The year is T.C. 4767. Four thousand years have passed since humanity abandoned its birthplace, the
planet Earth. Beset by the hostile alien Gnosis, mankind is now scrambling to find ways to defeat this
threat to their existence. The development of KOS-MOS (a specialized android with amazing
capabilities) by Vector engineer Shion Uzuki was one response to the threat. But when their ship is
destroyed by the Gnosis, Shion and her companions find themselves thrust into the middle of a battle
with no clear sides...
(Source: Anime-Planet)
The Xenosaga Anime is overall pretty weird and partly doesn't know what it wants to be. Despite its problems, I still kind of like it. Firstly, the Anime adapts the events of Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, though with that, it isn't totally faithful and makes some weird changes to the overall story. In addition to the different English Voice Actors opposed to Episode I, the Anime is kind of distracting and weird for Fans of Xenosaga. But the anime is also not really suitable for people who have no experience before with Xenosaga, because you certainly wouldn't understand a lot of what's happening if you were to only watch the Anime. Also considering the kind of weird changes in the overall story, it's also not really an alternative to the game, Xenosaga Episode I. ~!I especially think it's very weird, that they didn't kill off Luis Virgil, but let him live, way longer than in the game. But as opposed to Virgil, they very quickly killed off Andrew Cherenkov and cut out his fantastic story. Which, in my opinion, is such a weird and bad decision. Especially because the story of Andrew Cherenkov was one of my favorite parts of Xenosaga Episode I.!~ Though these changes were certainly made because of the shorter runtime of the anime,. Xenosaga Episode I has 7 hours worth of Cutscenes, and with a 12 episodes long anime, which has per Episode a length of 20 minutes, it's not possible to adapt the whole story of the game. I really don't understand why the Anime was made this way. It doesn't help in brining in more new fans to Xenosaga and more confuses them, but it's also not really made for already existing fans. That's why I think Xenosaga The Animation doesn't know what it wants to be. One aspect I really love about Xenosaga: The Animation is definitely the opening and ending song. Those are, at least in my opinion, fantastic. youtube(https://youtu.be/E18xoJu7mK0?si=PwftNWcUcXpMtbfS) Regarding the artstyle and animation, I think the artstyle overall is fine, but definitely nothing outstanding. Though I really love how KOS-MOS looks in the anime, she especially still looks beautiful. But despite all these problems I have with the anime, I still think it's enjoyable for me, and I still kind of like it. Xenosaga has my favorite characters and story in fiction, and even though this is more a worse adaption of the story, I still love the overall story and characters. Seeing Shion Uzuki, chaos, KOS-MOS, Ziggy and all the other wonderful characters, always puts a smile on my face, which is why I still gave Xenosaga The Animation a score of 69/100. Though, despite my liking for the Xenosaga Anime I definitely wouldn't recommend it to someone who hasn't had any experience with Xenosaga. You certainly will have a much better experience playing the games.