meganbmoore | manga: xxxHolic ch 186-195 (Reply)

Well, that was the most jarring time jump ever. I managed to stay unspoiled save for people hating Watanuki’s characterization, and…yeah. Very glad I read 10 chapters at once and so got to see pieces of the personality we’re used to come out.

Dear Clamp: I don’t want Watanuki to grow up to be FWR. I want him to grow up to be Yuuko even less.

I’m not sure what’s weirder, though: Watanuki wearing Yuuko’s clothes, or Clamp redoing old Yuuko art with Watanuki. Wait, it’s the art. The clothes I can buy into as a weird homage thing, but the art feels more like replacement.

I liked the samisen plotline, but I think that may have been for the incredibly pretty art. xxxHolic art does that to me sometimes.

I do not want to see anything fandom had to say about ch 195. I knew there was an explosion, but I want to see it even less now. I suspect that I’m in the minority for loving that chapter, despite the overall weirdness and the “Watanuki, why are you letting her touch you? Did you forget the eye-eating thing? Or the trying to kill the Zashiki Warashi bit? I admit to being more concerned about the latter. But…I rather love hot evil scheming women? A lot more than I like most scheming protagonists, at least.

And the pipefox cleansing him after was ohsocute.

But, 10 chapters, and not even a mention of Himawari? *sigh*

I still love xxxHolic, but I’m not sure I think Clamp has a clue what they’re doing with it at this point.