Short Synopsis: Akiyuki vs. the Hiruken Emperor
Episode Rating (that “overall entertainment value” was beginning to sound cheesy…): 8/10 (Excellent)
So far, an excellent finale, if only because the animation surpassed itself this episode yet again. That fight scene between Akiyuki and the Hiruken Emperor was downright beautiful. This episode also worked really well on the emotional level. The big question is obviously going to be: can everything in this series come together in that final episode? We’ve already seen that this series is great at building up, but is it also good at a conclusion?
Now that the series has reached nearly its ending, it’s time to start looking at the overall picture. I think that the big flaw of this series is that there wasn’t enough time put into all the different kinds of ideas that the creators put into the setting. While the creators focused a lot on the setting in terms of the effects that war can have, even the battles that look small on a large scale will have people losing their lives. Though the whole deal with the Xam’d and Hiruken Emperor could have been more fleshed out. Ideally, this should have been a series with 39 episodes. Because of that, this episode had quite a few random powers being pulled out of thin air, most notably Sannova’s plans to solve everything. In the end, this isn’t the next Seirei no Moribito, though it’s one of the closest I’ve seen to it.
And yeah, it seems that Furuichi is really dead now, otherwise the creators would have at least shown some hints that the guy is still alive. I personally love it when creators pull these random deaths were it only becomes clear that the person in question is dead afterwards. Seriously, more people should play with the Golden Rule of Anime like that. Still, talking about deaths. I do hope that the creators aren’t killing just for the sake of it. This episode, yet another one goes down, but the meanings of each of those deaths are getting more and more insignificant. Especially since all the cute girls seem to be the ones who are going to survive in the end while most of the adults are getting killed off like flies.
This episode was downright incredible. Probably one of my favourite single episodes of 2008
Yeah, Xam’d totally would’ve been better if it were longer. It also could’ve improved, though, by spreading out the climaxes a bit. For a very long time, it felt like nothing was happening, and I only started to see profoundly good moments towards the halfway point. Now it has to crush everything together into the final episodes, and some parts, while built upon good development, feel out of place, and make me wonder why the creators put such emphasis there.
And dammit, if I can’t get my corny happy end with Akiyuki, Haru and Midori, as well as Nakiami and Akushiba(and Kujireika? Maybe?), then I don’t know that I’ll be able to remember the series well at all. There’s a lot riding on this last episode, as in actually more than the norm.
I would have enjoyed this series more if I knew what the damn story was.
I did just think about all that talk about Furuichi’s death. Honestly I figured with ripping his own head off that was the end. But couldn’t sit on that too much with many speculating he’d come back. Not bad that they’ve manged to keep him dead for all this time and not likely he’ll be in the next episode.
Definitely could have done with more episodes. But in the end I still really enjoyed the show.
Hey… there’s still ep 26 to go.