Xamd: Lost Memories

Others have covered the premise of this story, so I won't waste your time trying to reiterate.

Pros:
All the stuff that makes a good anime are here: artwork; character development; musical score; imaginative setting; interesting conflict; etc...

Cons:
Lots of stuff going on all over the place. Not sure why some of the characters or plot lines were there, other than to be a parable of some sort.

Overall:
Loved it. Every aspect is very high quality. The effort is there. The character development is excellent for some, if not for most of the characters. This story is beautifully complex, but does sometimes feel crowded, like a diamond ring with too many gems in the setting (distracts from the centerpiece's beauty), or a wedding dress with too much lace (think snowbeast). I can see why some reviewers said it was a little confusing at times. I did have to see the last episode's scenes a couple of times to verify if it was a happy ending or not. It was not immediately obvious, for me - which was mildly annoying. Regardless, I was very pleased with this one, and will be adding it to my collection. Just be aware you'll need to pay attention and possibly re-watch some scenes.

In a strange way, Xam'd reminded me of Last Exile, a completely different story with all of the elements I love in a show.
There are definitely main characters, but there are zero "throwaways". No character ever enters the story without a role, and yet there they don't waste time trying to explain their purpose or background. The relationships are immediately apparent, without becoming overly complicated or unnatural just to make it more interesting.
The animation is clear, stunning, and a style that is easy to enjoy. Motion, action, and flying are well-done, the ships and technology have detail, and fictional lifeforms make sense.
Lastly, my favorite stories are those with an end. When the characters have goals, talking scenes don't feel like "talking to progress the story", and every bit of action is deliberately important and not put in just to change the pace, I feel like I have to share that work of art with everyone.

There are a few things some people may not enjoy if they are your pet peeves. First is that everything is not explained, and in my personal opinion, didn't need to be. The second, like many shows, some things are left vague and make no sense until later. I would argue this isn't even a problem because the "twists" I'm used to have no foreshadowing, are intended to shock the audience, and confuse the story. I feel that a few things were unexpected, but didn't come out of the blue, but I noticed some people felt otherwise.

In summary, I have no complaints about this show. From the art style, plot, dialogue, whatever, everything felt right.

Xamd series is about faith, religion and common sense that models "a slice of life" based in wartime. From one perspective, a person changes upon accepting a faith and he can/or not decide to follow a religion based on this faith. Faith and religion can then be followed strictly or in a personal common sense way.
For example: a person accepts Atheism as a faith and since there is no religious order for this faith, the Atheist need not attend a church or temple with others. Additionally, an Atheist can follow loosely the Christan 10 Commandments because they are a good common sense way to lead one's life.
The other faith is the belief in love ones who you wish to be with when everything is lost. Lastly don't let the obvious monsters make you believe this series is only a war of alien creatures vs humanity.

There are lots of things to really like about this series. Great art, creature and equipment design, the overall steam punk gestalt and character design, not to mention the joy of flight.

There are major reasons to be disappointed. The forced, twisted existentialist logic which fails to explain most of the plot takes too much time while relying too much on music to push your buttons because the interpersonal motivations and the story is otherwise weak and unconvincing. Another fault this anime shares with others is the almost complete lack of explanation until the final 2 episodes, causing the first 24 episodes to seem terribly slow. Lastly, again, not a unique fault, is the synchronicity and confusing motivation of the warring parties at the end.

This anime captured my attention from the day one and has been graciously adding the action and drama that every good anime needs. It has all the right key points to make a good anime and should be at the top of everyone's list of anime they have to see. I started watching Xamd from the fist day and it had me waiting for Saturday to come so i could see what happens next. I recommend Xamd to everyone.

Xam'd is epic.
In American directing and acting the current trend is T.V. Now critics say T.V. is better than going to the movies. Xam'd is like that. It reminds me of a lot of great Anime movies, but it's T.V. Xam'd is ahead of it's time.

Animate it.:
It's a free flowing, classic, real, and packed with emotion. Xam'd makes perfect use of CG! I love when the ships take off with "lazer like" bursts, or when there are sparkles in the light (CGI). None of the "robots" are CGI!! There is no overuse.

Getting mu-sick... (-1/2 a star)
The intro/outro are in English! That's fun for a change, especially since it's well done. As far as the audio during the show, the "slice of life" scenes, have a calm "wild west" anime feel which is nice (Trigunish?). Unfortunately during the sci-fi scenes, especially in the laboratory, the music isn't dark, or haunting enough and does little to compliment what's taking place. It's based too much on classical music here and I lose interest, it needs to be stronger and more eccentric.

Story gets infected (- 1 star)
When I think of an anime script I think of this. It has every single characteristic of a great anime down to the last breath. Xam'd is a little bit "tech", a little bit "grotesque sci-fi", a little bit "slice of life" (in a Miyazaki kind of way). It's a perfect concoction!! But there's bad news. It has a classic case of "epic battle scene", or "epic dialogue" syndrome. In other words..."a-whole-bunch-of-stuff-that's-too-complex-for-one-to-get- too-soon". Maybe really intelligent people will follow, but us "normals" quickly lose interest. For most modern film, that's amazing, like Eden of The East or Breaking Bad, Lost we are introduced to information extremely slow. So in comparison this is bad. How are we supposed to be shocked or stunned if we don't know what's going on? The script, and story are done perfectly, but, in the dub, some of the translation throws me way off and it get's in the way of the show. For example Xam'd is used in a plural and non plural sense- when they don't even explain 100% what Xam'd is yet! This makes an already elusive theme, harder to understand. On top of that there is something called "human form". It just makes no sense. Humans are human form. So why is something that isn't in human form..."human form"? It just gets under my skin. I'm lost, and now stuck on trying to figure this out instead of following the show. Then for the third "stack" there are a whole bunch of Japanese words, thrown in, that I can't grasp. For example some of the names of the animals sound like the names of the characters in the show. I'm lost.

X'amd will be scientastic if you are "deep" into the sci-fi genre! But it takes a special person to follow. If you can follow Xam'd will blow your socks off.