**Temporarily dropped until I feel I'm truly capable of doing this justice** Source: [karios], which is hideously bloated by not one but TWO flac audio tracks. I halved the file size by removing the English track and converting the Japanese track to 384k AAC. Special thanks: [Some-Stuffs] for inspiring me with their Utena release. Xam'd unfairly gets a bad rap for being confusing and I'm here to set the record straight with a long overdue TLC. The infamously nonsensical opening scene is actually a poem by Noriko Ibaragi, known for capturing the Japanese zeitgeist after their defeat in WW2, and aptly titled Soul. For those of you without big throbbing literary brains, it's a metaphor for the slavish, unrequited devotion shown by Japanese subjects to the Emperor of Japan. The stanza which reveals the speaker is a slave is is omitted from the show so I'll include it here for context along with the final stanza. You'll have to forgive my clumsy attempt at poetry translation. まれに… (Seldomly...) 私は手鏡を取り (I hold up a hand-mirror) あなたのみじめな奴隷をとらえる (Which captures your wretched slave) いまなお〈私〉を生きることのない (A single youth of this country) この国の若者のひとつの顔が (One who even now lives not for herself) そこに (Whose countenance) 火をはらんだまま凍っている (Wavers between fire and ice) Now how does this apply to Xam'd? Watch carefully. - "ostentatious offerings" --> Hiruko gathered by the Jibashiri - The queen/emperor --> Sannova. I mean come on, she's literally sitting atop a throne and preparing to send children on suicide bombing missions. You can't make this shit any more obvious. - The speaker, a conflicted slave --> Nakiami, who is torn between loyalty to Sannova and the human cost of war. Think or be turned to stone!