xxxHolic
Ep.19 "Unfair"
A beautiful snow is falling and Yuko and Mokona have decided to enjoy it by drinking their "snow viewing sake". Watanuki on the other hand is stuck cleaning all of Yuko's belongings (again). While going through her things he comes across a wooden chest that he is unable to open. Yuko explains that it can only be opened when the "conditions" are right and tells Watanuki, who has been struggling to open it that in life it's important to know when to quit.
Later at school, Watanuki is hanging with Domeki and Himawari at his locker. When he opens it he finds a mysterious letter inside. Himawari asks if it's a love letter causing Watanuki to freak out and slam the locker door shut. Seconds later he opens it again and decides to read the letter. As if in response to the love letter assumption the letter reads "Not even close". Himawari notices something written on the other side which Watanuki reads. It's an invitation for the three of them from Yuko to join her in the park later that day for something "fun". Watanuki says that at best it'll be Yuko playing a trick on them. He opens the letter to reread it but the message has changed to say ""At best?!?" What does that mean?".
When they arrive at the park they see that Mokona is also there as well as the Ame Warashi and the Zashiki Warashi. The Zashiki says that she came to return a pen Watanuki had apparently dropped in the spirit parade. The Ame says that she is simply here for support.
Finally Yuko makes her dramatic appearance in full fledged Santa gear and claims that they're all to partake in a snowball fight! Watanuki isn't interested at all but once Yuko shows everyone that the prize is the box from this morning that apparently gives the person who opens it anything they want, Watanuki quickly joins in with the plan of getting something to help Yuko talk less.
Once they all agree to play, Yuko instructs them all to build snowmen in any form that they wish. This confuses Watanuki as he doesn't see the connection but he does so and builds himself a cute little snow bunny. Domeki makes a snow robot (obviously a play on his personality at times), Himawari builds a cute bear thing, the Ame Warashi makes replicas of two Japanese gods, Raijin (the god of lightning sometimes called Raiden for you Mortal Kombat fans) and Fujin (the god of wind), the Zashiki Warashi makes a rather large cute pegasus and Mokona makes a uber white Mokona mecha based on his friend, Soel the white Mokona from Tsubasa Chronicle.
Suddenly the snowmen come alive! Watanuki is out before the game even begins as Domeki's robot pegs a giant snowball at his bunny seemingly destroying it. Watanuki decides to head home as he's now out but Mokona decides to attack him with his giant Mokona mecha! Mokona has a great time but ends up snapping the controls (they are just made out of snow) and the thing loses control and crashes on top of a slippery dip and Domeki's robot, destroying itself in the process.
As everyone gathers around the destroyed Mokona they notice something moving. It's Watanuki's bunny! It had burrowed underground to avoid the fighting. Almost immediately is breaks into a sprint and runs away. Watanuki runs after it and is attacked by the Karasutengu who are angry that the Zashiki Warashi is crying again (she had started to cry out of relief for Watanuki's bunny being okay). Screaming for them to stop she cries out and her snow pegasus sacrifices itself by jumping into their flight path.
Yuko now introduces her creation, a military cyborg snowman. The Ame Warashi is immediately impressed with her creation and challenges her to a fight. What follows is a hillarious over the top fight as the two gods summon lightning and wind and the cyborg opens fire with a snow based machine gun that features a enormous hose coming out of it's rear that leads to Yuko's shop where Maru and Moro are shovelling snow into it.
Yuko eventually wins the fight by completely obliterating the two gods with her snowball gun attacks. She then turns on Himawari's weird bear thing which surprisingly seems immune to her snowball attacks by simply opening it's mouth and swallowing all of her attacks! It can't keep up the eating for long however as it begins to grow and grow and eventually explodes from overeating.
Yuko immediately challenges Watanuki's bunny who, much to Watanuki's frustration, simply sits there directly in harms way. Yuko can't attack however as she's out of amo! Back at her shop Maru and Moro have used up all the snow in the yard and are confused about how to get more snow so begin to argue with each other. Back at the battlefield (i.e. the park) Yuko realises that she had been standing on the hose. She still has some snowballs left! She smirks, lifts her foot... and at that moment her cyborg flicks a switch on it's gun causing it to explode the second Yuko's snow reaches it. Watanuki is the winner!
Yuko obviously isn't happy with her defeat but gives Watanuki the box. What ever he's thinking of when he opens it will be in the box! Just as he's opening it though, Yuko asks him what they'll have for dinner! A cloud of smoke puffs from the box and reveals... a hot pot set! Yuko had tricked him into thinking about dinner! Watanuki is very frustrated about this but he's soon set to work to make everyone dinner as the two Warashi's buy food and Domeki makes an igloo. Yuko had obviously been planning this from the beginning.
Watanuki says to himself that in life, maybe it is best to call it quits sometimes.
Today's Crossovers
 Our black Mokona, Larg used his friend, Soel the white Mokona from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle as inspiration for his mecha snow Mokona.
My Original Impression
Friday, August 11, 2006
Oh my god. This has got to be one of the funniest episodes of anime I've ever seen! I laughed out loud throughout this episode. It was just fun, pure and simple.
The story, an anime original, basically revolved around Yuko holding a snow sculpture competition with the winner getting the contents of a box Watanuki found. Of course there's a supernatural twist: the snow sculptures come to life and battle each other!!!
I won't ruin it for anyone as half the fun of the episode is seeing what each character builds. I will say though that those people (not me) that find Domeki to be too stiff will get a real kick out of what he builds.
5 stars again for this episode!
Next week we get one of the more recent manga stories, the one of the woman in the photograph. I wonder if they'll keep in the eye action (that's all I'll say without spoiling it for you).
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