DVD Review - xxxHolic cures inner demons with love story

Some anime focus on saving the world from monsters. Other anime focus on a love story. This anime, however, focuses on resolving problems with evil spirits and falling in love in the process.

"xxxHolic" is probably the first anime that involves a love story with a cool fortune-teller. The anime involves a high school boy, named Kimihiro Watanuki, who helps a fortune-teller cure people with spiritual illness for a price.


In the first episode, Watanuki is being chased around by black, smoking demons. He shouts aloud that he wishes he could stop seeing them, and lo and behold, he arrives at fortune-teller Yuko's wish-granting shop.

After magic literally pulls Watanuki into the house, Yuko tells him that he sees demons because of the blood in his veins. And demons latch on to him because of his blood. Yuko offers to cure him from seeing demons if he works for her.

This is a tricky anime that forced me to think about why certain people in the anime were possessed by demons. This series is a unique mix of caretaking, Confucianist dialogue, Ouija boards and predictions of the future. However, underneath the dialogue there is a hidden love story. Based on episode four, I have the sneaking feeling that Yuko likes Watanuki. What makes this series excellent is the way in which the story hides the love story in a prediction of Watanuki's future by Yuko's mother in episode four.

Also, to break up the long dialogue, there are plenty of humorous characters as well. There are the cute twin girls, Maru and Moro. They share funny, though disturbing, romantic moments together. And for Magic Knight Rayearth fans, there is the cute black Mokona rabbit. It's black, it's little and it's Yuko's drinking buddy. I'd really love to drink with a Mokona, but then people would think I was weird.

Although this series has plenty of spirit, the only problem so far is the character design. I appreciate that the director wanted Watanuki to be tall, so that the Maru and Moro twins would look smaller in proportion. However, in this series, he looks as tall as Shaquille O'Neal! I’m really disturbed that Watanuki’s as tall as he is.
Still, this is a minor complaint to what could be a really great series. Even though the dialogue could be lengthy for some and the characters are a little tall, this is one of the most promising shojo anime releases of 2008. I'll really be looking forward to volume two of the series.
Oh, by the way, this has one of the best ending songs I have ever heard. Feel free to look up the song on Youtube. The song is “Reason” by Fotogenico.

Images courtesy of deepgraysea.com and randomc.animeblogger.net