xxxHOLiC◆継 Episode 01

SPOILER Summary: Watanuki is only able to see out his left eye and not his right one, but sees Himawari-chan, which cheers him. The only thing is that he can’t hear her and then wakes up to discover Mokona on the right side of his face, covering his right eye. He’s angry about that but happy he dreamed of Himawari, and thus when Maru and Moro toss him out of his futon, he ultimately goes to make a good breakfast. Yuuko-san wonders what he’s so happy about and learning its Himawari, she reminds him that Himawari is not the good luck Watanuki thinks she is.

Walking to school from Yuuko-san’s place, Watanuki passes the shrine where Doumeki lives. He vainly hopes to sneak passed unnoticed, but Doumeki spots him and soon has him helping to clean the shrine grounds. During the cleaning, Watanuki is flailing about and gets caught up in a spider web. For some reason he can’t get out of the web and Doumeki takes a stick to break apart the web and free Watanuki. The spider that made the web is apparently not amused. At school during lunch, Doumeki mentions he might have a bit of dust in his right eye and while walking home, Watanuki discovers that the condition has gotten worse despite Doumeki’s attempt to hide it. The eye won’t open and is covered by what looks like a web.

At Yuuko-san’s shop, Watanuki relays this story and the fact that Doumeki won’t come by the shop, saying he cannot. Yuuko-san explains that the spider is angry and holds a grudge against Doumeki for destroying its home completely. As such, Watanuki makes a wish. That night, Doumeki hears something outside and when he goes to investigate, a wind comes up and his eye is healed. The next day, Doumeki catches Watanuki passing by. Watanuki won’t turn around and so Doumeki forces him around to discover that Watanuki is wearing an eye patch on his right eye. Removing that, it is clear that the eye is in fact dead.

Doumeki demands a meeting with Yuuko-san, so the next morning, she comes to the park to meet him, telling his it will cost him. He makes a wish to have Watanuki’s eye restored, but the wish is denied since the cost would be Doumeki’s own eye. Since Watanuki made his wish first, it carries weight. Doumeki is angry with Watanuki, which Yuuko-san understands. She believes that Watanuki must learn that his wishes sometimes have negative consequences. Meanwhile Watanuki is given a book by Himawari to take to Doumeki. As Watanuki goes to the shrine, his dead right eye suddenly has weird visions.

At the shrine, Watanuki is not happy at having to deal with Doumeki. He notices the books Doumeki has retrieved from the shrine archives. These books deal with curses and their removal. Returning to Yuuko-san’s shop, Watanuki is dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland as Yuuko-san is having a tea party from that book. After listening to Watanuki, Yuuko-san figures out what Doumeki is up to despite the fact that he was told it wouldn’t be possible. However, that’s why Doumeki has no need of Yuuko-san’s shop. Yuuko-san and Watanuki discuss this, which Watanuki not really understanding why Doumeki is trying to lift Watanuki’s curse. He leaves as Yuuko-san and Mokona predict that Watanuki will pay Doumeki a visit.

Thoughts: You know, I thought about this when the manga story this episode was based on came out — I’m thankful that we don’t have these whacked spiders in the U.S. Seriously, spider webs are destroyed all the time. With these Japanese spiders, they hate so much, they cast curses. I’m surprised that creatures that eat spiders aren’t dropping dead all over the place in Japan.

The anime brings out the impact of Watanuki “losing” his right eye though since the color helps there. Also interesting is the table setting for Kohane-chan later on.

The anime followed the manga to a degree, until weird Alice in Wonderland tribute. In the manga, the scene had it set up so that Yuuko-san could eat Soumen Nagashi. In the anime, Watanuki in a dress as Alice and he doesn’t scream protests about it? What was the point beyond having the tribute. Weird but maybe they needed to kill time to fill the episode.

Oh well. I promised myself that I wouldn’t refresh my memory on the manga stories because I’d rather not get as frustrated when the anime goes way off base. ^_^;