Bōnen no Xamdou – Episode 16

Xam’d: Lost Memories 16

Dr. Kanba is very surprised and excited to see Azami. I wonder if that is because he might be Tessikan himself (note his face marks) who treat Jibashiri with great respect. Of course, it just might be because it is a rare specimen for him…

Prois has to try hard to find “an ounce of maternal instinct”. She is a good actor and pretends to care about Midori who is a Jogo flower made to sprout for the wrong reasons, trying to make her comply with the training. No woman with true maternal instinct would make a child into a weapon. If the snow is not taken away, Midori will…

This episode featured many beautiful sunset scenes, but they were relevant to the theme of the episode.

We see flying ships again. This might indicate a possible attack on the Tessik Village in the near future.

I hope Nakiami used the footprints to find Yango…

Other Xam’d Lost Memories Episodes

This episode was about winter. Again, just like in the Episode 12, we see the relationships between parent figures and children with Flora metaphors, but in a different light.

Yango describes spring, summer, and autumn, but can’t recall what they say about winter, looking at the wounded soldiers. What the boy can’t recollect about my favorite season, the old man reminds us: “Fading in winter, burning in our wake, season of love and sunsets.” Throughout the episode we see scenes that illustrate that theme.

Winter is a season when nature takes a rest. Some things perish and will never come back to us again. After loosing sight of Yango and reflecting on her past, Nakiami notes that sometimes we can truly understand how we care about something only when it is gone.

Also winter is a very harsh season that is not easy to endure sometimes. As Yunbo recalls, after three days of contemplation, Ishu proposes to name the child Hinoki (cypress tree), so he’ll grow big and strong. We also learn earlier in the episode that three weeping cedar trees are missing… Nakiami recalls her difficult childhood, yet she persevered and became a better person.