xxxHOLiC (xxxHOLiC Rou) Manga Chapter 212

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Watanuki has a dream of a lone butterfly but when he reaches a hand toward it, he wakes up. When he and Doumeki speak of this over sake and fugu, Watanuki says he doesn’t know who’s dream it was but he’ll find out if needed.

The next night, Watanuki again dreams of the butterfly and notes that in this world, there exists only the butterfly.  He asks the butterfly if it needs to tell him something or to tell someone else something, but again wakes up.  Over a glass of wine, Watanuki tells Doumeki of his lack of success in learning anything  but Watanuki isn’t concerned about the lack of information at this point.

The following night, the butterfly again appears to Doumeki, who’s waiting for it.  Watanuki does some searching but learns nothing, which he reports to Doumeki over a meal.

As before, Watanuki again dreams of the butterfly but has no success.  Over a meal of gyoza, Doumeki’s way of recounting Watanuki’s failures annoys Watanuki a bit.  Even though Watanuki doesn’t know who is trying to contact him or for what, he’s going to use a spell in the next dream as butterflies are special to him.

The next dream, Watanuki states that he knows the butterfly needs him for something since he’s dreamed of it for a while now.  Reaching a finger out, Watanuki casts his spell which traps the butterfly in a transparent box that materializes.  He promises to let the butterfly out right away if it tells him what it wants, but to Watanuki’s surprise, the butterfly negates his spell and causes the box to open, thus freeing itself.  As Watanuki looks, a humanoid female with long black hair wearing a butterfly kimono appears, though she is facing the escaped butterfly and not Watanuki.

Thoughts/Review:

The traditional chapter-opening image that CLAMP draws featured Yuuko-san and butterflies, to include one in a cage.  I gave a large smile as I saw her since it is good to see Yuuko-san again.

With that, CLAMP immediately plants in our mind that Yuuko-san might be returning.  By having Watanuki constantly dream of a butterfly, the butterfly being a symbol of Yuuko-san, CLAMP again puts the notion forward that somehow Yuuko-san is involved in the story.  When Watanuki casts his spell and the butterfly overcomes it and then seemingly produces what could be Yuuko-san, CLAMP has put out the possibility that Yuuko-san has returned, if only in the dream world.

I’m not sure I buy it.

For starters, CLAMP are trying too hard to push the notion of Yuuko-san here, starting with the title page.  By having Watanuki continue to dream of the butterfly and then have it overcome his magic and apparently produce Yuuko-san is something that seems a conclusion we are being driven too without any facts to support it, only supposition.  I could be very wrong here, but I just think that whomever Watanuki is dealing with, it isn’t Yuuko-san.

The chapter’s title is called “Cage” and naturally, that implies that someone is being held prisoner and would need Watanuki’s help to escape.  What better way to get his attention than to tap into his mind and bring out the image of the one he wants to see most — Yuuko-san?

Still, CLAMP could very well be introducing a plot thread to have Yuuko-san return to the manga, even if in a limited form.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

UPDATE:  Forget everything I said about this not being Yuuko-san.  Considering the recent announcement that xxxHOLiC: Rou is ending with the March issue of Bessatsu Shounen Magazine, we only have one more chapter (though I have seen some say there’s two) of manga to go and so CLAMP likely is bringing her back to end the series.  I for one am VERY disappointed but not surprised since CLAMP is notorious about either abandoning titles (Legal Drug, X) or just getting tired of titles and slapping together an ending (I would put Tsubasa into this category and now xxxHOLiC).