×××HOLiC・籠
xxxHOLiC: Rou (OAD)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Watanuki finds himself in the dream world with Yuuko-san hanging in a sea of black and slowly being consumed. She remarks that her time is now moving again and that since she should have been dead long before Watanuki was born, she is finally moving on. Watanuki is upset by this but cannot move to get closer to her. He wanted to fill her wish but has not done so. As such, Yuuko-san says that her wish is for Watanuki to continue to exist as she is completely consumed by the darkness. Watanuki promises to do this, but also swears to run the shop until Yuuko-san returns.

Waking up ten years later with Moro and Maru, Watanuki senses Doumeki’s arrival and the later has brought the requested groceries from the store. Watanuki makes dinner and that evening, they talk about a bottle of sake that came from a local house where Doumeki and a professor from his university checked out a storeroom full of antique books and the like. There were many things that the two of them didn’t recognize, but one thing they did recognize was a charm with a Dakiniten (Buddhist tantric deity) drawn on it. Doumeki shows Watanuki the video they took of the charm and remarks on an injured girl who was in the yard near the storeroom.

Late the next afternoon, Doumeki is shelling peas when Kohane-chan drops by. After being invited to dinner, Kohane-chan helps Doumeki with the peas and they talk about Watanuki’s remark about being connected to that strange girl in the video. The next day, Doumeki and Kohane-chan drops by with new video that he took with Kohane-chan and the professor of the woman’s storeroom stuff. Observing the video, Watanuki states that the now deceased grandmother of the family was a Izuna (kitsune spirit) user and that this ability has passed to the granddaughter after seeing the injured girl break down the door of the storeroom to attack the professor for touching a bell.

After the attack on the video, there are a few minutes of nothing before the video returns and the angry son returns to confront his wife about violating his mother’s will regarding these artifacts. Their daughter comes into the room, even though she’d been locked into her own room with six external locks on the door. The daughter takes the video camera and has a request that she addresses to Watanuki by name, something that wasn’t told to her before. She further states that she’ll pay the price required for the wish — to find the Tsuna. Everyone is stunned that the girl knew Watanuki would be watching and he says he will grant her wish.

The next night, Doumeki arrives after having talked with the husband. Using Mugetsu the Kudakitsune and the special sake, Doumeki reports it took seven hours to find the Tsuna. After dark, the search leads back under the house where the daughter retrieves a box — the Tsuna. As the Tsuna glows with power, Mugetsu turns from his small, pipe-fox form to his large form and from the box, another large, multi-tailed fox emerges. The video shows the daughter taking the camera and Doumeki reports that she made him leave to record something for Watanuki’s viewing only.

The phone rights and Watanuki has Doumeki answer it. It is Himawari-chan, who’s planning a solo visit for Watanuki’s birthday even though she’s now married. Her reasoning is that she has to repay Watanuki for everything he did for her and her way of doing it is a yearly visit with a present. While they talk, Watanuki watches the video and the daughter, in Yuuko-san’s voice, announces that she’s come back. Watanuki watches it a few times before welcoming Yuuko-san back.

Thoughts/Review:

This OAD has been out for some time (months), but for this reason or that, it has been lingering on my shelf unwatched. Since I’m not watching anything current as far as TV series goes at the moment, I decided to dust this off and take a look-see.

This OAD does not follow the manga at all, save for the scene at the beginning with Yuuko-san. I did find it interesting that as with the new manga, this is set ten years into the future, Doumeki’s job in the anime is the same as revealed a few weeks ago, and Kohane-chan greets Doumeki as “Doumeki-san” first before switching to “Shizuka-kun.” I’m guessing that the anime writers consulted with CLAMP a bit before just writing their own tale.

The story itself wasn’t really all that interesting to me. I won’t go so far as to say I was bored, but it just didn’t do anything. Frankly, a much better story would have been the story of the Jorô-Gumo’s return and the quest she put Watanuki onto. However, I understand why this couldn’t be done seeing as how the anime came out shortly after that manga story was published. Still, with some help from CLAMP, they could have done that story but oh well.

I did like Watanuki showing impressive knowledge skills and extrasensory abilities. I didn’t like the fact that the daughter is supposed to be Yuuko-san reincarnated. Seriously, the moment she appeared on screen, I knew where the writers were going with this. So, the fact that she knew Watanuki’s name wasn’t a shock to me, nor was the fact that she has a message for Watanuki at the end of the tape.

With Doumeki and Watanuki as close friends (though the anime has a couple of moments for Watanuki to show very brief irritation at being around Doumeki, something he does not do in the current manga), I know there are a lot of yaoi shippers about those two. I imagine that there was horror amongst those fans and celebration amongst the lolicon crowd when Watanuki wakes up and reveals he sleeps in the same bed as Moro and Maru. ^_^; Actually, I found that a bit creepy, though I assume the production team meant nothing sexual by it. That aside, I do like how Moro and Maru are portrayed otherwise.

I thought that Kohane-chan’s voice was not right for her older age. When Kohane-chan was a girl, HIDAKA Rina’s portrayal worked fine. However, Kohane-chan is now a university student and the adult actress doing a young girl voice just does not fit. I wish the director would have had her change up the voice to make it sound like the adult that Kohane-chan is. If there are more xxxHOLiC anime titles in the future, I hope they take that into account but somehow, I suspect they’ll continue on with the same, child-like voice.

Finally, the anime decided that Himawari-chan is now married. I really hope that this is not what CLAMP has in store for the manga, but if they do, then I’m going to hope for a Zashiki-Warashi pairing with Watanuki. ^_^

Anyway, the conversation Himawari-chan had with Doumeki in the anime was similar to the one that she had with Watanuki in the manga before it ended its seinen run and became a shounen manga. Unfortunately, CLAMP never did anything with her remarks on coming down for a birthday visit but that’s something I hope is addressed in a future manga. On the anime side, I suppose the writers can do whatever they want, as they did with this solo OAD episode.

In the end, this episode was nothing really special. Visually it looked fine and there were some nice moments in it, but otherwise, it was just average. If you are a die-hard xxxHOLiC fan, I suppose it is worth a watch.