Xam'd: Lost Memories 1-2

The first two episodes start with a crew on some sort of flying ship. The crew seem discovers they're being chased and gets ready, so they get ready to land at the closest available dock. The scene then shifts to a mother waking up her son who seems to have overslept. The son, Akiyuki, who is also our lead character it seems, eventually leaves the house and heads off to drop off his father's bentou.

We're then introduced to the next couple of characters, Haru and some other dude. The two do some judo sparring and Haru wins. The scene shifts back to Akiyuki showing him taking a shortcut to his dad's house. Akiyuki gets off his bike and takes a path by foot, and Haru, her sister, and that guy from before walk across and notice Akiyuki's bike. The guy and Haru bet on whether Akiyuki would make it in time later.

Akiyuki drops off his father's bentou, makes some snide comments, and heads off for school. As the judo guy and Haru are waiting in line for the bus, the two discuss their bet from earlier as Akiyuki doesn't seem like he's going to make it in time, but Akiyuki barely arrives in time to get on the bus. At the end of the line, Akiyuki notices the girl at the end of the line doesn't have the required armband to get on the bus, so he uses some slick talking to get on the bus and gives his band to the girl. As the students are heading off to school on the bus, Akiyuki notices some odd ships (foreshadowing?).

The scene shifts to some government army types trying to figure out what is happening with the arrival of so many foreign ships. The leader seems to be confident at first that no one would attack their country, but at the end of the scene a one of his officers confirms some invading ships.

The students finally arrive at the school, and everyone starts to get off the bus. Akiyuki and Haru get off the bus and start verbally jabbing at each other again, while the foreign girl from earlier does some suspicious activity with some odd object in her hand. Suddenly, an explosion happens on the bus. The judo guy and Akiyuki instinctively search for Haru and find her. Akiyuki quickly diverts his attention to the bus as a weird green light as appeared, eventually dispersing into multiple beams, one of which flies into Akiyuki's arm. The light causes some weird gem and mutation to appear on his arm, but both disappear. Akiyuki, despite protests from the judo guy, jumps on the bus and finds the foreign girl from earlier bleeding some green stuff. She says something to him and touches his forhead, which causes Akiyuki to undergo a weird transformation. The transformed Akiyuki eventually gets shot by some military guy, and the ships from before drop some giant pod lookalike things to end the episode.

The next episode picks up where the last left off, and Akiyuki isn't dead from the shots. The pods open up and turn into some weird monsters that start shooting up the city. The transformed Akiyuki tries to stop the monster, and the two end up fighting for a bit. Haru chases after Akiyuki, and so does one of the crew from the ship from the opening scene. As Haru chases after Akiyuki, she almost falls off some piping and Akiyuki has to save her. Akiyuki eventually defeats the monster, but the girl on the ship lands and after some questioning, causes Akiyuki to return to his human form.

The crew from before seem to be waiting for this girl, and she arrives carrying Akiyuki on her back. Nakiami, the girl who carried Akiyuki, seems to be fiddling with Akiyuki's weird arm. One of the crew busts in on Nakiami and Akiyuki, but Nakiami reassures him that Akiyuki won't cause anyone any harm. A pretty funny scene ensues after this.

We then get to see the damage the multiple monsters caused. Thousands were hurt or killed. Akiyuki's mother goes to her husband's place to discuss what happened to their son. She assumes the worst, and a very emotional scene follows.

We also get to see some commander, who is surveying the damage from an attack that occurred. He meets with a doctor who has the same markings on his face as Nakiami. The two talk about the "Hitogata" which they call Xam'd. After a bit of discussion, the episode ends.

Thoughts:

Phew that was a long summary. A lot happened in the first two episodes. I wish the raws for this came out on torret -__-. I really like this series, not only because BONES is producing it, but because from the initial couple episodes are full of quality. The animation is so detailed. Not only are the main characters well animated, the environments have so much detail too. I also enjoyed the music a lot for this series so far. The only problem I have with Xam'd so far is that the series does remind me a lot of Eureka 7. I know it's the same studio and stuff, but I can't help but be reminded of Eureka 7 with a lot of the series' aspects.

The series opens up with A LOT of questions. What's with the weird monsters, what's a Xam'd, why was the ship on the run, what's with the northern kingdom, who's at war with each other? The question can go on and on! I'm very positive on Xam'd so far, and I hope to see more!