, for lack of a better word, of Sannova's attempts to create new Xam'd, and when Nakiami finds him that seals his fate. Goes on a journey, comes to understand his new capabilities and himself (critically during his sabbatical as an amnesiac and subsequent rescue by Haru, one of my favorite scenes in the series), and emerges capable of confronting the Emperor. spoiler[Ultimately Akiyuki sacrifices a period of his life so that the Emperor can move on, and of course poor Nakiami gives up everything to stop the Quickening Chamber from activating--a development which was foreshadowed in Ishuu's opening monologue in episode 1.] Moreover though, I think because I was more concerned with the fates of the characters than the overarching plot, what gaps there were felt less prominent. The thread that mainly suffered was I think the connection between Kakisu and Ryuuzou, but only at greater resolutions. What is understood by the end is that both men are very conflicted by their past involvement in the war, but both are taking different paths in their attempts to reconcile with themselves. The comparative results are clear, and it's that essence which is important to the Xam'd's themes and direction (characters and ideas being a strong point of the show). Add: I'm so happy that Nakiami image features on the disc menu. I haven't gotten my BD copy yet, but I know exactly which one it is since it's really pretty. Obviously I would've liked to see the complimenting Haru image turn up as well, but Nakiami deserves it more after all that she did. Last edited by Big Hed on Fri Nov 12, 2010 3:04 am; edited 3 times in total |
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Keyl
 Posts: 144 |
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yeah this show really needed another 13 to justify the pace and characters.
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belindabird
 Subscriber Posts: 134 Location: Minneapolis |
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I agree more with Big Hed on this one. There were a ton of plot threads to tie up, and despite there being a lot going on (which required me to sit down and work through it on my own afterward) ultimately I didn't think that it was that confusing, nor did I think that most of the plot threads weren't given the treatment they deserved.
I suppose if you've got a lot on your plate to watch, though, you might not have a whole lot of time to reflect on all of that, so in that sense I suppose it might get plenty confusing. I watched the series over the course of a few days a week or so ago, so I kept most of the details fresh. |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1525 |
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Yes this series' plot ended up getting messy, but I loved all of it anyways.
As to my take on the final scene: spoiler[Akiyuki gave up his memories to stop the Hiruken Emporer and that combined with Nakiami's sacrifice caused him to turn into stone in anguish. For years after, Haru would talk to Akiyuki (who could still here her) every day. This action gave Akiyuki new memories, and when he was "full" enough he was able to change back into a human] |
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Big Hed
Posts: 1607 Location: Melbourne, Australia |
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Yeah, I think that's a reasonable explanation. I'm not sure if what ultimately befell Nakiami made a difference one way or the other to Akiyuki's fate (by which I mean that his spoiler[turning to stone] may have been by the end of things tied solely to his interaction with the Emperor, not that he wasn't terribly affected by it), but I definitely agree that Haru brought him back.
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garfield15
 Posts: 1534 |
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I loved Xam'd quite a bit...but I wouldn't be too surprised if people got confused during the second half as it is, it is kinda confusing if you're not paying a good bit of attention.
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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I took that to mean that Xam'd was trying to accomplish something on the scale of E7 yet, not only did it have half the time to do it but some of that time was wasted on filler (which I heartily agree with). It's been a while since I've seen Xam'd so I'm a bit hazy on the details but I remember thinking both that there wasn't enough time to flesh out the plot so they should cut the fillers yet they didn't have enough background/character development "filler" episodes at the same time. I felt annoyed at the end since I really, really wanted to like the show yet it just didn't have enough time to make it all work and I just couldn't call it a good show because of that. So yeah, I'm with Theron here. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18456 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Close, but not quite. I don't think anyone would disagree that E7 used a goodly amount of filler to pad itself out to 50 episodes. (Not as bad as Blood+, but still.) If you condensed that series down to half its length and didn't strip all of that filler our then you'd have a mess even more compacted in feel than it would have been with the filler stripped out. I was certainly not saying the Xam'd had filler because it couldn't support it. Big Hed's explanation seems pretty reasonable, but it's definitely not one that I got out of the series on a single viewing. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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Disclaimed: I have not seen Xam'd yet, so I cannot speak to this series in particular.
Rather, I have wondered whether the boxset style, while great for our budgets, isn't always the best way of watching a series. All of these originally came out one episode a week, with time to consider them in the middle. Marathoning a complicated and difficult series may not be the most conducive way to understanding it. I know that in my own experience in an anime club, when we watched RahXephon weekly, it went over much better than when we watched it in two nights over a long weekend. Neon Genesis Evangelion, Paranoia Agent, Ergo Proxy, these are series you ought to take time to think about and absorb. How will the age of boxsets affect the next kind of series in that style? |
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TatsuGero23
 Posts: 1277 Location: Sniper Island, USA (It's in your heart!) |
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Yeah, I agree with the sentiment that Xam'd setup too much stuff that could "neatly" fit into a 26 episode series. It just felt crammed in at some points where character development or tension wasn't really allowed build properly. Akiyuki role in the series was probably the part that disappointed me the most. A bit stereotypical but for a good part of the series, it suggest that Akiyuki would play a much bigger role along side Nakiami in the overall fate of the world but except for the final moments with the final boss and his resolution to the problem, it felt like he was primarily in the background for most of the second half while Nakiami and the others faced and resolved the more pressing issues. Plus I'm still bothered by the fact that there was way too little action in this series when you initial given the impression that there would at least be a decent amount. At times, I felt the intros had more action then a handful of the episodes. Even with episodes that did have a conflict or another. Outside of watching Nakiami's growth and the bits of action from ep. 1-2, and the final episode, nothing about the series really draws me back to wanting to watch it again.
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Big Hed
Posts: 1607 Location: Melbourne, Australia |
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That's an interesting point. My first instinct is to assume that having access to all the material at once would allow for a greater holistic understanding of such a series, but my initial viewing of Xam'd was indeed on a weekly basis, which is were I drew the understanding I outlined above. Conversely, I marathoned RahXephon twice (first subbed and then dubbed), and not long afterward Evangelion; I remember clearly that I found coming to fully understand the former much more challenging, and that it's only happened in the years since. Time to think, like you said.
Xam'd's action quota never bothered me; in fact I appreciated that there wasn't an overabundance of it, since I was really most interested in what was happening outside those moments, and the series didn't need to rely on action to carry it. That's just me of course; I've heard a lot of people say they felt misled by the first couple episodes, and were expecting a faster-moving experience (again though I don't personally understand that--action in one instance doesn't guarantee action in the future, and OPs are generally a poor indicator of a series' content in my opinion). More broadly speaking though, I have to say I find some of your criticisms here somewhat contradictory in nature: there wasn't enough action, but there was too much story crammed into the 26-episode run? And character development wasn't allowed to build properly at times? You seem to be implying that large tracts of the series were devoted to... raw plotting I guess, which is difficult for me to grasp as a concept let alone in the context of Xam'd. Character development is nominally tied to that process, and furthermore interactions that occurred as a natural part of the show delivered plenty more I think. Certainly Xam'd wasn't reliant on filler to foster character development, which left more than adequate time for the plot... anyway obviously all of my arguments are pretty heavily colored, since Xam'd is the runt of my top 5 anime as far as popularity goes and I tend to get carried away defending it. I'll shut up. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18456 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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And this is something I also thought about bringing up in my earlier response, as I've noticed this when I've watched a series as it came out in fansubs and then watched it again later on as a set for purposes of doing reviews. Different types of series definitely react differently to being watched serially as opposed to being marathoned. In fact, rather than talk about this further here, I'm going to spin this off into a separate thread in the Anime forum, as this is an independent discussion-worthy topic. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3495 Location: Back stateside |
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Yay! I came up with a independent discussion-worthy topic! 
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Kalessin
 Posts: 931 |
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I tend to agree with everything that Key said. It was a good series, but it really was trying to do too much in the time that it had. But my biggest problem, personally, was that it really didn't explain things properly in the end, and the ending really didn't make any sense. Like spoiler[how did Nakiami being locked up in a chamber for 1000 years fix anything? Because they can't get inside? They should have just destroyed it.] Or spoiler[how on earth can Akiuki give the emperor his name? Sure, you can tell him that he can use your name, but you don't lose yours doing that. And how does giving him his name turn him to stone only to turn back at some random point years later? The whole turning to stone thing was weird enough in the first place and poorly explained, but what happened with Akiuki in the end made no sense at all.] And, of course, the whole situation with the haruko and what they were spoiler[was definitely implied but never explained. I guess that they were somehow people's souls, but not even that was actually ever said.] Also, I don't see how spoiler[a religious figure who is supposed to be a great and good person can possibly think that it's okay to send suicide bombers around to kill people in the hope of creating a X'amd who can take out the emperor just because she feels sorry for him?!] Explanations were seriously lacking. It's a sign of poor story telling IMHO.
You can discern all kinds of stuff of what they might have meant, and what really was going on, but they never actually explain. The result is an ending that makes no sense. As many problems as the series as a whole had, they really blew it with the ending. So, while on the whole, I really like the series, I think that it could definitely have been better, and the ending could have been a lot better. You can speculate all you want about what was really going on and what really happened, but since they never properly explain, we'll never know for sure. The ending was a major disaster in that regard. Of course, many of this type of series screw that up on some level (possibly all of them), but this was worse than most. |
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