That was excellent.
A few years ago, I was trawling through a different site, ugoplayer, just playing a few random games, a few funny animations. I came across something called "XIN session 1." I proceeded to look at the next fourteen in the series. After that, site layout changed and I couldn't find them again.
Fast forward to 2008. I was examining the Series section on newgrounds, just looking around, when, at the bottom of the page, I saw a very familiar face. Anyway, I just watched all eighteen of these, and I have to say, especially with this one, I am VERY impressed. XIN is exactly the kind of animation series I want to be able to make if I can get flash myself. The few criticisms I have are solely in tiny things that don't affect the series beyond a little polishing.
Voice acting, actual anime-ish art style, a plot which holds together better than some published manga and anime that I've seen... The other thing is the impressive length of this one. Originally, I had to view XIN with dial-up, and I would never have been able to watch this without a high-speed connection. I mean, seriously, half an hour? That's awesome! So much time, thought, energy, work, everything... How can I not love this series? The series also manages to pull off a few good gags to relieve some of the tension in high style, with verbal and slapstick comic relief. The cast is very impressive, and all of them come back for one last round in this installment. The other nice thing is that all of the characters are distinctly different, are cool, and full of life. They also manage to pull off being adolescent fighting machines without being (Except in places where it's appropriate or funny.) superhuman or having special powers. The one guy who has something semi-supernatural isn't that strong compared with the main cast, and is generally around to make us chuckle. XIN is over the top and out of the ordinary, but not in a completely unbelievable way. (If, for example, these guys n' gals were throwing fireballs and lightning bolts at each other, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting.)
All in all, XIN is a great series that really resembles an anime OVA compilation more than web-based flash animation. It's engaging, exciting, overly awesome, and I will definitely come back and watch all of them again.
