xxxHOLiC Manga Chapter 189

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Watanuki correctly surmises that the blind woman’s shamisen is made from cat skin. The woman states that it would be correct to say that the instrument is alive and that it likes Watanuki, indicating this by making one of the strings sound. The woman states that this is proof she came to the right place and tells that the instrument stopped producing sound ten days ago. The woman says that the reason behind the silence is that the cat wanted to meet the one she has longed for.

That evening over dinner, Watanuki and Doumeki discuss the case. Doumeki wonders if the one the cat would want to meet would be another cat. Watanuki figures the only way to know for sure is to ask the cat directly in a dream.

Thoughts/Review:

I thought the blind woman’s instrument was a sanshin, but that is the smaller version of the shamisen. So, I learned something new. ^_^

I learned something else new — these three-stringed instruments are made from either dog or cat skin. ^_^; Well, that’s a cultural difference for ya. ^_~

As to the case itself, we see xxxHOLiC return to the supernatural cases that were so prevalent early on. The biggest difference is that lack of Yuuko-san, but Watanuki is playing the serious side of Yuuko-san quite well. His handling of the customer has been done quite well, but then we’ve seen Watanuki mature quite a lot from where he was.

I suppose that because the shamisen is alive, that is the reason Watanuki placed it into a prominent chair. Either way, I do find it interesting that Watanuki appears to have control over his dream ability so that he can enter this dream world at will rather than be dragged there at random.

So, what would the cat long for to meet? Part of me hopes that somehow, this would be Yuuko-san, but I’m afraid that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

‘Twill be interesting to see where this story goes.