At the moment, I’m working my way through Xam’d: Lost Memories. It feels like an excellent series, but it’s hard to pin down exactly why that is. There is no single element that innately attracts my attention, it just feels special; the kind of series that represents most of what is good about anime.
Looking a bit closer and comparing it to something like Code Geass, the immediate difference is in the character design. The design of characters like Charles and Schneizel, Lelouch and Kallen, are archetypal. Charles looks exactly like the kind of loud mouthed and blood-thirsty emperor he is. Watching them could almost be likened to a pantomime experience, because, when you’ve seen so much anime, you know exactly what to expect when a character like Lelouch appears, with elements of his archetype foreshadowed years before by Death Note’s Light.
However, the character designs used in Xam’d are ambiguous and realistic. There are no huge, flashing lights hanging over a villain’s head, hinting that “THIS PERSON IS EVIL”. Furuichi is a good example, a caring friend transformed into something darker, worsening with every new episode; he is multi-layered, conflicted; human. Perhaps Xam’d feels so immersive precisely because it is so ambiguous and unpredictable? One hangs on every word because there is no telling where it may all lead?