XxXholic 7

CLAMP, I’m serious. The eye thing. Enough already.

Yeah, there’s an eye thing here. An eye thing like… a Seishirou eye thing. An eye thing like a Subaru eye thing. An eye thing like a Sayoran eye thing. And now… and now my favorite. Well, that’s not quite true, he’s not my all-time favorite CLAMP boy. I don’t have a favorite, but this boy’s competing with Subaru and the Duklyon boys for the top spot.

But I must admit… DAMN, CLAMP does it right when they do things. The story in this volume mostly involves a spider, and it’s the spider who messes things up for Domeki and Watanuki. It made me so mad when one tried to go back and undo the spell the first worked so hard on, so I was glad he was thwarted in the end. Not much of the girl this time around. Once again, no indication of the ultimate direction of the plot here, but man, big plot goings-on, anyway.

Yeah. I’m so sad we have to wait so long for volumes of this, because it is probably quite literally MY FAVORITE. I forget sometimes, because I have to wait so long for the newest volume, but when it comes, I enjoy every fucking page.

XxXholic 6

Still really love holic. The stories in this volume are slightly less engaging than some of the previous volumes, but it’s still very good.

The main thing I liked about it was the story near the end where Watanuki kept meeting with a sad woman… because it was what he chose to do. And Domeki did what he chose to do, and the woman told Watanuki he couldn’t come with her because he had people to take care of him.

It was adorable, I assure you. I still feel that the series isn’t making any progress towards a goal, and Yuuko keeps dropping veiled hints about what that goal may be, but I love its meandering so.

XxXholic 3

This series still doesn’t disappoint. I can’t remember if I mentioned it or not, but I was a little less impressed with volume 2 than with volume 1. I love the plot of this story (where Watanuki has to get along with Domeki in order to rid himself of the problem of seeing spirits… at least, that’s what it seems so far), and I also went nuts over the storytelling contest at the end of the last volume, but somehow I liked the little “cases” where the people come to Yuko without knowing why and need something from her shop. This volume contains two such “cases.”

The first comes straight from Himawari-chan herself, and Watanuki agrees to do it himself so that Yuko doesn’t ask payment of Himawari-chan. It has something to do with a Japanese form of Ouija and the residue from this haunting the school of one of Himawari-chan’s friends. This story I didn’t like so much, as it involved Domeki-kun (who I don’t care for) and massive CLAMP masturbation in the form of persocon ears. But just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it and won’t admit it was really good. The resolution and the way that Domeki and Watanuki had to work together was really interesting, and the reasons I had for disliking it were superficial, meaning it was still a great story.

The second story was “The Monkey’s Paw.” Literally, a woman came from the shop and took an item that turned out to be a Monkey’s Paw. I love western literature interpreted in an eastern way, and this is no exception. Yuko’s forewarnings, the interaction the three students had with the woman at school, the woman’s personality, Watanuki’s slow grasp of the situation, and again, the resolution, made this story amazing, and probably the high point of the series so far. I know it doesn’t seem that unusual for a series to improve from volume to volume… but I’m used to stories that just sort of plateau and that have some terrible volumes mixed in with the good, so the fact that this series improves each time is really quite refreshing.

XxXholic is easily one of the best series currently coming out. And I mean that with all sincerity. If you buy comics, you should probably buy this, because it’s just amazing. As a side note, the artwork and perspectives still continue to be top-notch, the panel of Fye shoving his staff through the Mokona-portal in the first chapter is a great example of the best ways it comes off. The fact that the art’s great in addition to the story… why DON’T you already have this series?

Also, I lied. I love CLAMP masturbation.