Touhou is a phenomenon in the realm of otaku and has rejuvenated the dying shoot ‘em up (shmup) genre. It’s hard to believe that Touhou had such a humble beginning and has been already been around for 12 years. The series has become such a juggernaut that even people that don’t normally play shmup games have dabbled in the depths of bullet hell.

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Seriously.

Anyway. Studio Ghibli + Eureka Seven = Xam’d: Lost Memories.

A new BONES production. As we all know, those are very very good. And Xam’d is some pretty funky stuff. We’ve got people that can turn into robots or something, we’ve got the damn ship with the dysfunctional bunch on board ala Gekkostate, and there’s this layer of Ghibli mysticism heavily laid out across the land. I can’t decide who’s had a bigger influence on the character design, because the protagonist is definitely BONES, but that red-head looks like she jumped right out of a Miyazaki production.

So hay, I thought I’d download the first ep and take a look.

Damn, but I was hooked. This is the good stuff. Its plot is currently a little haphazard, which was rather similar to how E7 started off, so I’m hoping it gets into the levels of EPIC WIN E7 wraps up with.

But yeah. Watch Xam’d. It’s the best show this season you aren’t watching.