I honestly don't think they look too bad. Some of the JM I have planted in the past do the same thing the first year, but I am not a tree guy. Sense nobody has posted, the first thing that comes to mind with burnt tips is over fertilization. I am guessing you planted them well sometimes tips dry up when the rootball is potbound and not replanted right though I am sure you have that probably covered though the bed is pretty small. What varity is that maple? It looks similar to bloodgood and generally they are fairly hardy here and I would think great for Ncali, hope that helps more, hopefully somebody like bboy will chime in.

see link for photos

It could be Bloodgood. It could just as easily be Emperor I. Or Fireglow. Or Moonfire. Or one of a number of other common and popular red leafed Japanese maples that are virtually identical in appearance. Certainly far too similar to be able to determine from just a couple of photos. As Mike says. without a grower's label to confirm - and even that is no guarantee - it is just a red leafed Japanese maple :-)

From the appearance and your description, it looks a bit like 'Shindeshojo', however I would be very hesitant to assign it a specific cultivar name. With the huge number of registered cultivars on the market and the very close similarities many of them share it is virtually impossible to ID a Japanese maple with any degree of certainty. As one very reputable JM source states: "There are things that are absolute in life such as death and taxes. Unfortunately being able to visually identify a specific Japanese maple cultivar with 100% certainty isn’t one of them. There are several reasons for this. First, your tree may be seed-grown guaranteeing that it is not a named cultivar. Many older trees that may have been grafted lose there graft “markings so it is impossible to tell whether they are seed grown or not. Second, many Japanese maples are similar to each other in color, leaf type and many other visible ways. The actual differences in many cultivars can be very subtle. Even with the ones that are VERY distinctive you cannot guarantee an ID although you could give a “likely” ID. There are also many differences brought about by environmental conditions that could also make the actual subtle differences in appearance even more obscure. Finally, the number of different cultivars that have been produced over the years is astonishing and may possibly number a thousand. A person would be hard pressed to know all of them in any intimate way. In my opinion it be unethical for even the most expert old-time Japanese maple grower or even J.D. Vertrees himself to give a 100% guaranteed ID on any Japanese maple.