Category: Bonen no Xamdou

Short Synopsis: Haru’s letters reach Akiyuki, and a possibility for the two of them to meet pops up.
Highlights: Another building-up episode, but this time the Xam’d and humanforms got some extra depth.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Another solid and enjoyable for Bonen no Xamdou. I think that this is the pattern we can expect for much of the rest of the first half of this series: mostly fleshing out the characters and building up the storyline, with your occasional action-sequence like the attack on Sentan-island and the Xam’d going berserk. The question is now whether the second half of this series can effectively make use of all the time that was spent on building up in the first half, but we still need to wait a couple of months before we get the answer to that. In any case, so far the first half has been wonderfully down to earth, and that’s why I like this series so far.

In the meantime, Haru’s still very worried about what happened to Akiyuki. As it turns out, the Xam’d was killed relatively easy, but the real purpose of it going berserk was to show that it wasn’t looking for trouble, it was just a pregnant woman who wanted to live, and at the same time show a strange pillar in the sky that only the Xam’d and Haru could see. The question is obviously: why could Haru see it and everybody else not? It’s probably got something to do with Akiyuki.

I also wonder what Haru’s going to do when she finally meets Akiyuki. Will she continue to stay with the military? Will she desert it and join the crew of the Zanbani (that would be rather lame, by the way)? Meanwhile, Akiyuki’s little adventure alone reminded me of the time when Renton went off on his own in Eureka7, although their reasons are totally different. There hasn’t been any real tension so far between Akiyuki and the crew, unlike with Eureka7, where the crew of the Gekko-go kept teasing Renton over and over again. Bonen no Xamdou is much more a coming of age story for Haru than that it is for Akiyuki.

This episode also again blurred the line between the Xam’d and the humanforms. It’s like humanforms are a lesser form of the Xam’d. The guy that Akiyuki meets in this episode: we’re still not sure whether he’s a humanform or a Xam’d, since his symptoms looked exactly like Akiyuki’s. But on the other hand, when even these common people are able to at least gain their senses back after having been Xam’d, then why is Sentan Island’s military having so much trouble to deal with just one of them?

Short Synopsis: Haru receives Akiyuki’s letter
Highlights: Haru, you seriously rock.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I think that with the arrival of Akiyuki’s letter, the introduction of this series is finally over and the plot can start to really develop. The time for mourning about the tragedy of Sentan Island, and it’s time to move forward. Furuichi joins the military, and to my surprise Haru does so as well! I sort-of suspected that she wouldn’t sit still for the entire series, but to think that she’d actually join the army. That really makes her much more interesting than most other female love interests, whose majority seems to degrade into a damsel in distress.

Toujirou also doens’t seem to be the bad guy I originally thought he would be. There are a lot of parallels between him and Dominic of Eureka7: they’re both young leaders who have troubles with their subordinates. Toujirou in this case is fundamentally against these experiments with the Xam’d, and this episode gave him reasons enough to worry when one of these Xam’d that was supposed to be dead revives and starts rampaging. I guess that this is another way that a Xam’d can turn into, without the help of Nakiami. This begs the question: why can Nakiami safely control the Xam’d, while a scientist from her people can’t do the same, and ends up with the Xam’d going berserk?

Akiyuki’s fight against that humanform reminded me of Eureka7, where Renton suddenly realized that he’s been fighting humans. I’m surprised at how different this was done in Xamdou with its subtle approach. But then again, Akiyuki is a lot more mature.

I’m also reminded of another series, which disturbs me a bit. I just keep comparing Haru and Nakiami with Shirley and Karen from Code Geass, even though the former two managed to get about as much depth in six episodes as the latter did in 46 of them… It’s strange, there are of course a few similarities, but also just as much differences, but I just can’t seem to stop comparing them..

Short Synopsis: Ignoring her orders, Nakiami pays a visit to her former comrades.
Highlights: Mostly building-up again, but that’s exactly what this series is good at.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
This episode continues to shed new lights on the world of Bonen no Xamdou. It seems that Nakiami joined the Zanbani when she was just young. If her country (I think it was called Tessik) wasn’t attacked for whatever reason that’s still undisclosed, she would be its leader, or at least the princess, since we don’t yet know what happened to her parents. I guess that when they lost their country, she and her comrades went their own ways, where she joined the Zanbani and the others went into the black market. I wonder, by the way. Could Tessik Village be the place where that old woman who is behind all of the Xam’d lives?

This episode yet again showed how much damage the attack of episodes 1 and 2 caused. The death toll is already at 1300 and still rising. It also confirmed that humanforms were originally just humans, as this episode shows how the scientist of the OP transforms the girl who lost her family in the previous episode into some kind of mismatched humanform. The interesting thing was that Haru stood right next to her. This might be a reason for her to become more involved with the war, now that she’s seen one of her friends as such a humanform.

This episode also featured some strange props that Nakiami’s former comrades had with them. A strange ghost-like thingy that’s supposed to protect an airship and some kind of thirty-year-old seed. Now let’s see what it’s purpose turns out to be.

Oh, and for some strange reason, I really liked Akushiba in this episode. He may be cold at times, but I don’t think that he just went to deliver Haru’s letter, just to defend his nickname. ^^;

Short Synopsis: Akiyuki gets used to living on the airship.
Highlights: Mostly build-up, but good build-up.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I liked this episode a lot. Don’t expect much action, since most of it was just building up, but the cast did get a lot of depth this time. It’s very good to see that Akiyuki moved out of the rebellious phase so quickly, and that he’s willing to adapt so quickly. It’s much like Jomy of Towards the Terra. At the same time, the people on Sentan Island are still mourning about the large amount of people who lost their lives. It’s good to see that the creators decided to put a lot of emphasis on this part. Too often we just buildings getting destroyed and people getting killed who never appear again.

At the same time, the mysteries surrounding Nakiami continue to grow. We still don’t know why she ended up on the postal ship. It seems that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with her own kind of people (war refugees without any place to return to and who ended up as pirates), and at the same time the postal ship isn’t exactly the best place to carry out her wishes of finding out more about the Northern Government. The ship also turns out to have its own priest on board: Tenshin. We also see that Nakiami collects the same strange packages of liquid that we saw in the first episode with the white-haired people.

This episode also convinced me that the creators are building up for some sort of romantic relationship between Akiyuki and Nakiami. Well, it was obvious right from the start, I guess. It’s a rather large cliché, but let’s hope that the creators manage to keep the romance away from what’s really important in this series. Note the picture that Raigyo left behind: the kids and the captain (whose names I’ve forgotten at the moment)’s faces were all crossed out for some reason, while Nakiami’s face was just fine, hinting that the two used to have romantic feelings for each other at one point.

Short Synopsis: Obligatory “I’m not going to cooperate with you”-episode.
Highlights: This was an obvious building-up episode, so nothing much stood out.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
Well, it had to happen sometimes. You can see this type of episode in many different series, where the main character, as stubborn as he is, yells at everyone in his new environment and wants to go home. It’s not the most exciting episode, but it is essential for proper build-up and character-building, which is why it’s used so often.

This episode did make use of its 20 minutes by giving a proper introduction to the crew of the postal service ship. It still remains a mystery why Nakiami is on board, or why they involve themselves with these huge battles, but at least the most important crewmembers were fleshed out. Meanwhile, at the camp of the antagonists, the major villain (or at least someone who looks like one) turns out to be some kind of war hero, who survived a huge war, 17 years ago. Their role in this story still seems a mystery, though.

What intrigues me is the high amount of attention to Akiyuki’s friends, who he left behind. If Akiyuki really is going to work for a postal ship, then that means that he’s not going to see them again, and yet they’re really well-fleshed out characters. What could the creators have in mind for them? Don’t tell me that that girl is going to follow the airship when she receives the letter that’s about to be sent to Akiyuki’s parents?

Short Synopsis: Akiyuki tries to make sense of his new body as the assault causes many casualties.
Highlights: Shows all the basics of good storytelling.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I can imagine that if there ever was something like a “Basic Guide-Book to Telling A Good Story”, it would use Bonen no Xamdou as a major source of inspiration, or in any case the first two episodes. Everything so far has been done exactly by the books, and although this makes these two episodes predictable, it also makes them very solid. The setting for Bonen no Xamdou is huge, and so far we’ve seen the characters introduced and properly defined (and some of them already have evolved a bit), all the major parties have had their introductions, and yet the pacing has been frantic in order to keep the viewer interested.

I also really like the use of budget in this series. Bonen no Xamdou has a huge budget, but interestingly this isn’t used to create stunning backgrounds, like Porfy no Nagai Tabi or Macross Frontier, and instead it makes sure for a lot of detailed motions on the foreground. Very nice to see that for a change, especially in a series that’s as busy as this one.

And with this episode, I know for sure: it’s a pet peeves of the director to pay homage to some of the classics of anime. We saw this first in Eureka7, where Eureka’s three children were based off of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, and here you can spot it too: Nakiami’s outfit is very obviously inspired by the costumes in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. On an interesting side-note: the children seem to return for Bonen no Xamdou as well, though this time there’re just two of them. Let’s see how these brats ended up on such an international war-ship.

Short Synopsis: Our lead character unknowingly gets involved in a large war between two countries.
Highlights: Very solid storytelling and animation.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Ah, why not, I’m going to blog this. This episode was just too good to ignore. I don’t have a PS3, so I have no idea how the new episodes will come out, but I’m going to be covering the new episodes as soon as I find a non-out-of-synch version of them. I’m going to drop blogging Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~ Natsu no Sora (though obviously I have no intention to stop watching that one).

In any case, the first thing that this series reminded me of is “Eureka7 meets Overman King Gainer”. It’s quite an interesting combination between the dark mood of the former and the bright and light mood of the latter. This was a typical example of a first episode, meant to kick off the series with a fast-paced start. Lots of things happen at the same time, and it’ll probably take a few more episodes until things start making sense.

Of course, a young male who suddenly becomes the most powerful warrior through sheer luck (at least that’s what it pretty much looks like) is a very overused plot-device, but what interests me the most in this series is the world it created. I’m a big fan of series that create their own cultures and customs, and one of the great things of anime in general in my opinion is all the different cultures and settings that they explore.