Lastly is Chi no Ryu, Nataku of X! This Nataku, as mentioned in the god interpretation section, was named after the Chinese god. "It" was a lab experiment using genetic engineering and an artificial womb. Because of this, he doesn't have a soul just as Nataku doesn't have a soul because he was reborn with lotus flowers and lost it when his human body was destroyed. Interesting parallel, isn't it?

The one on the right is the movie version that came out in 1995. All the others are screen captures from the new X TV Series. The TV Series one looks a little cuter.

One interesting thing is that this Nataku seems like the one that is MOST like the Senkaiden Houshin Engi one. His appearance is closer and he also seems to be born to fight. Also, he has no emotion, has no soul, and supposedly has no heart (that last thing's been said of our Nataku too *shniffu*). At least for the emotions and heart thing, I'm skeptical about because curiosity is kind of like an emotion in itself and he displays curiosity in trying to analyze strange "dreams" he has that seem like memories. Even our Nataku has temper tantrums and cares for two people in the world.

Anyway, really, check out his appearance on the left though. The back of his hair's cut like our Nataku's, and the way his face is drawn is also, especially the eyes. The eyes have a lot more eyelashes, but y'know, that's CLAMP's style.

If you were observant, you'd notice that I referred to the X Nataku as an "it" toward the beginning and then began referring to him as "he". There's a really good explanation for that, but it requires X spoilers, so if you don't wanna know, don't read this.

In anycase, the X Nataku does not have a gender; hermaphrodite. However, "it" has more male traits than female traits, so he's often thought of as male although technically he's neither. In anycase, according to the implications in the X Character Files, Nataku was a little girl previously. She was the granddaughter of the scientist that made Nataku. She was ill though and died one day, but her grandfather was supposedly working on a way to cure her; making medicine it said. This "medicine" was probably a method to revive her. This little girl, Kazuki, was very important and destined to be a Chi no Ryu, so she had to be brought back some how. In anycase, Kazuki's DNA was used to make Nataku. The scientist (I forgot his name) even mumbled Kazuki's name when in the lab with Nataku. However, if Kazuki was sick, wouldn't there be a risk of passing on that same sickness to Nataku if they used all her DNA? Because of that, I can assume that they did something to her DNA to get rid of the sickness.

Now Nataku's hermaphrodite position shouldn't exactly be possible unless the scientists did some messing around with the last set of chromosomes, so we'll have to go to the magical land of science fiction to try to figure out with real life science what may have happened and assuming my theories MIGHT actually work. In the case of real reality and CLAMP's motivation, they pretty much just made him that way for the sake of story and Kazuki's father sacrificing himself to fix Kazuki's DNA. (Why I have no idea since it should be possible that they coulda drew blood from him and gotten all the DNA they needed.)

In any case though, in the magical land of science fiction, part of Kazuki's damaged DNA was in the chromosomes for gender. So well, they could have used her father's DNA to repair one of those chromosomes or both, but with only one X to repair with....Well, that COULD genetically explain the hermaphrodite exterior. Another thing that coulda happened was that they didn't even use her father's DNA for the gender chromosomes (just for the rest of 'em that needed fixin'), but just kind of cut off parts of at least one so that all life systems would work and stuff, but Nataku wouldn't create any gender defining reproductive organs.

And that's my bio lesson for the day. Anyway, the memories Nataku had are remnants of his past life; or at least his body's. It's said that donated body parts carry the memories of the person that had them before. People with transplants sometimes have a change in personality or something like that after the transplant occurs. CLAMP is probably implying that the same probably goes for DNA borrowed from another person.

Now my overall opinion of this Nataku. He's my favorite of all the other Natakus. ^-^ He's so much like the one I love that it's just cool! A really appropriate name that scientist guy gave him. He's mostly my favorite because he's the most attractive out of all the Natakus besides the SHE one. I'm kind of confuzzled by the fact that he was once a girl though. O.o

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