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ローゼンメイデン 
I've been hoping for this particular story to be animated and now that it's here, I think I'm quite happy with it. As usual, I wish the animation can be a bit better but at least this time around the characters' face are a lot more consistent than in the previous episodes. But the important thing about this episode is the story, which is probably one of the darkest one that has been animated so far. And much to my surprise, Production IG actually kept the majority of the scenes intact down to some of the rather disturbing scenes. I'm happy about this because I think the impact of the story would have been lessened without these scenes. And if you're wondering, the scene where Moro and Maru are cleaning a dusty carpet with Fai's magic staff still remains in the episode as well. Although since I've never paid attention to the detail of the staff, I've never been sure if that really is his staff or just a similar-looking one.
Watanuki is not a happy camper because he's forced by Yuuko to take out items from inside the storage room and put them out in the backyard to be cleaned up. While Watanuki grumbles through his task, Yuuko explains that the items are basically waiting for the time when they will be given to a person who needs them. She believes that just like two people, humans and objects also have affinity towards each other. Not long after Yuuko said this, a young woman who loves antique items enters their backyard because she is drawn towards a blue cylinder. Watanuki is surprised upon seeing the cylinder because he didn't recall of finding it while he was cleaning the other items. The woman becomes asks Yuuko if there is a way for her to own the item. Yuuko attempts to dissuade the woman by saying that she doesn't recommend the item to her. But when the woman insists on having it, Yuuko allows her to have the item if she promises never to open it.
A few days later, Watanuki meets the same woman at his school because she just got hired to work there. The woman seems to believe that she got a strong luck and that things have always gone the way she wants it. She also tells him that even though she doesn't know the content of the cylinder yet, she knows it must be something that is perfect for her. Doumeki believes that the woman intent on opening the cylinder so Watanuki decides to stop her. Before he manages to do so, however, the woman bumps into Himawari while walking on a staircase, causing the cylinder to fall from the woman's hand. Before the item can hit the floor, however, Himawari manages to catch it with her hand. As soon as this happens, however, some kind of distortion happens with the cylinder. When Himawari hands over the item to the woman, everyone realises that the cylinder suddenly opens on its own and reveals its content: a monkey's paw.
The woman remembers from stories that she's read that monkey's paw can supposedly grant wishes. She becomes excited at the thought and thinks that it's all because of her good luck. Watanuki tries his best to prevent the woman from using the monkey's paw but it's all for naught when the woman decides to try its power by wishing for a rain from this point until tonight. Upon hearing the wish, one of the monkey's fingers is broken. That night, heavy rain falls as the woman requested. Yuuko tells Watanuki that the wish came true because the monkey's paw is the real thing. Having said that, she thinks that the paw doesn't have an affinity to the woman but there's nothing much they can do since 'the stone' is already rolling. The next day, however, Watanuki finds out from Himawari that all of the water from the school's pool is gone even though the drain was not opened. On the other hand, the woman is happy because her first wish had come true.
She becomes over-confident in herself and decides to give the monkey's paw a more difficult task to achieve. The woman remembers how she likes an antique mirror from a curio shop but the owner refused to sell it to her. As soon as she wishes that the mirror is hers, she suddenly finds the mirror inside her apartment. Upon examining the monkey's paw, the woman realises that two of the fingers are now broken. It means she now only has 3 more wishes left. Later on, Yuuko got a called from an antique shop that a mirror called Yata no Kagami suddenly went missing from the shop. Yuuko thinks she knows how it disappears but would like to wait before making any decision. At school, the woman happily informs Watanuki that she manages to get a mirror that she's always wanted by using the monkey's paw. Upon saying this, some dark spirits begin to come out of the paw, causing Watanuki to feel sick.
Doumeki who's been noticing the conversation between the two tells the woman that in all of monkey's paw stories, the wisher always meets a horrific fate. The woman, however, believes that such things will only happen to other people but not to her. When Watanuki arrives at Yuuko's shop, the witch informs him that one can't get something out of nothing. In order to fulfil a wish, a price must either be paid or the item must already exists somewhere. She believes that the rain actually came from the pool water while the mirror came from her acquaintance’s shop. The next day, Watanuki, Doumeki, and Himawari encounters the woman looking happy because her professor has just praised her work and now she has been asked to give a speech at a seminar. The woman believes that all of these happen because of her luck and the fact that she has the monkey's paw is a proof of that. She's also not afraid of the paw because she thinks she's special.
Later on, however, the woman is having trouble writing her a speech that she supposed to deliver at a seminar. Because of this, she decides to use the monkey's paw to find her some research materials. The woman becomes happy when her seminar turns out well and her professor informs her that a publisher is interested in her. The next day, however, the woman is late to attend the seminar. She immediately thinks that it would be good if there is an accident so she can get police report and claim that this is the reason why she is late. Upon thinking about this, however, the monkey's paw suddenly grants her wish and a woman next to her falls into the train tracks and immediately got hit by the train. The woman is shocked to see this because she didn't expect her wish to be granted just by thinking about it. To make things worse, that night she finds out from her professor that the research materials she is using actually belongs to someone else.
As it turns out, the person that lost his research materials was actually in library on the same day the woman was there as well. The professor naturally assumes that the woman stole the other guy's work. Especially since the woman can't prove that the research belongs to her. The woman then becomes paranoid that people will think that she pushed the woman who fell into the train track. When someone knocks her office's door, she becomes panic and asks the monkey's paw to take all of the problems away from her. Upon saying this, the monkey's paw latches onto the woman's throat and strangle her to death. When Watanuki, Doumeki, and Himawari come to see the room, they find no trace of the woman. A few days later, Yuuko realises that the cylinder has now return to her storage room. When she checks the content, it appears that the fingers on the monkey's paw are not broken anymore. After sealing the monkey's paw once more, Yuuko tells herself that it seems the woman got her wish.
Impression:
One of the best things about the magic and wish-fulfilment stories in xxxHOLiC is the fact that they are bound by the rule of equivalent exchange. This means that a person's wish do not conveniently come out of nowhere. As Yuuko said, in order for the wish to materialise, the material must come from somewhere or a price must be paid. Because each wish is constrained by the rule, each individual is forced to consider if the result that they are after will be worth the price that they have to pay. I feel that this adds a realistic element to the otherwise supernatural setting of the series. Without this element, the wish-fulfilment part of the story will feel cheap because then everyone can simply asks for something without worrying about its consequences. On a lighter note, this also allows CLAMP to make sure that Watanuki continues working at Yuuko's store until he can have his wish granted by her. Unfortunately for Watanuki, I suspect that will take a long, long time.
Of all the stories in the series, the monkey's paw is probably the one that clearly shows the consequences of wishing something that does not belong to you. The story is actually not CLAMP's original material. It was based on a short story from W.W Jacobs and you can actually read the original version from the American Literature site. The story has actually been adapted by many popular entertainment works from Pet Cemetery to The Simpsons. Despite the variations, the emphasis of the story has always been on the importance of not asking for something that you don't earn with your own hard work, money or sacrifice. In xxxHOLiC, however, CLAMP also uses the story to feature some interesting development for their regular characters. The most notable one here is the revelation about Himawari, who seems to possess an ability to release the magic seal that prevented the cylinder from being opened in the first place.
While it's still unknown if Himawari is actually an agent of good or evil, it can be said that she was a catalyst for the incidents that happened to the woman. There is a possibility that she may have intentionally knocked the cylinder over so she can catch it with her own hand. In a way, it can be said that Himawari released the temptation out in the open and allowed the woman to make her own choice. Because of this, at the end of the day the woman still takes the full responsibility of her own action for using the paw. Having said that, I'm interested to know if Yuuko is aware right from the start if the woman would end up dead. Or was there actually a chance for the story to turn differently despite all of the Hitsuzen/inevitability? For example, was it inevitable that Himawari will unleash the seal of the cylinder and thereby making the temptation stronger? And was it inevitable that the woman can't resist her own desire for quick fix to her problems?
Thanks for the episode summary. I'm really looking forward to this episode.
From what I read of xxxHOLiC so far, Himawari just seems like a sweet girl who has the unfortunate ability to attract bad luck to other people. I think it's like how evil spirits are attracted to Watanuki, except that the spirits affect only him most of the time, but Himawari's bad luck affects everyone else.
It is definitely Fai's staff. It is unlikely that Yuuko would have identical staves, and in the manga it is only used after he gives it to her (which is after the 100 Ghost Stories arc).
My interpretation of Himawari is that she is like Doumeki in that she is unaware of her power, and I suspect that her power is the opposite of his: whilst he can repel and seal spirits, she can attract and release them. I suspect it will be a while yet before CLAMP give us an explicit answer: that will probably be at the core of the ending.
I am glad to see this arc make it: it is one of the most important I have read so far. This series started off terribly, but it seems like they are trying to rectify things, which pleases me as xxxHOLiC has got to be my favourite CLAMP manga.
ah the monkey paw. its one of the first horror stories i remember. still gives me the creeps actually.
i remember being dunbfounded when they got the first wish, and its price. then the mom wishing for her son to come back. had a big issue with ringing doorballs for a while after that one.
From what I've seen in the manga, Yuuko acknowledges both that there is a thing like fate (hitsuzen), but that human choice can make a difference in what fate one falls into. In most of the stories, it's the choice of the person who wants the wish which determines how things go; Yuuko, in this storyline, pretty much indicates that it only took one push for the 'rock to keep rolling', which suggests that the woman's fate at the end was inevitable... but only because she chose to use the paw, and seemed to believe herself above any negative outcome due to her 'great luck'. While things 'have' to happen the way they do.. it's the person's decisions or actions which trigger that particular outcome.
Remember the whole quotation: "There is no such thing as coincidence: there is only hitsuzen!". Even in the first volume of the manga, she indicates that a person's beliefs or decisions determine the eventual outcome... but at the same time, things tend to follow a specific path, if only because the person's mindset or circumstances dictate it, sort of like how water will always find its level and flow along the easiest path. To me, at least, this seems to be how Yuuko sees other people's fates, or at least how she seems to know how things turn out.
I'm still trying to figure out if the change of victim from man to woman is more or less effective here; I don't feel any more attachment to the female than I do the male, although it's interesting to see how the grad student reacts, either way. It's almost like the way the guilt of the murderer in "The Telltale Heart" overwhelms the character, thus in the end causing their own undoing even though there's no way for anyone who doesn't know about the Monkey's Paw (or the girl's use of it) to determine she did the other three things.
When I saw the preview for this ep last week, I was so excited to see it. What I liked about this ep was that the consequences in the anime seems to be more servere than in the manga. I got admit...at the end, they really captured how fearful the paw really is when the strangling occured. Great ep....animation was so so in most part...but still a great ep.
yay i saw it. does anyone know good manga summary sites for xxxholic?
I wonder why it is that there aren't a lot of male human customers at yuuko's shop, if not any.
Debbie: Watanuki doesn't count as a male customer? :D I suspect the reason we don't see many male customers is because CLAMP likes drawing young women and girls better... as evidenced by a lot of their manga, over the years.
As far as male customers go, there was the one delivery that Watanuki made at the end of Volume 7, which was modified in Ep 4 or thereabouts of the anime. Yuuko may have male customers all the time - but we don't see them in the manga because either they come when Watanuki's not there... or because CLAMP doesn't want to draw their stories, as Watanuki's less likely to interact with them than he would the cute young girls or young women.
Not a single word about the dildo? Com'on guys.
Out of curiousity, why is the tada mirror called a mirror? It doesn't seem to reflect images like a mirror.
The episode was really good and actually stuck mostly to the original, but for some reason they keep making it seem like Watanuki is forgetful with cooking. I don't recall a time where he ever forgot or lost control of anything in the kitchen in the manga.
“…Although since I've never paid attention to the detail of the staff, I've never been sure if that really is his staff or just a similar-looking one.”
I believe it really is Fai’s/Fye’s Staff. I can tell because I’ve been watching T.C. these days, though the last time it was shown in the said series was when he gave it to the Dimensional Withch (Yuuko Ichihara) as a second payment for another needed assistance. Comparatively, I could say that basing from the screen-based pic above, it seemed more crude and quite devoid of its truly shiny golden color (unlike from the way it looks in T.C.). But still, it is Fai’s Staff.
I was supposed to render my own views & answers to the questions Garten-san posted in the “Impression” Part of this episode’s synopsis; but nahhh, there’s no need already. I believe Haesslich here said it all perfectly. And yes, I think so too; there may be a thing as Fate or Inevitability, but Human Choice will always be the one to see the person thru his/her own end–results. Of course, we are being immediately influenced by something metaphysical–supernatural every now and then; yet in the end, we make the choices that would deliver the final shot/blow to the ones given to us by Fate. Just like in Divination; if the reader tells you that soon enough you’ll die of a certain disease, and you (of course) wouldn’t like this to happen, then you’d simply take good care of your body from that time onwards. After all, what has been given to you was just an INSIGHT into your future.
Lastly, I like this episode quite a lot more than the previous ones I’ve read here. It seemed more original to me even though CLAMP just copied this material from a certain writer’s literary work, as what Garten-san said. I say it seems a lot more authentic to me because I find no resemblance whatsoever from any of the past CLAMP Animes’ Events/Situations in this episode’s storyline. I don’t really know for sure, as I’m only banking this premise from the ones I’ve watched from CLAMP so far; but that’s the way how I see it. Connectively, one may think this is funny; but this episode somehow reminds me of that human suspense–eerie series from U.S.A.’s SHOWTIME entitled “Hunger”. Hehehe….. :)
Thanks again for another well-made one, Garten-san.
God bless you and all of you here…..
I finish vol8 of the manga and while there is nothing definte about Himawari. There are just too many things when you add them up for her to be human.
So there is a big possibility that Himawari may not be human at all. What can you say about that, dear Garten-san?
“There is a possibility that she may have intentionally knocked the cylinder over so she can catch it with her own hand. In a way, it can be said that Himawari released the temptation out in the open and allowed the woman to make her own choice.”
From my own point of view, and from those quoted statements above..….especially from that second sentence which Garten-san had written about Himawari….I could say that her being a catalyst of the “temptation” in this particular episode, as well as that of the woman’s possible destruction makes her some sort of a Biblical Eve or a Mythical Pandora. Of course, I know that the CLAMP Creators are not in any way Western-influenced or Christians (or even Catholics, to be technically specific); but the world of music, written literature, movies, and animations (be they Eastern or Western) have always been linked by the same archetypes, which keeps on symbolically appearing in any form of valuable entertainment every now and then – be it written, verbal, animated whatsoever. So who knows? She might be just like that…..
Well, Himiwari's had some of the oddest things happen around her.. and she's tended to get Watanuki into trouble, starting from Volume 1 when her dragging him to the cake shop resulted in his witnessing the habitual liar getting run over... and has gotten him into various situations since. Yuuko herself indicated that Himiwari was not going to be a 'goddess of luck' for Watanuki... which to me suggests that Himiwari would be the reverse for him instead. So far, this seems to have been proven true - she got him into the Angel-San incident in Volume 2, then the Monkey's Paw incident by triggering its opening, and pretty much every other thing I can think of which Yuuko didn't subject him to (the Shiratori episode, the Hyakki Yakko incident, and the 'ghost woman' story of Volume 6).
In a sense, she's been the opposite of a zashiki warashi, as far as Watanuki's life is concerned - instead of bringing luck, she's brought a lot of misfortune and some danger into his life... well, minus the 'giving of the ribbon' thing which kept him from getting lost during the ame warashi's task story.
However, whoever called Yuuko a nee-san type for Watanuki's probably ignoring all the teases and occasional flirting she tosses his way... :D
I'm starting to understand what Yuuko meant by Himawari not be compatible with Watanuki. I agree with the first post about Himawari unknown to her own powers of being able to attract and release spirits. Too bad she has that type of power, she's so sweet.
Well, I can't wait for next week's episode.
"....by triggering its opening, and pretty much every other thing I can think of which Yuuko didn't subject him to....."
Himawari then must really be an agent of some kind of a "bad fate", or that of omens and ominous things....
"....well, minus the 'giving of the ribbon' thing which kept him from getting lost...."
But then again, she might also somehow be able to help or see things thru when she's least expected.....
And yes, I agree. She definitely is a very sweet girl. Yet she also stands for the fact that all things & all people must come in a BALANCE....After all, everything (& everyone, as well...) is governed by the Laws of Equivalent Exchange.....
Xellos: I see what you mean, after reading Volume 7 - and how the thing which kept Watanuki from getting his answer there JUST happened to come from that item Himiwari asked him to drop off... JUST when she couldn't be there. I'm starting to think the Ame-Warashi's fear of Himiwari wasn't just due to her name, now...
She really seems to be Watanuki's personal Goddess of Misfortune, doesn't she? It almost fits, given how the other girl he's shown any real attraction to (to judge by the blushing in Volume 5) was the Zashiki-Warashi, who brings good luck to the houses she visits.
Er.. I think the reason there are few male customers in Yuko's shop is because most customers end up dead in a terrible way, one example being that woman, and women dying like that is more unfortunate.
I got the impression that XxxHolic is a horror manga.-_-;;
what kind of power is himawarri posses?the monkey paw suddenly open after she touch it, right?
so the person in ep 1 or was it 2 got hit by car and didn't die. but this person does? plus, what's with all the characters the animators didn't even bother to color in? i kept looking for some meaning behind these white stick figures, but couldn't find any. for a moment i thought i was watching karekano, the episode where gainax purposely used moving cardboard in place of animation.
it was unexpected. up til now it was like bleach, or reborn, where even those characters you thought dead are still alive (they turn up alive 25 episodes later). did they really off that woman?
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