xxxHolic
Ep.1 "Hitsuzen"
Here we go! The premiere episode of the xxxHolic anime tv series! Interesting to note that it started a year after the first xxxHolic movie was shown in theatres but the story seems to be set before the movie's events and shows us (as in the manga) how Watanuki met Yuko. Sooooo.... when watching this anime, I suggest watching the first season of xxxHolic concurrently with the first season of Tsubasa Chronicle and when you reach the midpoint of either, watch both the Tsubasa and xxxHolic movies back to back and then finish both season 1s of both series. Make sense?
If you're not into Tsubasa, just make sure you watch the first few eps of xxxHolic before you watch the first xxxHolic movie. Phew!
Annnyway.. after a kick arse opening credits the show starts with Watanuki walking down a Tokyo street. He is very quickly joined though by several giant ghost like beings who seems drawn to him like a moth to a flame. This leads to some hillarious visual comedy as noone else on the street can see these things harrassing poor Watanuki, but they sure can see his reactions! Eventually he stumbles onto a fence and strangely as soon as his hands touch the board the spirits are cut right through and disapear!
As Watanuki looks at the house which he has stopped at he finds that his feet have a mind of their own and walk him right up to the front door which opens to reveal two mysterious young girls. They welcome him and quickly drag him inside to a room where he meets a mysterious woman who introduces herself as, Yuko and that their meeting was predestined (hitsuzen). Yuko quickly grabs personal information from Watanuki such as his name, kanji, birthday, etc and sneakily tricks him into asking for his fortune to be told and even paying her for this service with his watch!
Through the divination, Yuko tells Watanuki about his problem concerning spirits where his blood gives him the ability to see them, but that same blood also attracts them.
Yuko then explains to the disturbed Watanuki that this house is a shop where they grant people's wishes. She claims that she can help Watanuki with his problem, he accepts her help and then, after the fact, Yuko explains that he'll have to work at the shop to pay off the cost of granting his wish! Watanuki isn't happy, but is quickly put to work.
Yuko sends Watanuki into the storeroom to look for a "drinking buddy".
Interesting to note that as Watanuki is walking past the dark shelves, we can see on the lower half of the screen, Sakura's first wand from CLAMP's famous series, Card Captor Sakura! This is the first of several crossover items/events in the series. Stay tuned for more!
Anyway, suddenly the black Mokona (aka, Larg) jumps out! Flashforward to Yuko we find out that the black Mokona is simply "Mokona". Watanuki isn't very satisfied with that explanation. The white Mokona, Soel still exists in the xxxHolic anime continuity but is assumed to be offscreen for the time being until Watanuki finds him as well and hands him over to Syaoran and the gan in the second episode of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle).
Yuko then sends Watanuki and Mokona out to buy food and drinks. People think Mokona is cute, Mokona gets motion sickness and a spirit starts to follow Watanuki. One their way back to the house, they pass a group of girls. One of them is very depressed about being haunted by her ability to see spirits. She is of course lying about this but even after Watanuki assures her that there is no spirit near her she insists that her ability is real and that she is suffering.
Mokona suddenly jumps out to grab some takoyaki and, much like the white Mokona in Tsubasa Chronicle: Episode 4 jumps up and down and raves about the stuff.
The girls get distracted by him (what the Hell is that?!?!) and Watanuki notices that the spirit that was following him has become interested in the girl and quickly takes her over. Her spirits sag even further (but with real cause this time) and she murmers for her and her friends to go.
Watanuki is disturbed by this and accuses Yuko of knowing this would happen. She explains that the girl wished for this, to be possessed by a ghost. Watanuki still isn't happy but is told by Yuko that they are bonded together now and forever.
Watanuki comes back later to quit and get his money back (he had to buy the food and drinks with his own money) and enters the house. But we all know that he'll be working for Yuko for a while and that this is just the begining.
Today's Crossovers
 Sakura's first staff from Card Captor Sakura can be seen on the bottom of the screen in the storeroom just before Mokona jumps out.
My Original Impression
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Well, I forgot to tape the episode so I had to wait for the torrent to be put online. Easier said than done. The first version online was in a wierd file format and the second one (which I did download) is in Pan and Scan and all the colours seem to be undersaturated.
Now, the style of this series is very artistic, almost like thos watercoloured xxxHolic manga pics but I'm really hoping that the person who captured this ep for the torrent has bad settings. The whole episode just looked like it had been watered down.
As for the Pan and Scan (i.e. NOT widescreen), this suprised me a lot but I'm pretty sure the show was produced in Widescreen and the person just had a square tv. Almost all the shots look like they've been cropped. Production I.G. is very much at the forefront of Japanese animation and I would be VERY suprised if there was no widescreen version. It's for this reason I won't be placing detailed summaries or screencaps. I want to post the best stuff and I'm waiting for either a better capture or the DVD release in June.
So, how was it? I rather liked it. All the voices were on from the movie and seemed to be in top form. Special kudos to the opening theme for including almost every arc from the manga in it and I'm sorry, but the dancing Mokona ending just looked budget. Boring!.
The story followed the manga very closely, though missed out little humor things like the dictionary definitions. I was a little confused with where this sits in continuity though as there's no White Mokona (still asleep or has the Tsubasa gang already arrived? If so, that doesn't match up with the movie). There was no mention of Clow or the original Mokona. I'm really hoping these plot points are added in the next few episodes and I'm REALLY really hoping that was get at least a mention of the Tsubasa guys and maybe see an alternate version of Tsubasa Chronicles Episode 2.
Off to a good start, though I'm not sure at this stage if continuity has been chopped up or simply reordered and shifted to a later episode.
I'll give it a 7/10, and if I can get a widescreen version with proper colours I'm sure I'll revise that score.
Edit: Got the widescreen version! It's beautiful! Am giving it a 9!
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