xxxHolic – 07 – Getting saved by people you hate

The element I like most about xxxHolic definately is the deepness of all the different messages featured in the episodes. This episode probably was the deepest yet. The show really is getting better and better. Today’s episode starts off pretty lenient, but it really gets more serious by the minute.

Rain is falling during the entire episode. We start off with Watanuki walking outside, carrying an umbrella and complaining about the rain. He then gets punished by a very talkative and easy ticked-off red haired girl, the same we saw in the OP. She appears to be a rain-sprite, and needs Watanuki’s help for something.

This girl is very amusing. Especially her look when, back at Yuuko’s, she gets to see a special performance by Maru, Moro and Mokona. Then Yuuko talks to her, immediately annoying Watanuki by defining him as her “property”. It appears that this girl wants someone saved. According to Yuuko, Domeki plays a key-role in solving this, so Watanuki goes to pick him up, against his will, of course.

The rain sprite then sees that the combination of Domeki and Watanuki could be the key to helping her special person. But first, they head to Himawari in order to borrow something that she’s wearing. Watanuki really freaks out during this scene. Anyway, the two of them manage to get Himawari’s ribbons.

The problem lies with an hydrangea-flower. It’s grown to be huge, its flowers have turned red, and Watanuki can clearly feel that there are evil spirits roaming inside this thing. We see a couple of minutes of Watanuki and Domeki investigating, until Watanuki gets caught inside the flower.

Inside the flower, everything’s pure black. Here, Watanuki meets up with a crying girl. She wants to go somewhere, but she’s afraid to do it alone. Then we meet the fatherly side of Watanuki, as he tries his best to cheer up the girl. She accompanies him through the darkness, until a they reach a point which looks like some kind of entrance to some dark and gloomy place. The girl wants to go in, but Watanuki gets his doubts.

Then we see a very interesting way of dialogue. Beams of light appear, and each of them represents one (japanese) letter. I really liked this, and it gives the overall atmosphere a really nice dark undertone. We then see a number of raindrops appear, along with Himawari’s ribbon. Watanuki then uses the ribbon he carried with him, and he gets out, after comforting the girl once more, in a really fatherly way.

He wakes up under the hydrangea from before, now with blue flowers. He holds hands with the girl, though she seemed to have been dead from the beginning, and then he sees a very pissed-off Domeki. And this is where the great part of the episode begins. It was really nice to see Watanuki this calm, though it was definately nothing special. Just another case which had been solved.

Though then it appears that Domeki had been standing in the rain for a massive TEN hours, waiting for him. Yuuko explains what happened afterwards, when both of them have taken a shower. His wound from the time with the Angel-san has also gotten a lot worse, though Domeki isn’t the one who’ll mention it. That means that Watanuki owes him big time for saving him. (after all, Domeki used Himawari’s ribbon in order to get Watanuki out). This brings up so many interesting issues. It’s definately clear that Watanuki hates Domeki. The two of them make a nice team, but that fact remains.

But what happens when Watanuki suddenly finds out that Domeki’s willing to go through such lengths, in order to save him? Would he have done the same thing? Especially if you consider the wound. And what if you also consider the fact that that little girl was actually heading for the netherworld for people who tortured and killed others and persons who commited suicide? This means that she was actually leading Watanuki to his own suicide if Domeki hadn’t shown up. And what about the precious item Domeki had to give Yuuko in order for her to give the information on how to save Watanuki?

The rain sprite also was interesting. It appears that she didn’t want to save the girl in the first place. She wanted to protect the hydrangea. She doesn’t care about humans at all, though the hydrangea seemed to be an elemental spirit, corrupted by the deeds of the little girl, whom it actually tried to save (the beams of light from before belonged to the hydrangea, it seems). She ends with an interesting statement: humans don’t save elemental spirits, then why should elemental spirits save humans?

I liked the use of umbrellas, this episode. Each of the characters had one fitting their style of clothing. The rain sprite had one to match her dress, Watanuki’s umbrella was an ordinary blue one, and Domeki had one in the style of feudal Japan. I also loved Domeki’s methods to ignore Watanuki whenever he got into one of his hyperactive moods (which happened a lot this episode).