Story: 6 Animation: 7 Sound: 8 Characters: 7 Enjoyment: 7 Total: 7 As the title suggests: Xenosaga The Animatino is based on the first Xenosaga Game. It is thusly, for a game adaptation, complete. But there are still loose ends which encompass the other games. As typical for the Xeno games, Xenogears, Xenosaga and Xenoblade, these stories are heavy in theming and in Judaeo-christian images. But similar to the Xenoblade series, without knowing the other parts of the games, it is hard to infer meanings into most of what is happening. This is especially true about dropped plot-points like the Zohar or the Gnosis, which definitely will play a larger role inthe other games. But as a single anime-season, it is hard to grasp these nuances. This is further embodied by the fact that the anime was released between the second and third game, making this anime effectively an advertisement. And in that aspect alone, it clearly succeeds.

But, as mentioned before, incomplete story lines harm the experience at the end. Another thing is the pacing. This solely stems from the fact that this is an adaptation into a TV-format. The 20 minute episodes still need an exciting end each episode to work. But the games story doesn't have these story beats in a regular interval. This causes a lot of rapid-fire cuts at certain points to explosively push the story forward. These story beats feel very artificial and out of place. Similarly, the animation also differs in a lot of ways. The final episode has some nice choreography, but all others are bland in comparison. This doesn't only go for the fight scenes, but also the generic animations. You can feel and see the differences clearly when certain animators were let loose on a certain scene. In the end, this results in a very mixed quality for the animation. With top tier in single scenes, but also bad and static quality at the bottom.

As it is based on a JRPG, some would think that the characters are great and well fleshed out. This is partially true. Only the key members of this story get some introspection into their characters. And, as mentioned earlier, still have secrets, probably answered in the later games. But for what we have here, it isn't that deep I would like it to. The main problem is the rapid introduction of cast members. This is more spread out during the game, probably. But this rapid-fire style causes issues with who actually is a party member and/or core character, and who is not. This is mostly noticeable with the salvagers ship crew.
The sound and music was fine for the most part. But I wished it would've been more pronounced. I know that there is clear talent at the studio. Although I do not know if the game OST was used in the anime.

As I mentioned at the start: Xenosaga - The Animation was advertisement for the third game of that story arc. For that: Good work. But adapting a video game story as a weekly series automatically generate issues. And pacing is the heaviest subject to suffer from this. And despite these flaws in pacing and characters, I still enjoyed it on some level. Hopefully, I can play that game series in the near future to appreciate it more.