xxxHOLiC (xxxHOLiC Rou) Manga Chapter 205

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Doumeki stops by the shop with ingredients for dinner, so Watanuki, Moro, and Maru go off to prepare it. Doumeki confirms with Mokona that Watanuki had a customer while he was away. At dinner, there are the usual antics with Mokona, Moro, and Maru and after they leave, Watanuki and Doumeki make small talk about Doumeki becoming an assistant at the university so he could continue studies in folk lore, something Kohane-chan is majoring in as well. Doumeki inquires about the customer Watanuki had, which the later states that the customer is there, though Doumeki cannot see this “little one,” even with the eye he shares with Watanuki. In addition, the request of the little one is to wait to be summoned.

Some amount of time passes (next day?) and life goes on with Watanuki creating umeboshi.Kohane -chan comes by to collect the share Watanuki intends to give to her and “obaachan,” the old fortune teller. After some small talk, Watanuki invites her to dinner and she accepts. Watanuki heads off, leaving K0hane-chan and Doumeki to speak of this invisible client of Watanuki’s. Like Doumeki, Kohane-chan can sense this customer but cannot see it and suspects that Watanuki is the cause, considering his great powers.

At dinner, Kohane-chan mentions learning how to cook Watanuki’s spinach soup from Watanuki to teach it to her mother. This causes a noise to happen and Watanuki to appear to be stroking the air. Watanuki encourages Kohane-chan to continue to speak of her mother while appearing to place his arm around something.

After dinner, Kohane-chan leaves but after saying goodbye, she gets permission to speak to Watanuki’s invisible guest, whom she thanks for apparently showing concern for K0hane-chan as she spoke of her mother. This causes a breeze to form and Watanuki informs Kohane-chan that the “little one” has never been thanked before and is pleased.

After she’s gone, Watanuki and Doumeki are on the engawa when Watanuki asks Doumeki to get the thimble in order to purify the creature that will come for Watanuki’s “little one.” Doumeki agrees and the “little one” refuses to go inside the store where it is safer, preferring to be outside. As the rain falls, a bunch of dark hands and arms descend from the sky, attempting to grab Watanuki’s client. Doumeki begins shooting the hands, purifying them and asks how long he’s to do this. Watanuki answers that Doumeki should continue until the summons comes. Doumeki fires spiritual energy arrows at the thing as Watanuki notes Doumeki’s growing skill with the artifact. Watanuki is surprised when there is a loud noise and an apparent slashing of him from the front.

Thoughts/Review:

Again, CLAMP pushes time forward with the relaunch of xxxHOLiC, this time it appears to have been 10-years since Watanuki came into Yuuko-san’s employment and as a result became friends with Doumeki. I didn’t really expect that, but now Watanuki and Doumeki are full-fledged adults and Kohane-chan is now at university. Sadly, no Himawari-chan though.

This is a very long chapter, clocking in at fifty pages. Since xxxHOLiC is in a new magazine, they do take a bit of time to introduce Watanuki, Doumeki, Kohane-chan, Moro, Maru, and Mokona. There is no mention of Yuuko-san and as I mentioned before, no mention of Himawari-chan either. Thus, if you’ve never read xxxHOLiC before, now is a time to get in.

As I previously speculated, this chapter did increase the action levels by the time the 50-pages were done as Doumeki fights whatever this critter is. I guess Watanuki was attacked as well, but knowing CLAMP, this could be a red herring and his invisible guest did something to possibly save him.

Speaking of the invisible guest, I’ve no clue as to what this could be other than a child of some sort. I would guess that it might be some sort of youkai, but if Kohane-chan is right and Watanuki is preventing herself and Doumeki from seeing it, then not only has he grown very powerful, but it also suggests that the “child” might be something not so pleasing to the eye. We’ll see though.

I did like the mention of Kohane-chan’s mother and the improving relationship between the two. A new reader wouldn’t be confused by the mention of her mother (at least, I don’t think they would) and for a long-time reader like me, it is nice to see that particular story thread mentioned to show progress on that front. I wonder if CLAMP will actually bring Kohane-chan’s mother back or not, though I doubt it.

I smiled at Kohane-chan addressing of Doumeki as “Doumeki-san” at school and “Shizuka-kun” in private. That’s all proper and such but it still made me smile when Kohane-chan had to catch herself from being more formal in a private setting.

So, although there are 50 pages of manga (48 if you take away the 2-page color spread), there isn’t a great deal more for me to comment on. A lot of time was spent in exposition and general setting before getting to the action at the end. That just leaves some questions such as who or what is Watanuki’s client, why is he apparently making it invisible, what is trying to get it, and who wants to meet Watanuki for that summons?

I see the next chapter is already out, so I guess I need to read it too, eh?