xxxHOLiC Manga Chapter 191

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The blind woman feels the bachi and is able to determine that its color is black and that it has a butterfly motif on it. The woman says that the shamisen had been strummed by this bachi years before by a person who had played the instrument then. When Watanuki asks about this person, the blind woman simply states that they cannot meet again, implying the person is dead. She asks how long the bachi has been in the shop but Watanuki cannot answer as it came from before he started working at the shop.

The woman takes the bachi and strikes one of the shamisen’s strings, resulting in Watanuki having a vision of the shamisen as the cat-eyed woman. Before the cat-eyed woman is a butterfly which turns into a man and that man embraces her from behind, leaving her with a happy smile on her face.

The vision ends and Watanuki sees that the bachi has shattered. The blind woman apologizes, stating that her instrument knew that if it was strummed by that bachi, it would die. As such, it stopped making music in order that its last note sounded might be from the bachi belonging to the man it loved. She further tells Watanuki that a woman wants to be the last woman of the one she loves.

The blind woman continues by discussing the fact that the shamisen was made from a cat’s belly skin. The woman acknowledges that Watanuki likely had trouble with this fact and that his words about the cat having been a pretty one was to spare her feelings. Watanuki says that the woman overestimates him.

Thoughts/Review: So, case solved but we haven’t had a payment for the wish yet. As such, we’ve still to see if Watanuki is charging and if so, how much.

I had thought that the bachi may have been Yuuko’s since it had the butterfly emblem on it. However, that did not turn out to be the case, though I do wonder how the original owner of the bachi ended up using Yuuko-san’s shop to have a wish granted. Of course, that’s not an important item to the story (at least, not yet) and so I doubt we’ll see any further backstory.

I do wonder about the blind woman’s words to Watanuki concerning a woman wanting to be the last woman of the one she loves. For some reason, I couldn’t help but think of Yuuko-san and how she loved Watanuki, not in a romantic way, but in an almost motherly way. On the flip side, Watanuki loved Yuuko-san, which is why he waits for her return (considering she’s dead and the whole apparent purpose of the Tsubasa story is that the dead cannot be returned). I don’t say his love for Yuuko-san is romantic either but I’d love to see Himawari-chan show up and see how Watanuki behaves around her.

So an odd story is coming to an end. Thankfully it was not long nor tedious like the cooking woman’s story. *_*