xxxHOLiC ep.12

June 24, 2006 | 13 Comments

This episode explains why the anime writers decided to alter Himawari's horror story from Episode 10. It seems they simply wanted to use that story as an original anime episode. Although if you think about it, can you actually call this an original story? In essence, the anime writers simply modified the story from the manga and turned it into a stand alone episode. In addition to this, you would think that for an original episode like this one they'll actually increase the animation quality but nope, it's still as crappy as ever. Thankfully the storyline is quite good and creepy but that's not really hard to do given the fact that they simply had to modify the original storyline, which was already creepy to begin with.

The episode begins by showing blue writings on a grey wall accompanied by scratching noise. A female voice then can be heard saying: "Soon, you will come. I've been waiting for you. I'll prepare you slipper before you come to the front door. I can finally meet you." After the title, Yuuko and Mokona are seen arriving in front of a summer house and looking pleased upon seeing it. Watanuki, on the other hand, is not a happy camper. He tells Yuuko that the reason she can have fun is because she's empty-handed. A quick shot reveals that Watanuki is the one who has to carry Yuuko's luggage. Yuuko mocks Watanuki for being exhausted just from carrying luggage. Watanuki protests and tells the Witch that anyone will get exhausted from carrying luggage. Unfortunately for him, Yuuko points out that Doumeki does not seem exhausted. Watanuki becomes annoyed about this especially when Yuuko tells everyone that he is offering to carry more luggage.

Despite his attempt to refute what Yuuko said, he becomes compliant after Himawari praises him for wanting to carry more luggage on top of what he's already carrying. Watanuki, however, quickly realises his mistake so Yuuko tells him that if he wants, he can asks Doumeki for help. But Watanuki would rather carry heavy luggage than accepting help from Doumeki. While Watanuki argues with Doumeki after the later calls him "Idiot", Mokona gives Yuuko the key to open the door. As soon as they enter the house, the same female voice can be heard once more saying how the weather is really hot today and that she has placed a blue flower to decorate the place. Having said that, she wonders if the flower will wither in this kind of weather. She decides to change the water because it's a precious flower which is meant for her guest. Meanwhile, Yuuko and everyone else already make their way into the house, which is a typical creepy old house.

Watanuki makes his way to the kitchen and tries to rotate the tap on the sink. However, it seems the tap hasn't been used lately so Watanuki ends up almost twisting his hand on it. He then notices a blue flower in the corner of the kitchen. While doing this, Doumeki suddenly arrives in the kitchen and manages to turn on the tap much to Watanuki's annoyance. As Watanuki makes his way to his room, the female voice can be heard again: "You came. I've waited for you. Did you like the blue flower? Are you happy? Are you smiling?" Watanuki does not seem to hear this and instead filled with happy thoughts because Himawari is about to wear her swimsuit. His mood, however, changes when he realises that spirits will come out into the ocean if he goes there as well. He then feels worried and wonders why this is the case. Doumeki suddenly appears on the veranda of his room and asks Watanuki what is it that worries him.

Upon hearing Doumeki's voice, Watanuki becomes annoyed and claims that it's the fact that Doumeki stays in the room next to him. He then whines that he wants Himawari to stay in the room next to him. Doumeki calmly tells Watanuki that Himawari is staying on the room opposite them. After Doumeki leaves the conversation, the woman can be heard speaking again: "I wonder if you've noticed. I wonder if you've noticed me. I am here." Meanwhile, Watanuki is happy when Yuuko praises his cooking. He asks Himawari if she wants a second helping but she refuses because she's full. Doumeki, on the other hand, takes Watanuki up on the offer, prompting Watanuki to tell Doumeki that he eats too much. At the same time, the woman keeps saying "I'm here, I'm here. Please notice me. The me that's been waiting for you." Unfortunately, Watanuki is too busy serving champagne sorbet to Himawari and being annoyed with Doumeki to notice the voice.

When the sun starts to set, Yuuko decides to go to bed earlier. Himawari does the same after promising Watanuki that they'll go swimming together tomorrow. Watanuki becomes excited to hear this and gets caught up in his little imagination involving a Merry-Go-Round. His imagination, however, is ruined when Doumeki suddenly appears in it, riding one of the horses. Doumeki then asks Watanuki to say "Help me". Watanuki, however, thinks that Doumeki is talking about cleaning up the dishes and refuses his help. In his anger, Watanuki also tells Doumeki that he should make his own breakfast tomorrow morning but Doumeki decides to ignore him. That night the sound of the woman can be heard again: "I'm waiting. I'm waiting for you. I'm wearing your favourite blue dress. I'm waiting for your arrival." Her voice then echoes throughout the house as the camera focuses on everyone except Doumeki sleeping in the house. "I'm waiting, I'm waiting".

Inside his room, Watanuki is awaken by a scratching noise that seems to come from the room next door. However, when he goes out to check the sound of the noise, he realises that his room is the last room in the hallway. However, when he looks through his veranda, he notices that the wall of the house extends further than his own room. He thinks that originally there must be a room next to him. Watanuki is freaked out when he hears the scratching noise one more time but for Himawari's sake, he decides to face his fear and find out the source of the noise. Because of this he tries to eavesdrop through the dead end wall but much to his surprise, the wall gave out, revealing that it's only made out of paper. He then finds out that there is another room next to him. Despite his fear, Watanuki decides to enter the room and finds himself looking at the grey wall. He then implores the wall, looking for the source of the noise.

After a while, he starts to notice the blue handwriting on the wall and becomes afraid because of it. He then hears a scratching noise from behind him and upon turning around, he notices a lump of body wearing a blue dress starting to rise from the floor. The body tries to stand up but find itself unable to do so. Because of this, it simply crawls towards Watanuki and in the process reveals its seemingly eerie eyes at him. The body then makes a grab at Watanuki legs, refusing to let him go. Watanuki tries to pull himself away from the body but the act simply reveals that the body's hand is nothing more than a skeleton. Watanuki is freaked out to see this and tries to crawl out of the room asking for help when all of a sudden Doumeki, Yuuko, and Himawari appear in front of him. Watanuki tries to explain his situation but upon looking at the hand that grabbed his leg, he now notices that it's nothing more than a toy hand operated by Mokona.

The next day, Watanuki complains about the bad joke from last night. Yuuko tells him that she thought it was bad as well but it was Himawari's idea. Apparently she feels sorry for Watanuki for not being able to swim even though they've come all the way to a cottage near the Ocean. Yuuko knows that during this time, there are a lot of spirits and ghosts near the ocean. Because of this Himawari wonders if there's something that they can do for Watanuki. Yuuko then told her that if Watanuki can say "Help" to Doumeki, he'll be fine. Basically the plan was to make Watanuki say "Help" to Doumeki which will then activate some kind of a contract which will repel the spirits away from Watanuki. But this is limited to one day only. Doumeki is happy to hear that Himawari cares about him but is annoyed with the fact that he has to ask Doumeki to help him. Yuuko then makes fun of the fact that Watanuki was too afraid to even say "Help" back then.

Himawari then comes over to apologise for the plan. She thinks they should have came up with a better one because in the end Watanuki still can't swim. Later on Himawari explains that she thought about it ever since the 100 Ghost stories night. Watanuki immediately assumes that Himawari was the one who put the flower in the kitchen. Much to his horror, however, Himawari and Mokona don't know anything about the flower. Doumeki then reminds Watanuki that the flower is in a vase containing water and yet when they arrive at the house, the tap was jammed until Doumeki fixed it. Watanuki thinks that they are still planning to scare him off and decides to ask the landlady about it. However, when he's about to return to the house, he notices that the room that he went to has a window facing the ocean. From within that window, someone pulls the curtain a little bit, revealing a creepy looking woman in a blue dress. Someone then says "Ah, it finally comes out".

Impression:

That was quite scary. The story had some twists in it but in the end, it suggests that the lady in blue does exist. Maybe she's waiting for her lover but the lover can't come back because he already died in an accident. It reminds me of another horror film, The Others. This episode also used a lot of Japanese horror convention such as a woman with long hair and a scary-looking eye. Even Watanuki ended up being that horror movie character who tends to go off investigating the source of a strange noise on his own. I don't like that the wall was made out of paper but I guess it'll be hard for Watanuki to find the other room if the wall was made from concrete bricks like in the original story. This episode also suggests that Himawari seems to care about Watanuki's well-being although this could turn out to be a simple ruse to deceive everyone. Moving on to other subject, I find Watanuki's complaining and anger to be rather overbearing in this one.

It never bothered me before but in this episode, his anger distracts from the otherwise creepy storyline. At one point I even thought that he needs some kind of anger management lesson because I can't imagine what it would be like to be the recipient of that anger like Doumeki and Yuuko. I also think that this is the disadvantage of telling the story out of sequence. In the manga, Watanuki's character progression is very clear. He becomes a better person as he gets to know Yuuko and Doumeki better. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the anime. Another interesting thing about the characters in xxxHOLiC is that most of them seem to accept the supernatural elements in their life. I suppose CLAMP just doesn't want to spend the time telling a story about people who don't believe in this kind of thing. Having said that, I still find it strange that no one thinks it's strange that there are ghosts and spirits in their world.

Preview

On next week's episode: The girl with the Angel's wing. That means Kuda Kitsune will have a big role.

© memento 2003