HomeAnimeXam'd Lost Memories - Collection 02 Review

Xam’d Lost Memories – Collection 02 Review

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Xam'd Lost Memories - Collection 02 Review 1Title: Xam’d – Lost Memories Collection 02
Alternative Title: Bōnen no Zamudo
Published By: Madman Entertainment (Australia and New Zealand), Sentai Filmworks (United States and Canada)
Based on: Original Title
Audio: English and Japanese Dubs
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen 16:9
Runtime: 325 Minutes
Cost: $AUD 59.95
Classification: This titled has been classified as M (15+ Mature) for Animated Violence.
My Blurb: “Taking on a different route from the first collection, Collection 2 drops the whole airship travelling the world story and instead chooses a handful of characters from the original storyline to serve as main characters, whilst having them travel around the world looking to put an end to their troubles. The storyline isn’t as enjoyable as the episodes in the first collection, but sports a rather good conclusion with the same good graphics, music and voice acting as in the first set.
Special Thanks: Special thanks goes to Madman Entertainment for providing me with a review copy of this title.

This is my second last anime title from March, with the last being Phantom, a title that only arrived to me a couple of days ago. You might notice a few similarities in this review as I did for Casshern Sins Part 2, as this story does follow a different plot structure from the first collection, however it still remained an interesting watch. Sorry for the short pre-review rant, but read on for my review of Xam’d: Lost Memories.

Xam'd Lost Memories - Collection 02 Review 2

Akiyuki isn’t the only one who’s become possessed by the mysterious power that is Xam’d. Seems his friend Furuichi is also filled with the dangerous energy, but while Akiyuki tries to harness it, his friend seems hell-bent on letting the Xam’d control his every dangerous move.

Whilst the above summary is taken off the back cover of the DVD case, I will highly suggest to completely ignore it. The above summary is of Episode 13 exclusively and then is kind of dropped. The simple fact is, Furuichi is demoted to support character. However, he is not the only one to make the switch. Most of the characters that made regular appearances such as the entire cast of the Zanbani do not have regular appearances anymore, with only a few appearances during the entire second half to remind you that they are there. For the most part, the only characters that have any sort of influence over the story are Akiyuki, Haru, Nakiami and a new character Yango. The storyline starts off where the last episode ended, with no time gap, starting us off with the confrontation between Akiyuki, Furuichi and Haru. As mentioned above, this lasts an episode when Furuichi gets written out of the storyline, Haru gets put under arrest by the army and Akiyuki ends up as a masked being who can no longer interact with others.

Xam'd Lost Memories - Collection 02 Review 3

The rest of the story leaves the four main characters travelling across the world looking for each other, and to rectify the troubles caused by Xam’d, the army and other entities and people. The change in storyline between collection 1 and 2 are similar to the change in storyline between Casshern Sins Part 1 and 2. The first collection focused more on the merry airship gang and introducing the various concepts of the series, whilst the second collection actually uses them to lead to a conclusion. I honestly didn’t enjoy the storyline of this set as much, and felt that a lot of time was wasted walking around the different environments instead of having more conflict or interesting storyline elements. However, I will compliment the series on one of the better endings I have seen in a series for a while. It didn’t have the happy ending where everyone lived happily ever after, however it didn’t have a bad ending as….. well, the world survived oblivion afterwards. I would say they made the right call to have a neutral ending and the characters they killed off along the way worked quite well in getting the emotions going.

Xam'd Lost Memories - Collection 02 Review 4

Character development was a lot stronger, allowing better development for all the characters, and also allowing the storyline to be focused more on more minor characters, such as Akiyuki’s father who remained a minor character who was teased with having a bigger part in the storyline. Every character introduced in the series had some important role to play in the series, and none of the character development sounded too generic. I really do wish they kept the Furuichi storyline going for just a little while longer like it was implied on the back, that potential rivalry might have ended up as some good character development. Overall, I cant say I enjoyed the storyline as much as the first half, but the conclusion was well done and the individual elements of the story wern’t too bad, some being a bit unique.

Xam'd Lost Memories - Collection 02 Review 5

The Design, Music, OP/ED and Voice Acting quality remained relatively the same for this set, so I will not go into detail on these. If you want to read my thoughts on these, please consult my review of Part 1 HERE.

In terms of the extra content on the disc, it is more or less exactly the same as the previous collections. What is included is:

  • Clean Opening and Ending Animations
  • Original On-Air Opening and Ending Animations
  • Trailers for Summer Wars, Gurren Lagann, FMA: Brotherhood Collection 1, Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Vol 1 and Trigun Remastered Collection…. essentially the same as Collection 1 with Summer Wars in replacement of Eureka Seven the Movie.

Honestly, I don’t really see the point of these extras when they are identical to the ones on the first set, and since most people would own Collection 1, having bought 2 that the viability of them needing these extras is slim. However as I said in my previous review, these are standard extras that I would expect for any DVD set.

To conclude, if you watched the first collection and enjoyed it, you will not be disappointed in this one and whilst the storyline drags on a bit, the ending is well done. For those who have not watched the series before:

Personally, I thought this would be an average series in my opinion, but it came out as something unique and interesting to me and has opened my mind up to an entire genre which before now, I have shunned and ignored as the prospect of military violence did not appeal to me. This series, whilst not being a full military series, creatively linked supernatural powers, mecha, military and a futuristic life aspects into one very well done series. I look forward to Part 2 and I hope I will be able to review it for all of you!

Final Score

Storyline: C+
Character Development: B
Design: B
Music: C+
Voice Acting: A
Extras: D
Personal Opinion: C+

Overall Score: B-

Next up…. I shall be looking at some Blu-ray Ghibli, that Madman will be releasing on the 20th of this month!

 

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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