Well, one year on seems like as good a time as any.

Basically I’ve fallen out with the format  – with the idea of a one-man blog and with how running one changes the process of actually, y’know, watching anime. Not sure if I’ll ever feel like taking up proper blogging again, but my inclination is to make a clean break with Claiming rather than have the place hang around as an on/off thing.

Since I’m still watching anime I’ll still be following the blogs I’m used to reading, plus any other nice ones that might turn up. The odd contribution might be found on some other people’s miscellaneous future initiatives, but we’ll see how/if that works out.

Anyway, my thanks near indiscriminately to anyone and everyone who commented or linked here even once. For those who did so twice, double thanks. Three times earns tripple thanks, and so forth to the extent that I am thanking some of you an unfashionably great deal. It’s been interesting.

2008 has been my first year of watching anime as it airs. Really, it’s just me getting to grips with whether following the currently airing seasons is actually worth it by looking back and assessing what I went through.

The rating system here is basically a ranking in order of preference - least to most favourite. A few shows share a slot because I can’t decide which was better to watch.

Birdy the Mighty: Decode + Shikabane Hime Aka: Dropped. In each case I liked the first episode but found the meat of the series unsatisfying – both times getting to episode 5 then throwing in the towel.

The Daughter of Twenty Faces: Looked mediocre, improved rapidly and massively, then collapsed utterly. Having heard several people getting excited about the show, I started watching with an enjoyable episodes 1-7 marathon. During that golden spell this seemed like a promising charismatic old school adventure. As it stands, I haven’t seen the last episodes and I don’t care.

Kurozuka: Solid. Not serious and not consistently entertaining enough to rank any higher. It’s a non-episodic action series – meaning that the spread of fun and fighting was uneven and probably would have been better enjoyed in batches. Studio Madhouse’s predictably sure touch gave us vicious combat in moody locales. As it was, the overarching narrative wasn’t strong enough to keep the pace up during the lulls. Instead I just waited through the shadows for the next boss fight.

Code Geass R2 + The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk: Both threw out bucketloads of delirious joy when at their most ridiculous. Both proved incapable of holding their best elements together. The difference was that I followed Druaga as it came out – experiencing the ups and downs, but forced down Geass R2 over a single confounding week. The frequently shitty second season of Geass would have ranked lower still without that magnificently sly, unforgettable ending. The generally pleasant Druaga could have ranked higher without its tedious sequel-minded nonconclusion.

———–Where things get good———-

Kannagi: For all the finesse  behind this production, it was not a case of perfect execution. The budget was perfect, the series was not. I didn’t care for it at all as drama, but when throwing the jokes in at maximum speed this proved itself a very fine comedy, and was thus, briefly, a weekly highlight. A genuinely good show which tried to deliver something ambitious with its story without quite pulling it off.

Mouryou no Hako + Kurenai: A pair of curate’s eggs. Mouryou for its perplexing plot and lack of subtitling. Kurenai for managing to become unsatisfying without ever really suffering a clear breakdown in quality. These adaptations share good looks and intelligent writing – although in neither case can I quite pinpoint what I’m supposed to take away from the experience. Mouryou may raise its status when it becomes properly available to Western mystery fans, Kurenai is doomed to go down as a case study in near-excellence.

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~Natsu no Sora~: An utterly stunning (albeit over-sentimental) ending distinguishes this nice little show. Definitely not something that will suit everyone – with the kind of comatose pacing seemingly designed with the express purpose of punishing those uneasy with ’slice of life’. Distinctive and comforting – never a classic, but with enough charm to ensure that I wasn’t too bothered about that.

———–A class above———-

Bounen no Xam’d: Where a series like Natsu no Sora feels naturally second tier, the expensive production and evident ambition of a show like Xam’d meant that its failure to excel at every turn could feel like a let down. My expectation that those exceptional qualities could transfer into a state of perpetual satisfaction was largely satisfied during the second half.

Xam’d is a story that provides considerable food for thought – but the connections it made with me were primarily via its characters, and not the overarching themes. At the end of the day, it’s a quality product capable of extraordinary moments, even though I’m not particularly fond of it.

Soul Eater: Something I am fond of. Totally pandering to my tastes, but managing to be inventive and exciting in doing so. Soul Eater demonstrates absolute mastery of genre – able to lightheartedly toy with clichés at the same time as as delivering the best aspects of its influences in distilled form.

Not quite up there with my magic all time favourites, and frankly a show that has fallen in my opinion during a piecemeal second half, which seems destined to provide yet another example of Studio Bones’s persistent problem with endings. If I’d been doing the rankings in November, this would be top. Regardless, Soul Eater is a series that has given me masses of pure pleasure, and there’s still a chance that it can pull itself back to preeminence in my eyes before the story comes to a close.

——–Entering the (personal) canon——–

Kaiba: Unique and involving. The last 5 or 10 minutes (yeah, endings matter a lot) didn’t quite strike the perfect tone for me, but thinking through the number of episodes from its short run that were powerful and memorable in their own right provides ample testament to its class.

A show with the gift of making itself feel special. Kaiba’s visual originality and willingness to follow through with its ideas remain exceptional. But what sets it apart from most other shows with style and intelligence is the elegance of its structuring – with changes in tone and shifts from episodic to serial storytelling carried out with aplomb. Kaiba looks and, sometimes chooses to feel, loose and uncontrolled, but is really a case study in pure empathetic elegance.

Detroit Metal City: Pretty much the best pure comedy anime I know. Also functions as the ultimate denial of anime blogging.

Michiko to Hatchin: For the way the drama intersects with the delicious capering. When this show deals with interpersonal conflict it’s invariably brilliantly written and directed – subtle and sharp to an impressive degree. The only things that compare to it in these respects are Kurenai and Xam’d, maybe Mouryou no Hako. But Michiko to Hatchin is far more coherent, harder edged, and miles cooler than all of those shows put together.

In many ways it’s my perfect ‘ongoing series experience’. The episodes vary wildly in approach, but with a guaranteed level of intelligence. It weaves a journeying tale out of a series of brief encounters and aimless occurrences – collecting the clutter of real life and the absurdity of fiction into one narrative whole. And yes, it is probably for fans of cinema as much as or more than it is for fans of anime. Doesn’t stop it from being the best game in town.

Apropo nothing…

—————-

Whoever the stranger is, they came into town on the long distance coach. I’m told it sat apart from any other passengers for the whole damn trip. Stepped onto the sandy main street and in a moment was down the nearest ally, getting out of the sun. It’s another average height man with curled hair and a wide-brimmed hat casting shadow over the face.

But is it really a man? The outfit’s pretty loose; that’s a beaten old jacket and a too big shirt, a bent cigarette. A man’s style, but the face is submerged beneath a turned-up collar. Might well have robbed half these clothes off some overweight drunk, flat out outside a convention. It’s the kind of sartorial combination you can’t imagine anyone actually choosing. The person’s wearing thick gloves in the burning heat, and that wide hat has felt cat ears sewn onto it; I shit you not, fucking cat ears sewn on top.

After moving down a few alleys, sniffing at the air, Cathat comes up to a certain small house. A house with bad music all over it.

It’s the kind of place you find several of in every town. It’s half unshaven regulars and half suspicious passers by. It’s a good time, but the clients don’t really talk to one another. I say this from experience. Between them the staff cater for most interests, sometimes several at once. And this particular house has seen cateared strangers rather more often than most.

Our latest stranger slips in with the kind of slow stride which can take a man through the middle of a gunfight unharmed. Like every bullet would just carry on on its way to its mark, slipping by towards someone a bit more special. Not the kind of walk that could evade the mistress of the house. She’s been here long enough to know just how much excess make-up fits the tone, and that’s a long time. She’s been here long enough to recognise a born lurker. She bites the inside of her own cheeks so hard that she blushes red and cries a little, which gets his (his?) eagerly sympathetic attention.

“I’m looking for something… different”. She doesn’t bother to say “you came to the right place”, Cathat is already eyeing up the locked doujin display case. She passes over a drink with an umbrella in it. The umbrella stand is made of pocky. This is a neat idea, but makes the cocktail taste even shittier than expected. Cathat coughs. “I’m, I… I’d like someone clever”. Not the first time she’s heard that one either. She looks at those clothes, and the hat, and makes her call.

She waves over the one with the glasses. And yeah, she really does needs them. Laser surgery is authenticity, baby. Behind the specs the kid has creepy iris-widening contact lenses, blue hair falls over her forehead asymmetrically. From the waist down she’s just about dressed; thigh highs on the left leg, rather less on the right. With a quiet eye for detail today’s client can see that her panties bear the forged signature of Alexandre Dumas. Maybe she moonlights in the house for litterateurs (20 yards closer to main street) though that could just be misdirection on her part. Cathat likes it.

Being in character, she can’t lead the way to her room. That’s a man’s job.

Cathat slowly walks past her to the door at the back of the bar. She follows close; leans forward to softly blow through pursed lips, past the curls and onto the back of one ear – signalling her client to turn right. With a succession of quiet puffs, she guides Cathat, along three corridors, to the correct door.

Not that he’d have entered any other room. ‘Cos the walls may all be green papered and the floorboard may be damp and creaky wherever you happen to tread, but each door passed promises something that’s wrong. The first door is stainless steel, and from inside s/he can hear something like giants playing nuclear bongos. First time Cathat went past a place like that it almost retched, but we learn to get strong stomachs.

So they enter a normal looking room, one which could just about fit in in a less, let us say, ’specialist’ household. No blood on the walls, no holographic sunset, no tentacular furniture.

A table, two chairs, a bed. Maybe there’s a maid uniform in that chest of drawers?

Pity our bespectacled professional, who’s suddenly wishing she worked in some kind of labyrinth. She could have done with more time walking him along the way. She’d have wasted maybe 10 minutes leading Cathat in circles. Not because she lacks the stomach; but, really, how do you start with people like this? Can’t be quite sure where or what to grab. She needs to use those brains to think up an angle, a good opening line.

Good luck to her. Cathat has hit the town hoping to find what it truly wants by chance. The knowing look from the lady on the door was a comfort, but s/he’s realising that nobody in any trade really can pigeonhole a stranger at a glance. No matter what you sew onto the hat. And fucking hell, cat ears mate, what were you even thinking? Wrong moe altogether. For next time un-sew them, a pair of those contact lenses would be better. But what to do now? Now that you’re here?

And what of our deep-thinking professional? Has decided against tsundere for now at any rate. Drops a pill down her throat faster than you can think; makes instant eye contact, leans in, winks charmingly.

“N-no! I…I just want to talk”.

She’s still got one eyelid tight closed, lashes frozen mid-wink two inches away from touching a cheek.

Our hero is backing out in a mess of doubts. “You don’t understand, I want to talk… just to talk about it”.

We can see that Cathat is no newcomer to the game proper. Seems like this stranger is seeking modification of the experience, not the golden kick itself. Maybe, without knowing it, sewing them onto the hat was only ever meant to foreclose enquiry? Cathat is working out that the same old ceremony isn’t what’s needed now – but whatever comes next needs to wear the old disguises. Needs to wink sexlessly. Cathat really does want to talk now, though god knows where that would lead. And this is all very well and good, but he’s just noticed the single steely staring eye is still fixed unforgivingly upon him, and there’s a suspicious bulge in that signature…

The second Utena ED strikes up with a quick rush of drumbeats starting just before the electric guitar squeals then hits. Because it leads so nicely into a driving song, it’s easy to miss the effect. But, right there after the ‘to be continued…’, it pulls you in. Stop, rewind a second, and hear those first two seconds again.

The series always flaunted its glam-rock associations, but when the first notes hit here the emphasis is unusually heavily on the rock’n roll side. I guess that’s part of what makes it so refreshing when it turns up. There’s also the fact that the symbolism here really gets to grip with Utena’s philosophy. In what I’ve seen of the later episodes there’s a sort of melancholy, even despair, at the fatal procession of events. The new ending ensures that at the end of each episode we get a reminder that Utena is fast and sexy.

And to what do we rock? The embryo in a desert, and the sight of humanity rising up and defining the geometry of the sky as a series of heavens. This glory means a movement away from pristine perfection – described by a singer operating in melodramatically cold, sharp mode.

From the demands of causality and the growth of the mysterious embryo comes a sort of artificial bliss. It makes a rose a rose and fills the place with colour. A perpetual motion machine which denies entropy, denies death. The process of human interpretation of reality is Utena’s religion.

The collision of the chorus of heavens with pretty lesbian pictures gives us a very clear sense of what it is Utena places above all else as the human divine. The constellation becomes part of a single machine, and our universal engine is mildly androgynous sensuality. The introduction of this human element is tied to the arrival of the female chanting – returning to the dominance of the high choral approach more usually prevalent in Utena’s musical sequences.

I’d note the way that episode 33 replaces this whole sequence of shots with images of Akio’s car (to the same music). Now it might just be me, but that vehicle seems a fair bit less divine than the normal content of this ED. Although admittedly more graceful than a motorcycle. [Am I proposing a systematic privileging of lesbians in anime Japan this show? Heaven forbid.]

Of course, to a considerable extent this specific sexual contrast is tied to the manner in which Akio’s scheming sexuality is deployed. In a not very subtle series of scenes in the same episode we see a pathetically culinary-minded Utena essentially emasculated by his applied physical philosophy. Revolutionary Girl Utena is justly ambivalent towards the exercise of (male) power. Or rather, it is critical but besotted.

Finally, at the end of the song, the words “Empty Motion”. It could just apply to the pointlessness of our designation of “heavens”, but it probably also describes and judges the initial causality which moves the world from lifeless perfection to mortal human struggle. This final declaration of futility is accompanied by a shot of that castle, our icon of the impossible. And there’s a bird shedding feathers in mid-flight whilst bells chime. Shedding more feathers than it really should. A symbol of death and resurrection? Not sure. Maybe it’s just cool.

[Endnote: I finished Utena, a couple of minutes ago after spontaneously deciding that I couldn't/shouldn't hold myself back. It won. I had already written this post. I'd edit it now, but I reckon the piece is already excited enough. If I edit it later, I think I'll loose the mood.]

This is not just an Ancient Aztec Vampire God. This is an Ancient Aztec Vampire God by the name of AC/DC. Vampires and rock’n roll references sighted side by side, it could only be one series…

In my eternal pursuit of the battle manga kick it was but a matter of time until I turned to the titanic and spectacular mess that is Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Right now I’m pausing on part 4 (of seven[it's still ongoing]), bemused and amused.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is mesmeric. It’s not just that the style is so massively distinctive, it’s the fact that the series challenges the very nature of the “epic” shonen (where a boy’s tale takes up a grand mantle). Which here does mean one great journey, or a grand impossible mission. Jojo is epic in scale and totally disjointed in practise. It delivers the Epic effect without recourse to a consistently epic plot. Or to anything resembling taste.

Each of the 7 “parts” in JJBA is its own story. These stories don’t just each offer their own settings and casts, they vary in length, narrative focus, and their use of arcs. Not all parts span the same breadth, but as a collective they encompass an absurdly huge realm of time and space – a sort of cumulative grandeur. Excitably clumsy narration throws each new detailed locale at us with comic gusto.

There’s continuity, and there are core features in terms of style and silliness which never go away, but the range of differences is remarkable. Where some series can be seen evolving in a set direction while retaining certain elements, Jojo’s simply restarts periodically and changes the rules of the game (N.B. the game = punching people’s heads open).

So while I found the first part fascinating, occasionally riveting, but ultimately too messy, the second part proceeded to capture me absolutely with its outrageous stunts and tendency to go as far beyond the impossible as imaginable. With the arrival of part 3 I was initially irritated at the new set of change, only to become progressively more involved in the fresh team dynamics. Right now I’ve stalled at the start of part 4, once again frustrated by the restart.

Part 3 is massively long and epitomises the fragmented nature of the beast. In contrast to the one-man-army approach of Blood Phantom, endless enemies sneak up to be disposed of by one or another of our heroic team. In these fights we see the replacement of martial arts prowess with magical ’stands’. These ’stand’ things ultimately reinvigorate the series by compelling everyone to be tactical in order to make best use of their particular ability and negate their opponents’ magic.

Just as planned PUNCH!

Just as planned is the great source of Jojo’s somewhat surprising emergence (in part 2) as a great pop manga. There are different ways for manga heroes to fight: you can top trump your opponent with your power level, you can grittily bear it out, or you can use your head. Jojo uses the human brain in a way that makes Death Note’s schemers look restrained. Our beefcakes pull off the most complex and sophisticated plans in the midst of hectic battle. Rope tricks, mirrors, the laws of magnetism;  traps and countertraps.

Even in the early days of vampire wrestling Jojo was able to win fights through his cleverness. But when Joseph arrived the stakes were raised. As the series gets more ridiculous the just as planned combat sequences take on an escapist euphoria. It’s likely just coincidence, but by the time part 3 hits the impossible musculature has been toned down. Our heroes fighting with magical trickery and not sweat seems to reflect the fact that our admiration for these action men should go beyond the physical. Their victories are mental, even spiritual.

They may come to be combat tricksters, but Jojo and his allies are morally impeccable. Joseph may be dickish, but he always returns to good old-fashioned morality. Caesar and Polnareff may be rash, but there’s inevitably a soppy backstory to explain such faults. The fact is, these men stand so far above us all that it’d be pathetic in the context of a less madcap affair.

Be it in terms of muscle, mind, or morals, there’s no denying that Jojo’s tendency towards its male characters is adoration. Turn not to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure if you balk at hunky parades, or sneer at manly perfection in its most hilariously extreme forms.

This is most noticeable in the first part – as our chunky hero’s precise height is repeatedly recounted by his fellow characters and an equally stricken narrator. One hundred and ninety-five centimetres is his statistical epithet.

We admire a hero for power; to prove their power they must defeat the powerful. When we find ourselves slavishly admiring power per se than the enemies must somehow contrive be admirable and wrong at the same time. The noble villain is a common idea on the series. The very biggest bad guys are despicable, the lowest minions obnoxious, but somewhere inbetween we find some baddies we can look up to.

This is one of the things that makes me invoke that blasted word Epic. Not in an analytical sense, but because the Jojo show sets up an array of heroic combats which make me think of grand myth – of demi-gods and fated deaths. A monster who is trying to conquer the world, who lives off human blood and attacks an innocent woman in his death throes, is praised for his loyalty and steadfastness. Glorious bullshit.

The fascinating thing is that the series follows through on the cruelty of admirable epic villainy by chucking us a Nazi anti-hero. Stroheim is an ideological bastard, and yet we kind of adore him for his ridiculous bravery. When Jojo resurrects the Homeric icon in the age of mere men, there are inevitable ironies which are never dodged. (After all, JJBA is better at violence than evasion.)

The real strength of this manga is that it knows that Epic Shonen is kinda balls, and still loves it fiercely.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure exagerrates everything. Victorian England is a fairy tail fantasy, 1970s Egypt is near-medieval, modern Japan is modelled on pristine American suburbia. Men are men, women are girls, monsters are strangely alluring. It’s the world imagined by a boyish madman, then blown up to titanic proportions. A chaotic and delirious expression that’s frankly exhausting.

For some time I’d been storing away a draft in which I somewhat indignantly detailed the flaws of Bounen no Xam’d. Having taken Ryan A’s excellent advice from back here, I’d started watching Xam’d in batches. After a somewhat disappointing few episodes, I wrote the critical draft. Then I more or less forgot about the show. In the last few days I went through episodes 18 to 25, and rediscovered a quite brilliant story.

I’m right on the cusp of the grand finale, and I couldn’t be more excited. Every one of these recent episodes has been massively involving. Xam’d is one of the few shows that can bring me to tears when I’m stone cold sober.

Where previous episodes would generally get me thinking, now virtually every episode takes over my world for its duration.

The business of watching bunches of episodes back to back or within a day of one another is a big part of my reconversion. This method negates the scheduled pleasure of the week to week fix, but allows the story to develop a traction which suits Xam’d’s (ech) style. Perhaps it suits it because for some time the cast of the show were on the cold side, with a few notable and noticeable exceptions.

This mode of characterisation meant that I found it much easier to follow the emotional lives of the characters without the weekly wait. I think part of this is that Xam’d speaks in a cinematic language. For all that I find myself frequently comparing anime unfavourably to modern cinema in terms of sophisticated character development, it’s the 25 minute weekly runtime that dictates many of the customary crudities. This show frequently ignores those dictates.

Xam’d has a presentational formality and deploys frequent narrative disjunctions which don’t really suit the mindset which I’m used to taking to television. It calls for unusually careful viewing, and rewards it.

The cinematic mode combines with a good deal of crossover in action between episodes. A show like Michiko to Hatchin is every bit Xam’d’s rival (perhaps even its better) in terms of artistry and sophistication, but uses a more episodic format which contains its messages within ordered packets. Xam’d is defined by a combination of cinematic style, anti-episodic plotting, and complicated characterisation.

The respective difficulties and differences of the characters meant that at first we were peering at them through veils.  In the later episodes it’s noticeable how the veils are stripped – we see Haru opening up once reunited with Akiyuki, Tojiro loosing his cool and bursting into tears (and even moving on Prois), Akiyuki’s parents making the breakthrough, and so forth. When Akiuyuki finds and shows his true self he reaches an enlightenment which sees him revert to the ‘pure’ Xam’d form we saw earlier; there’s a return to simple personal truths which are the more beautiful because of the journey through obscurity. [And I can't help but like the fact that with Xam'd carapace an enlightened man of action looks exactly the same as someone who's mentally running away.]

I’m thinking that with this opening up of personalities at the heights of conflict, I didn’t necessarily have to watch these individually satisfying late episodes the way I did, although I really should have been using batch watching during the earlier, subtler stages.

Not that Xam’d has lost its grace with the development of open heartedness. There are still those visual and thematic parallels pulling the cast together – lost children, bicycling pursuits, self-sacrifice, letters, the impact of a third party upon a relationship etc.

Xam’d moves a great deal. It has multiple loci depicted with differing levels of clarity, and the lines which tie them together are similarly variant. At times I found the symmetries artificial, but the show is dealing with the challenge of a vast story. The occasional feeling of artificiality is the price paid for scope, and this scope provides its own pleasures and opportunities.

My recent watching has basically overturned my earlier issues with the mannered managing of the narrative, and shown that Xam’d can make its characteristics into strengths. Or at least negate their potential weaknesses.

Case in point: the setting. Initially fascinating in its vagueness, the resulting world has never fully satisfied me. The charm is in the details, but the big picture was too often a pile of individual places, not one feeling.

With far more time to show itself off, it still feels less immersive that the Miyazaki works it ransacked for inspiration. The world of Xam’d is not a place that provides pure escapism, because our business is so tied to the emotional lives of the cast. I think the focus of the story means that it was not intended to be an original and welcoming location. Xam’d doesn’t have Miyazaki’s organic charm, but is able to develop its themes and messages more properly and avoid some of those film’s more jarring simplicities.

Seirei no Moribito is another series I mostly watched in batches, and is in some ways similar. It uses realistic characters and it has an essentially unoriginal fantasy setting which keeps clear of the mundane through exuberant exoticism.

Moribito made its location more involving by introducing fallow periods, while Xam’d retains a movement and interconnection that prevents similar feelings from growing. Where Xam’d decisively overcomes Moribito is in the emotional strength of its cast. With less old school fantasy characterisation, and more inner turmoil, it finds a strength which pulls it far above the crowd and lets it hit peaks I never found in that other fantasy show. Or, in a manner of speaking, I find the flawed Ishu to be far a more involving badass than Balsa ever was.

The one area which I haven’t entirely reinterpreted in retrospect is The Furuichi Episode. The arrival of the deadly mutating metamorphosis of despair was absurd in all the wrong places. The manner in which Furuichi disintegrated just didn’t feel real to me. I got no feeling of threat or tension from his breakdown, the final moment was certainly surprising, but honestly just made me laugh.

It did however set up the brilliant scenes with Midori in the Death Egg. The revisiting of her mother’s death with Nakiami as guide left me utterly wrecked. The Furuichi bit contributed to this magnificent moment, but that doesn’t quite make up for what I think was a case of poor characterisation.

I guess post-Furuichi the characters who carry on his legacy are the Captain and the Scientist. The mother-maniac and the self-loathing exile also don’t do much for me. Tojiro does improve during his face-off with Raigyo. Well, it’s not improvement as a person, but improvement as a developed personality.

These human villains aren’t a strong point. Their major function is to serve as faces of the darkness captured in pure dramatic essence by the emperor – a desperate and nameless foetal-monster forged out of a refusal to accept death. I think that the emperor is effective, far more so than most ‘dark side’ manifestations. The fact remains that the psychological approach to explaining regular villainy in Xam’d doesn’t quite satisfy me as much as the existential one represented by the monster.

If Furuichi, Tojiro, and the Scientist define what I disliked, there’s also someone who sums up what I care about. For OGT, Haru seems to be the big draw. For me it’s Nakiami. Cue enthusiasm.

For a start, visually, her design is just magical. Then there’s her combination of hardness and kindness. There’s the way her various relationships are depicted comparatively but without crudity. From her dealings with Akiyuki, Ishu, and to some degree Raigyo, we move onto a form of redemption in which she finds not romantic love, but (in Yango) a person who provides what she needs. Who can learn from her, but can also hold her back without lashing out. When we meet with her sister it’s as if their relationship epitomises the difference between what she runs from and what she’s found with her de facto foster-child.

Undoubtedly my liking for Nakiami is a lot more to do with sympathy then her depth relative to the rest of the characters. Indeed this is the inevitable nature of shows with big casts, and makes me think that another good thing about batch watching is that I don’t get disappointed when an episode focuses on those individuals for whom  I care less.

But that’s a disappointment I wouldn’t suffer on a second viewing, and in the midst of the current action, I think this going to be something I’ll want to revisit, at the new pace and with my eyes open to foreshadowing.

Whether or not I do so will depend entirely upon this one last episode, which has a hell of a task to fulfil. As the show has upped the quality levels, it’s begun to shoulder a colossal weight. Whatever note it ends on, it’s going to hit some people better than others. When Bones did this with RahXephon I didn’t like the answer. It seemed to me like that Evangelion-inspired show had failed to find the right answer to Anno’s fatalism. The pure (musical) romance which emerged didn’t capture or convince me.

When Akiyuki gave his name to the emperor, when Haru communicated psychically with her love and I didn’t feel a gag reflex at the romanticism, I began to think that Xam’d might have what it takes to deliver a truth that overwhelms. With the weight of the world, with questions so fundamental as the basic line between self and other and the relationship between responsibility and sacrifice, come stakes intimidatingly high. But then, as a show with such ambitious production and cinematic storytelling, Xam’d has always had to deal with heightened expectations. And if it finally overwhelms them at the climax, then I imagine it’ll feel like dancing.