What is it you desire? What is it you wish?
It is by no coincidence you have come for only fate, destiny and inevitablity exist.
I will grant you what you want…… but prepare to pay the price…
xxxHOLIC Kei is now here with more of Watanuki’s over blown reactions, more sullen Doumeki and of course more deliciously cryptic Yuuko with her super cute “kuro manjuu” Mokona.
For you readers who have watched xxxHOLIC and enjoyed it, rejoice as season 2 looks and feels just same. This one of the shows I have been wanting to watch and I guess I’ll be blogging it for my episode reviews for Spring 08.
[Summary]
“Ara..You are so cute when you are angry Watanuki…”
Life has not changed since the end of season 1 as Yuuko continues to take full advantage of Watanuki. He stays overnight at the shop to be able to prepare Yuuko’s breakfast the next morning. Yuuko, of course, never fails to continually push Watanuki’s buttons.
As Watanuki heads for school, he walks past the temple Doumeki lives in and, despite Doumeki being his self perceived mortal enemy, gets recruited to help clean up the temple grounds. It is here Watanuki accidentally gets caught in a spider web. Doumeki helps Watanuki get out of the mess by removing the web.
Much later Doumeki realises that he is unable to open his right eye. Upon further inspection they discover something horrifying.
Consultation with Yuuko reveals that Doumeki is the victim of a curse by the spider whose web is destroyed. Watanuki, as usual, is incredulous as to why the spider is offended by such a small thing. To this Yuuko responds that to Watanuki, it may be a small matter. But to the spider, it’s home has been suddenly destroyed for no apparent reason.
“Only the affected party has the right to decide if a matter is significant”
Convinced that he was at fault, Watanuki sets out to shift the curse to himself. And he loses his own right eye in exchange for Doumeki’s.
Naturally, this upsets Doumeki. He approaches Yuuko to return Watanuki’s sight but is rejected as it is Watanuki’s wish that Doumeki’s sight be returned. In the case of conflicting wishes, Yuuko would give priority to the person who approached her first.
Thus, Doumeki decides to find a way to lift the curse himself, leveraging on the knowledge his Grandfather had accumulated as the Head Priest of the temple. When Watanuki found out, he wanted to stop Doumeki. Only to be reminded by Yuuko that if Doumeki had no right to stop him from sacrificing his eye, likewise Watanuki had no right to stop Doumeki from trying to find a solution.
Meanwhile, it would seem that Watanuki’s right eye is being used for some other purpose……
[Overall Impressions]
“RAWR”
We hit the road running as the series continues on from the first season with little introduction to the characters. While first time watchers should not have too much problem understanding what is going on, I would highly recommend them to watch the first season first.
It’s great to see that the show is still sticking to it’s guns and I love watching Watanuki tsukkomi Yuuko and Doumeki. Since it is only the first episode, we didn’t get to see much of Mokona and Yuuko frustrating the hell out of Watanuki. But that will most likely come soon enough.
Another reason I like the series is how they incorporate a little life lesson each episode. As the title indicates, today’s lesson from the show is to look at things from the other’s point of view.
It looks to me like for season 2, the focus would be more towards the relationship between Watanuki and Doumeki compared to the first season where it was mostly a one spirit/story per episode. So this would be a continuation of the developing ties (as Yuuko hinted) between Watanuki and Doumeki since the end of season 1.
I look forward to watching the next episode. Doumeki and Watanuki search for a way to undo the curse and run afoul of, what else?, some nasty spirits.
