Anime / Xam'd: Lost Memories

Akiyuki in his Xam'd form and Haru.

Akiyuki is an Ordinary High-School Student who lives with his two best friends Haru and Furuichi on Sentan Island, a neutral zone while the North and South governments wage war. That is, until he gets caught in a terrorist bomb attack. The bomb itself comes in the form of a white haired girl, and the explosion implants a gem into Akiyuki's arm, which forcibly transforms him into a Xam'd, a humanoid creature. Nakiami, a mysterious and emotionless young woman, takes Akiyuki into her care in order to help him control his newfound power, forcing Akiyuki to leave his home and friends behind.

Meanwhile, every day life is torn asunder in Sentan Island as the Mainsoul Military takes over to stop the Humanform Weapons from wreaking havoc, but unknown to most they are doing secret experiments involving the very monsters they're trying to stop. Haru and Furuichi have both joined the military, albeit for different reasons. While Furuichi wants to protect their island, Haru is hoping to reunite with Akiyuki.

Xam'd: Lost Memories (亡念のザムド Bounen no Zamned) is produced by Studio BONES and shares some similarities to Eureka Seven, BONES's previous creation. It offers a deep and involved plot with detailed art and a rich setting.

Notably, it first came available for download on the PS3 in North America, months before it became available in Japan- unfortunately, the translation was very sloppy as noted below. It is now also being broadcast by the Anime Network and distributed by Section 23 Films' Sentai Filmworks imprint in America.

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Tropes:

• Adults Are Useless: Averted: They kick ASS in this series.
• Alien Blood: Glowing, green blood.

• Beam Spam: As the most powerful Living Weapon in the series, the Hiruken Emperor takes the Humanforms' Frickin' Laser Beams up a notch. By the end of the series, Akiyuki is also capable of pulling off a more limited version.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ahm is ually a kind and good natured guy, acting as father figure to most of the crew. But don't ever attack his ship, lest you feel the wrath of his cannon.

• Bittersweet Ending: The war is over and the people of the North are free, but much was lost in setting up the plan to bring it about.
• Blessed with Suck: Congratulations, you're a Xam'd! You've got Super-Strength, Voluntary Shapeshifting, inhuman agility, and enough biological weaponry to demolish a city. Damn shame that you can't use any of it for more than a few seconds without running the risk of suffering Loss of Identity / going Ax-Crazy / getting Taken for Granite / all three in no particular order. Oh, and there's an ungodly powerful Eldritch Abomination who wants to pick a fight with you. Good luck with that.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The dub of Xam'd is rife with typos, missing context, and plot-relevant terms getting translated differently every time they're used, making it difficult to follow the plot.
  • "One more red mark (akaboshi) and I'll get disciplinary training." -> "Akaboshi's disciplinary committee's coming by again!"
  • "Don't be stupid. We purged those a long time ago." -> "Don't even joke about that. I don't want to be purged..."
  • "It's a 3 hour wait at the military hospital. You'd be long dead before the examination." -> "They always glare at you before examination."
• Body Horror: Furuichi's Xam'd form, but most of the Organic Technology probably falls under this, especially anything to do with the Hiruko.
  • The Humanforms as well.
• Body Motifs: Lots of emphasis on eyes.

• Child Soldiers: So many of the characters have to go to war and leave their families behind. And the reactions of said families are recorded onscreen.

• Clothing Damage: Which oddly repairs itself when the Xam'd return to normal.
• Combined Energy Attack: Something of this sort was used against the Northern Emperor. It worked... Possibly. Maybe it was the name-giving.
• Cool Airship: The Zanbani and the Northern and Southern military ships. The Beat Kayaks, meanwhile, combine this with Cool Bike.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: In a rare instance of this being self-inflicted, we have Furuichi using his Xam'd arm to tear off his own head!
• Deus ex Machina: Several of the main characters suffer apparently terminal events only to show up again after the timeskip.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Subverted; the Captain's attempt at killing the Emperor is a miserable failure that only leads to him waking up.

• Dress Hits Floor: Kujireika's reaction to being cornered by several ASP Suits, right before going One-Winged Angel on their collective backsides.

• Emotionless Girl: Nakiami, appears such at first introduction but is shown to subvert it as the show goes on.
• Empathy Doll Shot: Haru finds a mangled teddy-bear during the clean-up of the ruins in Episode 5.
• Energy Weapon: The (devastating) primary armament of the Humanform Weapons and sufficiently powerful Xam'd.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Kakisu loves his Missing Mom, who we meet later on. She plays an important part in getting the plot back on the road after Akiyuki's Heroic BSoD, and ironically everyone (except her) thinks her son dies in the Battle of Barador.

• Expy: Nakiami's resemblance to Nausicaa from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and San from Princess Mononoke.
  • The Furuichi-Akiyuki-Haru trio resembles the main characters from Kingdom Hearts.
  • The entire main cast appears to be primarily based on that of Eureka Seven. It's practically a 1:1 match-up.
  • Haru bears a striking resemblance to Shion Arita, who was Birdy Cephon Altera's alter ego in Birdy the Mighty: Decode.
• Eye Scream: Ryuuzou (Akiyuki's dad) gets his eye slashed by Kakisu (we see relatively little detail, but from the amount of blood, the eyeball itself may have been cut open, if not in half(!)) near the series' end. Suffice to say, next time we see him, he has only one.
  • To add to this, the Humanform Weapons' Frickin' Laser Beams evoke this. They have special organs on their bodies, called "spores" that resemble eyes, which eject from the body and self-destruct, turning into powerful beams. Small Humanforms usually have 2, however, when we see a man missing his left eye transform into one, we see that the left spore is also missing. That's right, the spores that pop out and burn up to fire the Frickin' Laser Beams... are their EYES!
• Falling into the Cockpit: Though they were formally recruited to pilot the ASP Suits, Haru and Furuichi qualify here as their first live training session is interrupted and they have to face off against a huge and mysterious Xam'd.
• Fantastic Racism: The South considers Tessiks acceptable targets due to the war and the creepy Humanform technology.

• Fauxlosophic Narration: Actually, they pull it off pretty well in the series.
• Finger Poke of Doom: The Hiruken Emperor's solution to being attacked by an enraged Kujireika. Given that said finger is about the size of an industrial girder, its effectiveness is quite understandable... though still not much less humiliating for its victim.
• Foreign Language Theme: All of the opening and ending songs are entirely in English, though the openings feature pronunciation so thickly accented it's virtually impossible to understand without subtitles.
• Gainax Ending - Large portion of the world dedicated itself through centuries of ritualistic sacrifices to seal the Emperor's sorrow with a giant laser, but wait; Akiyuki was sent on a journey to fight the Dark Emperor to save the day. And he did. The day was won. The wrath of the Emperor is forever silenced and peace can return to the land without having Nakiami seal herself for a millennium. And then Nakiami seals herself which leads to Akiyuki and The Emperor to be blasted by previously said laser. And apparently everybody survive, including Akiyuki who inexplicably resurrected himself 7 years post facto.
• Gambit Pileup: After Episode 19 and the Hiruken Emperor's return, every single faction in the story swings their plans into action at once. The results are predictably messy.
• Giant Flyer: A type of Humanform Weapon classifies as this. The one that looks like an airborne manta ray, that is.

• Heroic Sacrifice: Nakiami seals herself within the Quickening Chamber, knowing that she will never see her friends and loved ones again, to sleep for 1000 years in order to offset the darkness of the Hiruken Emperor.
• High-Speed Missile Dodge
• Homing Lasers: The Hiruken Emperor uses these in spades when he fights, leading to Akiyuki's aforementioned High-Speed Missile Dodge.
• Important Haircut: This show loves this trope: Haru and Raigyo.
  • Inversely, Akiyuki gets an Expository Hairstyle Change.
• Improbable Age: The southern military recruits and trains 16 year olds to be military pilots of highly advanced and deadly mecha suits, apparently as routine. May be seen as plausible given that a war has just started (and some modern countries recruit at that age in peacetime), but they are also being sent out in the field with hardly any training.
• Inconsistent Spelling: The name of the series has been variably spelled as "Xam'd" by the US PSN release and current official websites, "Xamdou" by the early official websites, and "Zamned" by the Japanese eye catches and ending theme album cover.
• Ironic Echo:
  Nakiami: (to Yango) Your parents would want you to value your life.
  [...]
  Yango: (to Nakiami) You need to value yourself even more!
• Karmic Transformation: A few episodes after it becomes clear that Furuichi hates and despises the Xam'd, he becomes one himself.
• Lady of War: Ishuu
• Laser-Guided Amnesia
• The Lancer: Nakiami
• Libation for the Dead, Until Ishuu realises the recipient is underage and consumes the remainder herself.
• Living Weapon: The Humanforms, which serve as aircraft and tanks for the Northern Army. The Xam'd also have elements of this.

• Mercy Kill: The true goal of Lady Sannova's plan. Preventing the mass human sacrifices every millennium was just a nice little bonus.
• Missing Mom: Kakisu, Haru, Nakiami, and that's just a few.
• Mindlink Mates: Akiyuki shares this with Haru when he's in his Xam'd form.

• No Name Given: The northern emperor. It's apparently an important plot point.

• One-Winged Angel: Being able to do this is a good chunk of what makes a Xam'd a Xam'd.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: More accurately, 'The Only One Allowed To Defeat Me'. When Kujireika interrupts his duel with Akiyuki by trying to kill him, the Hiruken Emperor makes his feelings on the matter abundantly clear.

• Our Souls Are Different: Some of the Hiruken technology is powered by the souls of the dead.

• The Plan: The entire point of seeding the Hiruko around the world was to try to give birth to a Xam'd strong enough to kill the Hiruken Emperor.

• Power Incontinence: Akiyuki and later Furuichi cause a lot of trouble when they first transform into Xam'd.
• The Power of Love: Haru's love, combined with Akiyuki's willpower, may be what let him recover from being frozen in stone.

• The Right Hand of Doom: The sudden appearance of a grotesquely oversized forearm is a definite hint that you've got a Xam'd amongst you.
• Save the Day, Turn Away: Akiyuki, due to his Xam'd nature, after losing his own name to save the day, turns to stone. But he recovers.
• Scenery Porn: As expected for Eureka Seven's Spiritual Successor.
• Schizo Tech: The town we see at the beginning looks like sixties' Japan with unusual vehicle designs. Meanwhile the Hiruken and the Tessik use Organic Technology from stone cities in Mayincatec style, the Southern army uses Mini Mechas with mind links and the Zanbani has a very Dieselpunk interior.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Hiruken Emperor, who lies dormant until the last few episodes.

• Shout-Out: Nakiami's flying kayak (somewhat a cross between the Mehve and the Swordfish), the Worm Handlers, the airships and the religious tribes from the Nausicaa manga.

• Technopath: The Mainsouls, ordinary humans who are trained in this ability in order to pilot the ASP Suits. Also comes in handy for, say, repairing a busted Beat Kayak when surrounded by drowsy Humanforms.

• Tribal Face Paint: Nakiami along with most the Tessik people share similar purple tattoos on their faces.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Akiyuki, Furuichi and Haru. They get separated early on but their bond brings them back together.
• Tyke-Bomb:
  • Literally, the Gibashiri.
  • Midori.
• Unexplained Recovery: Akiyuki after being half transformed and turned to stone for nine years, though it is implied that he was able to retain his conscience in such a state and broke free from his stone prison with his sheer force of will, all thanks to Haru's unwavering love.

• Villainous Breakdown: Kakisu has a slight one towards the end of the series.
• Wham Episode: Episode 14. Furuichi becomes a Xam'd, goes berserk, and subsequently beheads himself, Akiyuki loses his mind, and the Commander shows his true colors.

• Worthy Opponent: Akiyuki and the Hiruken Emperor consider each other this by the time of their final confrontation.

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