• Title: Bounen no Xamdou (Xam’d: Lost Memories)
• Studio: BONES
• Genre: Sci-Fi

Ratings (out of 5):

• Story: ♥♥♥
• Animation: ♥♥♥♥
• Characters: ♥♥♥
• OP/ED Themes:♥♥♥♥
• Overall: ♥♥♥½

Thoughts:
Sorry I can’t do actual screencaps from the show, but you should hit up the official site for the trailer and other images to give you a better sense of how the show looks…and for the record, it looks pretty awesome. I elected to download the 400mb SD version instead of the 1500mb HD version, and the SD version was more than enough for my 19″ non-HD-type TV.

Some of the specs: the show is subtitled, not dubbed. I assume Sony did the localization; they have the resources and the show’s creation also involves the Sony Japan-owned Aniplex. Some of the translations are a little weird…for example, in one scene a character spaces out, and her little sister says “itterasshai” (usually translated as “have a good trip”), and the character responds with “ittekimasu” (usually “I’m heading out”). But they translated it as “Come back to earth” and “I’m back.” Clearly it’s supposed to be a sort of cute/sarcastic thing, but it felt a little odd to me.

Also, the subtitles are a little small. I didn’t have any problem reading them, but some might, especially if you have a small TV screen.

So! On with the show: the story follows Akiyuki, a boy who lives on Santen Island, a neutral zone in the midst of a major war. In order to board the bus to school you have to show your armband, proving you’re a student…but Akiyuki decides to help out a mysterious girl who he assumes is a transfer student when she doesn’t have an armband, giving her his instead.

Let’s just say that the girl has plans, and they may or may not involve explosions and/or throwing Akiyuki into the midst of the war.

The character design is kind of interesting. Some of the characters are very BONES-esque– several of them look a lot like Darker than Black characters –but some of them almost look like Ghibli characters to me. (I swear to god one of them reminds me a bit of San from Mononoke Hime.) It looks like there’ll be a fun set, though; amidst one set of military types is a guy voiced by Katsuyuki Konishi (aka Kamina), which makes me happy.

Also, I am in love with this woman:

…Ishuu Benikawa. Her design and her appearance in the OP just makes me all giddy inside.

The OP and ED themes are fantastic (although untranslated, tsk tsk Sony). The only downside to the show is that because the plot starts out with a standard “average guy gets weird powers” setup, it’s impossible to tell whether they’ll work it out into something interesting or not. Judging by the quality of the show so far though, I don’t think BONES is fooling around– so I have high hopes for how it’ll turn out.

For the record, as far as I can tell Xamdou is NOT available on the Japanese PS3– in fact, they don’t seem to have the VOD stuff set up at all. Could this be the first ever anime available in the US before Japan (that wasn’t created in large part by an American company a la Afro Samurai/FUNimation)?

If you’re interested, hit the jump for the cast list. Read more…