You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <search>
      <p ns="0" title="Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero" snippet="...ishi Navy Type 0, Mitsubishi Navy 12-shi &amp;amp; Mitsubishi A6M Rei-sen, Rei-sen &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; &amp;quot;zero fighter&amp;quot;. Originally the official Allied reporting name was &amp;quot;Zeke&amp;quot; ho&#10;" size="1709" wordcount="268" timestamp="2015-07-29T13:27:06Z" />
    </search>
  </query>
</api>