The art is a strange thing in this anime. At one time, it looks very crisp, at other times, it looks messed up. The main characters look very good, though the side-characters, which only appear one episode could have been done much better. The animation, especially the supernatural looks great at some times, though it’s horrible at other times.
Anyway, this episode was about fortunetellers, fake ones and real ones. Yuuko decides to take Watanuki to one of them, but later it appears that she’s a fake one. She only tells you what you want to hear, instead of what you want to know. She uses common knowlegde and guessing in order gain the victim’s trust and tries to make it believable. And true, that’s how most fortunetellers run their businesses, although some people refuse to admit it. I’ve even heard of fortunetellers that tell the exact same story over and over again, without anyone noticing it.
Fake fortunetelling, by the way, seems to be a sensitive subject of Yuuko. For the first time, we see her dead-serious, instead of her usual cheerful, playful or explaining personality. She then takes him to a real fortuneteller, using an interesting technique of conjuring a hankerchief into a butterfly, which flies to its target, in this case, the fortuneteller. She indeed has no need of information from Watanuki, except for his name, perhaps, and she does tell him things only a person who knows him would know, and leaves a big impression on Watanuki.
I have to say that I enjoyed watching this anime. It follows the same pattern as Mushishi and Jigoku Shoujo, as in one story every week, though it’s more focused on the main characters than those two were.
I am a little dissapointed with the direction the show is taking: The little one-sided romance between Kimihiro and Himawari (is that her name) seems to be forced and repetitive, for our whiny protagonist seems only to be capable of seeing his sweetheart as a “cute” girl and that’s about it. This is irksome really, seeing our main character to have room temperature IQ. And the character design is getting on my nerves, CLAMP is notorious for creating the abnormally thin and tall character designs, and Holic takes it the extremes, which is very unpleasant sight to be honest. My interest is ebbing already, but I am glad (and puzzled as to why you enjoyed the show).
I’m not too bothered by the art. Okay, it looks unusual, but that’s not the reason I enjoy it. I’m enjoying this because of the case introduced in each episode. I’m finding them interesting somehow. The relationship between Himawari and Watanuki indeed could have been done better, though. But I’m glad that Doumeki breaks this up a bit.