xxxHOLiC◆継 Episode 08

SPOILER Summary: Watanuki is grilling Ayu when a girl from his school comes with a wish saying she hears footsteps in her home and things get moved. Her wish is that her home not scare her any more, so Yuuko-san gives her a single bell. Watanuki reports this to Himawari-chan the following day with Doumeki arriving to comment on bells as charms. However that afternoon, the girl returns to Yuuko-san’s shop complaining that the bell didn’t work. This time, Yuuko-san gives her a charm with two bells on it. This repeats day after day and each time, the girl is angry and frustrated, but Yuuko-san simply gives another charm with an additional bell on it.

One night, Watanuki is visited by Doumeki’s grandfather, Doumeki Haruka, in a dream. To avoid confusion, it is agreed that Watanuki will address the man as Haruka-san. Watanuki tells Haruka-san about the girl and the bells so Haruka-san takes them to her home via a dream. They see her sleeping and when she wakes up, she accidentally knocks all the bells onto the floor. She then falls out of bed trying to get them, which leads to footsteps being heard. A man enters the room and tries to turn on the light, but they don’t work. The girl is shaking the bells furiously and another frightened woman enters, asking the man if he can hear the bells, which he does. The girl freaks when she sees a chair move (which was done by the man) and freaks again when the man opens the curtains.

Since the couple are going to hire Kohane (via the TV program) to exorcise the ghost, Watanuki discusses this with Himawari-chan the next day. It is then that Watanuki realizes that the girl is the ghost since Himawari-chan never saw her and still doesn’t see her even when Watanuki does. He goes to the web to research Kohane-chan’s work and discovers people are saying horrible things about Kohane-chan. Watanuki talks with Yuuko-san about the ghost girl and now understands why Yuuko-san didn’t ask for payment in advance for the wish to be granted. Yuuko-san remarks on how Watanuki has matured just a bit from this incident and that the girl will be exorcised, thus fulfilling her wish.

Thoughts: I’d have to say that the writers did a decent job with the filler since there wasn’t enough manga material to fill an entire episode. These things are often hit-or-miss though. That said, the writers adding an extra accident for Watanuki was interesting as it adds to the mysterious element with Himawari-chan.

The writers simply removed the element that ghosts should not have access to Yuuko-san’s shop as it is a crossover effect from Tsubasa. Actually, I think that Moro and Maru are sleeping by this point in the manga (not being home, I don’t have access to my manga to see). That element is not to excise, but I wonder about the dream theme and Watanuki’s apparent connection to Sakura and Syaoran. We’ll see how that works.

One final thing. I complained like mad about the Black-san characters in Minami-ke Okawari. While not as annoying, this episode was full of Grey-san characters, which screams out “CHEAP!”

Overall, I enjoyed the episode though.