Xam’d eps 2, entitled “Blackout at Sentan Island” continues right where the first eps left off, with Akiyuki all transformed into his new form and shot up by the military, while the sky above Sentan island is filled with strange airships. The bullets have no effect over Akiyuki as it looks like his new body just ingests the bullets. His friend Haru is at the scene and hears Akiyuki whisper in her head “I want to live” and then proceeds to beat up the soldier that shot him as if she was in a trance.

The strange airships then drop these metal containers with spouts on them. The spouts spew forth these really huge crazy looking monsters that kinda looks like a  fat blue dolphin walking on two legs. The monsters, latter refered to as Humanform weapons, have a weird round pointy snout with a ring round it and seems to be covered in these round circles resembling eyes. The “pupil” from the eyes can remove themselves and fire off lasers that cause these devestating explosions that have a vacuum effect that sucks everything around it back into the explosion. I’m not sure what’s all going on or the physics of it, but everything is looking pretty darn cool.

The Humanform weapon runs into Akiyuki and the two run through the city fighting each other. We see that Akiyuki’s new body has some cool functions. He can shape his arm into a shield to fend of the monster’s laser shots, and he can shape it into a giant blade.  Haru chases them through out the battle and eventually falls off this water pipe where Akiyuki saves her. The scenes between Akiyuki’s transformed body and Haru really have this King Kong vibe. He looks at her really curiously but wants to protect her. The resemblance is even stronger as he fights off the Humanform weapon while holder her in his over sized hand. Akiyuki really starts smashing on the monster and ends up starting to crystalize it.

Then things get interupted when the cool, quiet, and Studio Ghibli looking girl, Nakiami,  that went out to check out Sentan island in eps one, joins the situation.  She calls refers to Akiyuki’s body as Xam’d and wonders why a completed one was here.  She knocks them both out then returns Akiyuki to his almost normal human state, and then takes him with her back to her ship.

Most of the rest of the episode deals with showing Akiyuki’s parents and their broken relationship, and a conversation with a military commander and this wheelchair bound man. The wheelchair bound man has similar markings on his face to Nakiami and seems to have his own giant Xam’d chained up.

Xam’d is quickly and easily becoming one of my favorite shows in years. It’s true that I don’t really know what’s going on all the time, but I never feel completely lost. It makes me more curious about the characters and the different governments and systems that are at work. I like just being thrown into a new world and slowly learning about it piece by piece instead of having everything spelled at for me at the beginning.