xxxHOLiC◆継 Episode 03

SPOILER Summary:

Upon being sent to where the Zashiki-Warashi is being held captive, the Karasu-Tengu immediately succumb to the evil jyaki in the air. Kuda-Kitsune uses its foxfire to penetrate the barrier around the building and in the two of them go. Since the evil presence is coming from the lower levels of the structure, Kuda-Kitsune and Watanuki head down, though Watanuki struggles to maintain consciousness, gripping a large glass shard to do so. They finally make it to the room where Zashiki-Warashi is being held, suspended in a massive spider web and apparently unconscious.

It is then that a blonde female makes her presence known, the Jorô-Gumo. She is the ruler of spiders and she now has Watanuki’s right eye, recounting the struggle there was to obtain it. When Zashiki-Warashi learned that Jorô-Gumo had the eye, she comes to request the eye be returned to Watanuki, which of course Jorô-Gumo has no intention of doing. Even captured, Zashiki-Warashi, weakened by the evil of Jorô-Gumo, still wants the eye returned. Watanuki asks for Zashiki-Warashi to be freed and even offers himself in exchange, seeing how Jorô-Gumo values his eye so much. Jorô-Gumo refuses, telling Watanuki that he has no concept of the value placed on his life by others and that his offer is like telling Zashiki-Warashi that she’s a fool for risking her life for garbage.

Although ensnared by Jorô-Gumo’s webs, Watanuki uses the glass shard to free himself and threaten Jorô-Gumo. Kuda-Kitsune (in large form) attacks, forcing Jorô-Gumo to retreat and allows Watanuki to free Zashiki-Warashi. Kuda-Kitsune burns a lot of the webbing down, but Jorô-Gumo has her prize and consumes Watanuki’s eye. Kuda-Kitsune forces Jorô-Gumo to make a final retreat while at Yuuko-san’s place, Ame-Warashi is patiently waiting for the two to return.

With Jorô-Gumo gone, the Karasu-Tengu are able to enter the building where they discover Watanuki unconscious alongside Zashiki-Warashi. When he wakes up, he’s in a pool of water being cleansed of Jorô-Gumo’s jyaki, held by the Zashiki-Warashi who is crying and apologizing for not getting his eye back. Watanuki brushes her cheek and apologizes to her. He then finds himself in Yuuko-san’s bath (along with the now normal-sized Kuda-Kitsune), which apparently has water that links it to Zashiki-Warashi’s pool of water.

Afterward, Yuuko-san has something for Watanuki — half of Doumeki’s right eye, to be given if Watanuki could not regain his own eye. Having learned his lesson, Watanuki takes the eye and consumes it, his right eye now yellow. The following day, Doumeki notices Watanuki’s new eye but says nothing. Watanuki has a large bento for Doumeki but forces him to take it and tells Doumeki that he should be praising “Watanuki-sama.” Naturally that doesn’t happen and Watanuki gets hysterical again, as usual.

Thoughts:

Heh! I think that Production I.G is going to more closely follow the manga based on this story-arc. Since my manga is already packed up for the upcoming move (as of this posting), I can’t check some things but I almost felt that since the writers had Watanuki basically say what he said in the manga, it was almost as if they were pushing aside the fact that they had Zashiki-Warashi show up for their version of the snowball fight story but maybe I’m reading too much into this.

Production I.G had time to fill with this episode and so they brought in Ame-Warashi to fill that time. Fortunately, they did a good job with it while not distracting from the central story of Watanuki rescuing Zashiki-Warashi. Knowing what I know now in that Ame-Warashi and Zashiki-Warashi are apparently good friends (something the manga hadn’t fully revealed when this story-arc was written), having Ame-Warashi show up and wait at Yuuko-san’s place worked for me. She had made her choice and frankly, making choices and the consequences of those choices are a central part of the story-arc. So, Production I.G could fill time, bring in a character that wasn’t in the manga story, and NOT change the manga story. That’s a modification to a manga story that I don’t mind.

Here’s hoping for a continued more faithful following of the manga stories, though the previews already have a problem in that they don’t show Watanuki with his yellow right eye (which the manga clearly did in volume 11).