Xam’d Episode 11 - Bigger Badder More LOLWut?
Overall, episode 11 is an improvement over the past half dozen episodes. Granted for some, the emotional rush of Akiyuki meeting up with Haru marked a plateau between highs and lows that is the Xam’d rollercoaster, but for most episode 11 is where the action lives.
And the action is good. Especially after so many episodes of build-ups, twists and turns of the plot, we want some more base-pandering entertainment. Even if it’s in the form of gore and violence? At least it’s stylish.
A technical note–this HD download of Xam’d from the PSN Video Store clocks in at 1080 horizontal lines natively now, instead of the usual 720 stuff. To me, there’s no real difference as things look the same more or less.
Plot-wise, we ended last episode with some “flight training” and now Akiyuki disperses his first catch with Nakiami’s magical seed.
Eew.
But soon enough there were company. Raigyo gets serious.
It seems that Raigyo’s element is water. His Xam’d has aquatic features, and he can project water like a razor, slicing through flying Humanoid Weapons like nothing.
I didn’t know Xam’d has elements. Would Akiyuki’s element be…plaster? Milkshake?
Nonetheless, it’s a bad day for Ishu Benikawa. She was just doing her thing, and a bunch of mini-sized Humanoid Weapons land on the ship.
She can only do what a girl-with-gun archetype do.
Which is to have the most Ghibli-esqe animated sequence in the show so far? When Yunbo flares up against Ishu, and they cuss each other out. It was oddly amusing. And you just have to watch it animated.
Raigyo firmly establishes his status as Numero Uno as he continues slices through the aerial opponents like nothing.
Look at the above picture carefully. The arc to the left is the water-razor thing. The green thing is those big flying Xam’d/Aussie killer. That weird colored blot to the right is Raigyo, and you can see how there’s a shaded patch that signifies the cut. That green goop dotted in the middle is Humanform Weapon blood. I suppose the move Raigyo did there is, well, a “cut back drop turn” for the lack of a better phrase.
But it looks like Akiyuki’s tentacles can independently track the target like missiles from a VF-1! ZOMG.
Old man bangs on the damage flying machine parts, which eventually leads the Zanbani to crash land safely at the end of the episode. Why was it damaged? Because Akiyuki only disarmed his target, and didn’t slice it to oblivion. And it bumped the ship on its way down.
At any rate, the buggers infiltrated the Zanbani in the episode despite some measures to contain them.
But oh ho, what do we have here? To ward off mini-Humanoid weapons, Nakiami gave the kids her bottle fairy, and look what it became.
And a long day for Ishu is about to come to an end.
Only to be greeted with Dead Nausicaa AAAAAAH.
I guess it’s just the beginning for Ishu.
Nakiami is mostly useless because she throws hissyfits whenever Ishu kills one of those mini Humanoid things. The captain does her job, and beyond.
Meanwhile at a nice house we got to see Haru’s new hairdo. Yay?
Gadget check time! It has to be Ahm’s fireworks machine, or more commonly known as a cannon. You can’t do steampunk airship without cannons, I say.
Runner-up would be the bottle fairy + bottle. Or the sunglasses Ishu wore in the preview. Those make her look like a Golgo 13 wananbe.
At any rate, so after the attack, the Zanbani crash lands, and the crew figures out what to do. During the battle, Ahm got his groove back and takes responsibility for keeping Hinokimaru from being fatherless, but Yunbo still has to figure out how it will work out. And yea, he drew the short stick this episode, but it was just bait, not real “pancakes” if you get what I mean…
Not much happens in the Haru/Furuichi/Kakisu front.
Looks like next episode will be lol, too.
“I didn’t know Xam’d has elements. Would Akiyuki’s element be…plaster? Milkshake?”
If anything I’d guess that Akiyuki’s element would be lightning/electricity or the like - after all if you observe the times Akiyuki fights wih his arm then - even in this episode, as he punches that flying humanform, you can see how something blue sparks as he pun (you can also see that when he confronts that humanform in episode 8) - if that’s not electricity, then I don’t know what it is.
Anyway, a nice, action-packed episode this time around. Nakiami might’ve left something to be desired this time around, but I assume that the writters perhaps just wanted to give her a “Nausicaä” moment (Nausicaä is a kick-ass character, but we do know how emotional she can get at times, especially when it comes to the Ohmu/insects).
Electricity, hmm I suppose that’s possible. They’re not being obvious with it though.
I don’t mind Nakiami going crazy on those Humanforms, but it’s a little disjointed and they don’t work up the audience on why killing them is so bad.
True enough. I suppose we can only wait for later episodes to really confirm if his “power” is electricity.
Well, first off we’re told since before that human forms are in many ccases actually humans who have been turned by the north into what they are now, which makes oen think about it, certainly (for example, what if the human forms in this episode were actually originally… human babies? O_o). Furthermore Nakiami says this episode that the humanforms are only raging from liness, not from evil intent, so…
curious where did you get the subtitles from? i looked in normal places and only found upto ep 10….
He rents it legally on the US PSN network, it’s a PPV (pay per view) anime.
Somehow I get the feeling a lot of people don’t know Xam’d comes subtitled! It’s not a “fansub”!
Specie: yeah, but why are they so little? Are they made from BABIES???
I think most people don’t even know it’s a PSN exclusive and when they do they go into a rage how Sony dares to not let them get anime for free.
The fact that most xam’d cappers use the standard fansub naming scheme with [ ] for their name doesn’t help things either. Though I do think in ep 9 cap the PSN user online notice pops up
Many people indeed don’t know that Xam’d is in fact not a fansub. I didn’t know before around episode6-7 or something and was very surpised to find out in fact. Apparently they’re testing the waters as far as the market goes outside of Japan, I suppose.
Omo:
Maybe those small humanforms really are made from babies - or small children at least
Specie: Originally I was half joking, but if they did show how the little Humanoid weapons were made from kids or babies, that would have made Nakiami’s reaction much more reasonable.
Like, i know its been like a year or two, and I’m gonna sound like a bitch, but by Aussie killer you’re referring to Steve Irwin? The dudes a hero, and us Aussies don’t like people dissing him okay? It’s just not cool to make fun of a guy that died, and it caused his family a lot of pain, I don’t think they’d like shit like that on the internet. Have just a little more respect yeah?
Other then that, sweet ep. I was expecting it to be a longer battle though, maybe a couple episodes long, I hope 13 is the epic ep I’m wanting :)
The More You Know ™
I didn’t diss him.
You know, if Ishu was a better shot, she could shoot those rings off… I’m just saying…
Nakiami doesn’t seem to have a problem with the humanforms dying if the rings are taken off. I wonder what those rings do to the humanforms. I like how Ishu got tired of listening to that suicide bomber babble and just took her out.