“Oden!”
xxxHolic, when telling your friends that you’re watching this, it often results in necessary correcting from what they think you are watching, to what you are actually watching… Aside from the bad to pronounce in public title, xxxHolic is known among the anime community as “supernatural” themed and as a “fun to watch comedy”. It is also known as another production by the well renowned, CLAMP. This little review is as a first impressions of the series, as I have only so far, been through 6 of the 24 episodes that the first season of xxxHolic contains.
It’s an interesting, and strange storyline that I’m not all that used to, mainly because the “supernatural” theme is something I really haven’t come across before, both in reality and non-reality. Watanuki Kimihiro, just another ordinary high-school student, who struggles to deal with a whole mob of spirits that are forever chasing him. One day, after rolling around on the middle of the road, he touches the fence of an odd, kind or out of place looking house. Uncontrollably, his body begins to move towards the house, where he is greeted, by the owner, Yuuko. Yuuko has the ability to grant people’s wishes, but the wish always comes with a price, and Yuuko does seem to have strange ways of accepting payment… Yuuko promises to grant Watanuki his wish to no longer have these spirits bother him. In return, Yuuko wishes Watanuki to work part-time in Yuuko’s house, which leads to seemingly many strange and weird adventures.
In the first six episodes, we seem to have gotten to know the characters well. Yuuko and Mokona as crazy sake drinking people, Watanuki as their slave and Doumeki being seen by Watanuki as trying to steal the one he likes, Kunogi… Despite the fact it so far seems to be a series based on episode by episode events, it seems to have a decent amount of humour and very little sexual fanservice. CLAMP being the main animators of this series, it is interesting to see how they’ve made only the mains “properly” drawn, while characters in the background are quite literally the background… The idea’s in the series have certainly been interesting, however some of the themes seem a little cliche, and not subtle enough. So far, some things have been a tad too obvious, however it still intrigues you as to how it happens.
So far, from the first six episodes, this series looks promising, and has been entertaining to watch. After watching episode five, I feel the urge to play a game of Shiritori… So yeah, I think I’ll be continuing on with xxxHolic, and I have good expectations for it.
First Impressions – Enjoyable (8 out of 10)
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