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Summary:
Yuuko gets visited by a woman who wanders into the store. She gives this woman the speech about being able to grant wishes for a price, and the woman tells Yuuko about her pinky finger, which has recently been unable to move. Yuuko asks if the woman has any bad habits, but she denies it. But after she says that, Watanuki notices that black smoke has started to come from her finger. Yuuko gives the woman a ring, and says that the woman can do what she wants with it, even throw it away. But Yuuko also asks the woman to consider what it means to have a pinky finger.
The next day, Watanuki is at school and is washing up after soccer practice. The classmate that he has a crush on, Kunogi Himawari, hands him a towel and the two start talking about soccer. Himawari mentions Doumeki Shizuka, which gets Watanuki ranting because he doesn’t really like Doumeki. Doumeki shows up to set things straight and to call Watanuki an idiot, which only gets him angrier. Himawari also asks Watanuki about his work and then tells him to do his best before they part ways. Watanuki is ecstatic that he was able to have such a conversation with Himawari, but when he gets to the store, Yuuko ruins his fun – she tells him that his face looks bad, meaning that bad things will happen today.
The woman then returns to the store. Watanuki doesn’t notice any black smoke until she tells Yuuko how old she is. In fact, the more the woman says, the more smoke that comes out. Yuuko touches the woman’s mouth and chest, indicating that those are where the bad habits are coming from. The woman has also noticed that her arm is now also stiff. Watanuki notices that the ring is now dirtier and has developed cracks. Yuuko tells the woman that she’ll be cured if she can figure out what the bad habit is. After the she, Yuuko comments that the woman won’t be returning to the store again.
After departing the store, Watanuki catches sight of the woman leaving a dentistry. After she’s gone, her co-workers comment about how the woman lies about everything – her age, her love life – it’s her habit. Watanuki now realizes that lying is the habit that Yuuko was trying to get the woman to figure out. He follows her and watches as she lies to a person taking a survey and then lies a friend she meets on the road. The smoke only gets thicker and thicker. The woman notices that the ring has gotten dirtier and goes to take it off. Watanuki tries to stop her, but she doesn’t hear him. The black smoke now completely surrounds her, and she’s unable to move out of the way of the oncoming truck.
Fortunately for her, Watanuki helped her and she wakes up in the hospital after he’s already returned to Yuuko’s store with the ring. Watanuki wants to know why Yuuko didn’t tell the woman to stop lying. Yuuko’s answer is that the woman needed to know herself to stop lying. Watanuki then asks if Yuuko knows everything that’s going to happen in the future, since she knew about what would happen to the woman. This time, Yuuko replies by saying that if he thinks so then it might be so. She explains that although the world seems to stretch on endlessly, it’s actually very narrow. There is an extent to which you can see, an extent to where your arm can reach out to, an extent to what you can feel. Worlds do not exist beforehand, you have to create them yourself. Watanuki doesn’t understand what Yuuko means, but she thinks that it’s ok. Watanuki is then sent back to work in the kitchen because Yuuko is hungry.
Bleh, this wasn’t as good as I had hoped. This was definitely missing something – I think it’s the fact that they allowed the woman to live, which really lessened the impact of the story and what Yuuko says. In addition to that, they moved up the volume two chapter with Himawari and Doumeki up and they took out the parts about Watanuki finding Sakura’s wand and completely omitted Himawari from the scene where Watanuki is following the woman. The adding-Doumeki-early part I don’t mind so much since Doumeki brings with him some interesting stories. The taking-out-Sakura’s-wand part seems to further reinforce the fact that there will be no Tsubasa crossovers. And the taking-out-Himawari-from-that-later-scene lessens the impact of that scene even more (in the manga, Watanuki had to shield Himawari from seeing the woman’s body and the bloody ring).
On top of all that, the animation was worse too. *sigh* The episode was rather disappointing on the whole.
Having said all of that, I’m still probably going to stick with the show, at least for a while longer. From the preview, they appear to be doing volume three material for next week’s episode. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it gets better from here.
I’m quite worried that this series won’t nail down the feeling of the manga that the movie did so well, and also how the narrative will progress. Your negative outlook on this episode makes me anxious that xxxholic won’t be as much of a success as I hoped it would be. Oh well, there’s always the almighty Yuuko to make viewing bearable.
I was really hoping that they woman would die like she did in the Manga. Like you said It just doesnt have nearlly the same effect when she lives.
I hope that XXXHOLiC does get better soon or I will be quite dissapointed.
(Possible spoiler) Speaking of that chapter, I’ve been wondering for a long time about the significance of Yuuko having Sakura’s wand and what connection she has to Clow Reed’s decendant (can’t think on his name right now). The way they handled the introduction of the black Mokona also suggests that there aren’t going to be any crossovers.
Well the wand that Yuuko has is actually a replica of Sakura’s wand, not the real one. The real one is apparently in the hand of an unamned party. Something interesting that I noticed a little while ago is that the magic circle thing that Yuuko puts in the water in the first episode/chapter is the same design that Seishero has in his eye.
He! lots of nice leg showing from Yuuko! It is the only reason for me to watch this show.
I haven’t watched this series yet, but I hope they didn’t draw Yuuko in the same way like in the movie. In the movie, I think her head is a tad too small….looks weird.
A perfect replica of the manga artwork would be great.
Bah, that sounds very disapointing. The manga is so great. Its such a shame they’re not giving it the credit they should be. The no tei in to Tsubasa is Very disapointing, to someone like me who doesn’t really watch it. I thought it was an important aspect and gave you more hints as to Yuko’s background.
When will you people ever learn?
“Transferring from manga to anime is only an exception, NOT THE RULE.” There are even times when concurrent anime had been transfered to manga. (Proving that a mound of crap, however you deal with it, is still a mound of crap.)
Whatever! I thought that what Watanuki did (when he saved that woman) proves that he has more spine than in the manga despite being a victim of circumstance. And more male leads with spine is just what we need now.
Awww, the Tsubasa crossovers added so much fun to the manga 😛
And… the impact was definitely lessened. I hope they don’t change too much else,
because if they do, I might just stop watching.
This has been bothering me for a while but…
How do you pronounce xxxHolic? Do you pronounce it as “x x x holic”, or “triple-x holic”, or simply “sex holic”, or something else? I’m confused -_-;
I pronounce it how it’s said in the show, which is simply “Holic.”
Taken from the Wikipedia entry for xxxHOLiC”:
“×××HOLiC may not be the most complicated of these, but its capitalisation can cause some confusion – it is widely accepted that in the ‘HOLiC’ part, each letter is capitalized except for the ‘i’, but you are likely to find that the preceding crosses can be both in small case form or capital X’s. Del Rey has chosen to use ‘xxx’, but ‘XXX’ can be seen just as commonly. This is because in the original Japanese title, they are not letters at all but multiplication signs, which can resemble either small or capital X’s depending on the font they are viewed in. In Japan a cross is used to indicate a relationship or crossover between things, and in the west an X is traditionally used to represent something unknown or omitted. Those who have read the manga will know that the title refers to the addictions or compulsions that many of the characters suffer from, and also the theme of their relationships with objects.“
While letting the woman live and Watanuki helping her gave him more of a spine it really destroyed the whole message that what choices we make in life can affect us in major ways (even costing us our lifes). As it is you’re left wondering “did she realize her bad habit almost killed her or is she going to get out of the hospital and get hit by another truck?” At the least they should have shown she did learn from the experience if they were really insistant on letting her live.
I don’t think the wand thing is a big deal, it seems more thrown in as a funny little homage to CCS more than a crossover in the manga. 🙂 I do think it’s dissapointing that the Tsubasa crossovers are being left out, the first one at least should have been left in. Show Spoiler ▼
The anime (and the movie) both seem to be hinting very strongly that my theory about what’s really going on with Yuko and Watanuki is true. It’s just a theory but I’ll stick it in spoiler tags just in case: Show Spoiler ▼
I know I’m sticking with the show, even though I’m a bit dissapointed with a few things. 🙂
Maestro4k, we know Yuuko is training Watanuki to be her sex toy, that is why she keeps trying to steer him away from the girl he likes by telling him she is bad for him. 😉
Hm, am I the only one who sees the persocom-thingies in the preview for the next ep?
“Well the wand that Yuuko has is actually a replica of Sakura’s wand, not the real one. The real one is apparently in the hand of an unamed party. Something interesting that I noticed a little while ago is that the magic circle thing that Yuuko puts in the water in the first episode/chapter is the same design that Seishero has in his eye. “-Fuhrer
The reason for that is because Seishero recieved that eye (or at least the power in it) from Yuuko so that he could travel through different worlds (unfortunately a definite amount). The real question is what he gave up in return…
Also, I would assume that the unnamed party is CC Sakura. Honestly I don’t know what happened to the wand after Sakura finished getting all the cards and all the other wierd stuff happened but I assume that when Yuuko says this that Sakura is still collecting them.