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Why I love this anime- the moral of the series is "Manpain, get over it." without making the manpain the primary focus of the story.
Xam'd is an anime series about normal people caught up in crazy biowarfare... that manages to stay focused on the characters the whole way through. The premise seems like it could go into wack territory, and it manages to take every anime stereotype, then twist it on you.
The world is pretty much the modern world... except with airships. The story starts by following teenage kids - Akiyuki, Haru, and Furuichi, when they get caught up in terrorist biowarfare, and then bioweapon air-raids by the Northern Alliance.
Akiyuki is infected by a "Xam'd", which apparently turns people into monsters, and, over time, to stone. He gets rescued by Nakiami, a young woman who apparently understands this weird tech and is able to help him not turn to stone. Akiyuki is taken aboard a postal ship with Nakiami and the adventures really go from there.
What a normal anime would do, is either kill off Akiyuki's friends and family, or at least, forget all about them while the boy goes and does shonen things. This series, instead, continues to come back to them, deepening their relationships, showing how their lives go on, and not in some bullshit melodramatic way.
Same thing with the airship crew- you actually get to learn more and more about them, and they're all really damn interesting. My favorite is the ship's captain, Ishu, who's this badass sort of slovenly woman who is a hardass. And uses a bazooka as her weapon of choice. (She's also sexualized, which is kinda wack, but she has agency, which is generally about as good as anime is going to give you these days).
Akiyuki has one major plot going on, but he's far from being the sole protagonist- Nakiami and Haru both have really interesting prime storylines, and so many characters have great secondary storylines, Akiyuki really isn't the focus.
The animation is good throughout, and the story manages to keep throwing enough twists without falling back on the classic, "and now we'll toss in a WTF moment just because" kind of thing.
The other things- the storyline doesn't glorify war, there's call-outs on the wackness of racism, after the first few episodes you get some really awesome women-centric relationships, they manage to avoid sacrificial characters for cheap drama, lesbians who live to the end!, etc.
There IS a point with verbal threats about sexual abuse that are never followed through on.
Overall, this was a very awesome series 5/5.
Xam'd is an anime series about normal people caught up in crazy biowarfare... that manages to stay focused on the characters the whole way through. The premise seems like it could go into wack territory, and it manages to take every anime stereotype, then twist it on you.
The world is pretty much the modern world... except with airships. The story starts by following teenage kids - Akiyuki, Haru, and Furuichi, when they get caught up in terrorist biowarfare, and then bioweapon air-raids by the Northern Alliance.
Akiyuki is infected by a "Xam'd", which apparently turns people into monsters, and, over time, to stone. He gets rescued by Nakiami, a young woman who apparently understands this weird tech and is able to help him not turn to stone. Akiyuki is taken aboard a postal ship with Nakiami and the adventures really go from there.
What a normal anime would do, is either kill off Akiyuki's friends and family, or at least, forget all about them while the boy goes and does shonen things. This series, instead, continues to come back to them, deepening their relationships, showing how their lives go on, and not in some bullshit melodramatic way.
Same thing with the airship crew- you actually get to learn more and more about them, and they're all really damn interesting. My favorite is the ship's captain, Ishu, who's this badass sort of slovenly woman who is a hardass. And uses a bazooka as her weapon of choice. (She's also sexualized, which is kinda wack, but she has agency, which is generally about as good as anime is going to give you these days).
Akiyuki has one major plot going on, but he's far from being the sole protagonist- Nakiami and Haru both have really interesting prime storylines, and so many characters have great secondary storylines, Akiyuki really isn't the focus.
The animation is good throughout, and the story manages to keep throwing enough twists without falling back on the classic, "and now we'll toss in a WTF moment just because" kind of thing.
The other things- the storyline doesn't glorify war, there's call-outs on the wackness of racism, after the first few episodes you get some really awesome women-centric relationships, they manage to avoid sacrificial characters for cheap drama, lesbians who live to the end!, etc.
There IS a point with verbal threats about sexual abuse that are never followed through on.
Overall, this was a very awesome series 5/5.
