coryyyy

Sym-Bionic Titan is an underrated show. America's animated lineup of both movies and television have fallen short in both quality and quantity. Japan rules the road in these matters.

Genndy Tartakovsky to the rescue. If you are not in the know read: Samurai Jack. However, Roar of the White Dragon may have just bested any episode of Samurai Jack. We have shifted to gear 6 people.

The basic plot of Sym-Bionic Titan is this: A princess, a soldier, and a robot land on earth as their own planet is ravaged by a war. The enemy finds them on earth and systematically sends giant monsters to destroy them. The trio combines into a tech-titan, a big robot battle, rinse, repeat. The gold here is in how SBT goes about it. Smooth riding, into overdrive.

Roar of the White Dragon is the best episode yet, and may, oddly, be the most definitive one. On a mundane ride to school, Ilana complains about the possibility of being late, but Lance doesn't care. Lance has been entranced with a high speed chase that roars past their minivan. A neon pink rice rocket passes followed by a hoard of police. "It's so primitive, I like it." Lance smirks.

I'd let you guess but you already know: Lance builds a car with some super-space-tech and takes it for a test drive. Now, you can guess who he meets at a stop light. The race that occurs after this point is (albeit short) one of the best races ever made, rivaling those in the Wachowski's Speed Racer and the Fast/Furious series. An event so over the top and amazing I could not stop laughing while simultaneously having my head explode from the immeasurable amount of awesome. However, this is not the peak of the show. As not to spoil anything, and as I want to prevent IMDb from exploding, I'll let you experience Sym-Bionic Titan for yourself.

This is, no doubt, the best anime series of 2008.

Contrary to what one may think from the images promoting this series; Xam'd is NOT a story about fighting robots, it is not a story about mystical monsters, it is not an adolescence becoming a man story, and it is not a romance story. Xam'd is a WAR EPIC with all those as the icing on top.

Xam'd also is NOT an action series. Being about war, there are battles and fights. However, there are maybe around ten in the whole series (all of which are animated beautifully).

Xam'd does the soul good showing the multiple perspectives of a war. The religious fanatics fighting for what they believe in, the opposing government state fighting to protect their nation against religious terrorism, and the town-states in between. Segregation and discrimination, rejection, trauma, sorrow, confusion, misunderstandings, religious and mystical mystery and the unknown are all themes explored in Xam'd. Throughout the experience, mystical events toss the viewer around to question which party to root for.

The series focuses on many different characters with different views, but all of whom believe what they are doing is right. Very rarely does a movie or series do this successfully. Xam'd does, and that's commendable.

Moving on to the animation, there is nothing left to be desired in this department. A good way to describe the whole series is CONSISTENTLY GOOD. Unlike other modern shows where there are bouts of poor animation sprinkled with good animation, Xam'd never falters.

Why is this series so underrated and unheard of? Poor choice on distribution. The series was released internationally, but only on the PSN(Playstation3Network)! Not even in Japan was this series shown on TV! The show must be bought a few bucks an episode, and is automatically deleted after 24 hours of download. An unfortunate fate for such an amazing series. There is no doubt, a cult following... yet it is sad to think such an amazing series will be under looked simply because of poor distribution choices. If you get a chance to pick this series up, do so.