Short Synopsis: This episode is all about Midori
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
This episode was quite an interesting take on the “calm before the storm”-trope. The big climax of this series has definitely still to happen: the Zanbani and Kujireika have yet to even arrive at the village of the Quickening Chamber, and yet this episode formed an excellent conclusion for the Midori-storyline. We’ve already seen that Xam’ds can be pulled out of despair with the right catalysts, so of course the same would happen with Midori. The past few episodes have been a bit too generous on the death count, so it’s good to see that people actually survive, despite the predictability.
It really seemed that Midori never really got to say a proper goodbye with her mother, and it also seems that the communication between the two wasn’t going well. Because of that, Midori always felt a big gap between the two of them, since she didn’t know what to say at the right time and her mother was an impatient person.
I´m really curious as to whether this series can pull off a worthy finale. It might seem obvious that series that are slow and focus a lot on build-up will automatically feature excellent climaxes, but as series as Ghost Hound showed, this isn’t always trivial. It’s all going to depend on how the creators are going to interpret the fight between Akiyuki and the Hiruken Emperor, and whether they can throw in some juicy plot twist that fit within the series and make the ending rushed.
In any case, the animation in this episode was so awesome. I’m not sure where Bones got the budget for this series, but it’s one heck of a budget well spent.
Regarding the Budget, their deal with Sony may be a part of that. By not paying TV companies to air Xamdo, they already save money, and there’s a chance Sony managed to throw some more money at them in the hopes of something worthwhile to use for the Anime-before-Japan experiment. How money flows between Sony, Bones, and the individual downloads is fairly unknown, though.
And yeah, great episode. It’s always a good idea to set up the environment of a climactic finale before actually making it happen.
Although I’ve enjoyed nearly every episode so far of Xam’d, I am a little worried because I still feel like I barely have any idea of what is going on with Lady Sannova and the Hirouko and Xam’d.
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I hope the finale will be great.
I like really much the characters feelings are shown in this series.
The importance of soul, and not to give in to your own darkness is handless so well in my opinion in this show.
I really like how Nakiami talks too, in a strong, strikeforward way. They are all great characters actually.
Bones has done something great with Xam’d, I’m really liking this world.
I hope the finale will go well.
I really do hope they manage to end this properly. It seems like they are working hard to resolve the open plots but how much time is left for the finale? I wasn’t too crazy about this series early on since it seemed to lack focus. Given that it’s an epic-type series I’m glad they managed to pull things together so well. I didn’t think it would be possible given how many storylines they had going. This is really the sort of anime you could buy for future viewing.