I had astronomical expectations for Xam’d. Here was an original BONES production heavily borrowing themes and motifs from Eureka Seven, but starting out with characters that I actually like. It had Eureka Seven’s art style, except now, it was in glorious 720p. But in the end, were those expectations met? For the most part, yes.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t expected the plot to remain as cryptic as it had been since the beginning of the series. The assumption was that it would operate like Eureka Seven, where everything would be explained eventually. In Eureka Seven, it took almost half the series to get to this point. Xam’d has a similar amount of material and is paced similarly. As a result, the last few episodes are kind of cryptic.

The reason for this might be how the characters fit in to the world. In Xam’d, the characters and their stories are much smaller than the larger picture conflict that’s been going on around them. We’re aware that the North and South are fighting a war, but we don’t see much of it. We only see the smaller operations on Sentan Island and later on in Tessik. Everything that happens throughout the series feels like a sidestory until the final confrontation. The various story threads are all juggled pretty well.

Something that struck me about Xam’d was how low-key many of the pivotal points were. Many of the deaths came and went by without much fanfare. A lot of the reveals and resolutions to arcs simply flowed into the next part of the story. Characters were introduced that seemed like they would only stick around for one or two episodes and turn out to play a huge role later on.

It is a very solid show and even though it didn’t blow me away because of how cryptic everything remained at the end, it’s still one of the best I’ve watched over the past year.