xxxHOLiC Manga Chapter 196

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Watanuki uses the spider thread given to him by Jorô-Gumo to find the Crimson Pearl since she obviously knows what it looks like and Watanuki does not. The water basin reflects a red moon when the moon is white. Tossing a magic circle into the basin, he begins unwinding spider thread which hits the water and bounces out over the fence. The thread continues to unwind as it seeks its target. Upon reaching it, the thread goes tight, then breaks. As Watanuki winds up the remaining thread, he notes that the image of the pearl in the basin appears to have a cloth behind it.

Watanuki enlists Doumeki and Kohane-chan to follow the spider thread to its end point. Doumeki uses the power of Watanuki’s eye to see the thread that no one else can see. He notes that he only sees things when Watanuki wants him to rather than before when Doumeki would see things whenever Watanuki had an emotional reaction. Kohane-chan remarks that it is because Watanuki’s powers are stronger as their quest leads them to a small apartment building with the spider thread going up to the top floor balcony.

Thoughts/Review:

With Watanuki stuck in the shop, there were only two ways for the manga to go when it came to adventures. The first is for the adventure to come to him. The second was for him to send out his companions to do the adventuring for him. There’s the slim chance that Watanuki might be able to travel to other realms (such as Zashiki-Warashi’s realm) but we’ll have to see. To be honest, I thought that might be were this story went considering her history with Jorô-Gumo, but that did not happen. Instead, Doumeki and Kohane-chan go on the adventure.

Barring that nothing else has happened since Yuuko-san’s death and the jump in time to the present stories, Kohane-chan should still have her powers of sight. This chapter certainly gave me the impression that she saw Jorô-Gumo’s spider thread and Doumeki could see it thanks to the shared eye. So until I learn more, I’m going to assume her remaining powers are still there.

Watanuki is becoming more powerful. He basically used magic to locate the Crimson Pearl, though he did not create his own mandala but rather used a device like Syaoran had in Cardcaptor Sakura. Actually, now that I think about it, that is likely the same “plate” that Yuuko-san used when she and Watanuki first met in volume 1.

Questions.

• What is the Crimson Pearl?
• Why does Jorô-Gumo want it?
• What did Watanuki see in the basin? A dress? A curtain? What?

I gotta say, CLAMP has caught my interest with this manga series again and I hope that continues for a while to come.