xxxHOLiC Kei

A hilarious episode about superstitions (at least the ones in Japan). They cover everything from, "if you don't wear your new shoes in the morning, but during another time in the day, you'll have bad luck," to "sleeping right after you eat, and you'll become a cow," and the infamous!!!! "Cut your nails at night, and you won't be with your parents when they die..." Yea...that's a first...>_>

Anyways, Watanuki doesn't believe in any of these superstitions, and ends up going against all 3 of those superstitions. The first just leads to him literally tripping on his shoe laces and face planting (which I gave a 9.5).

The becoming a cow was hilarious. He didn't literally become a cow, like you could see hooves (other than in his nightmare). But he did somewhat mentally. Where he tried going to school, but felt 500 lbs heavier, and even went so far as to attempting to gore Himawari, after becoming fixated with her red ribbons!

The last one, Yuuko made Watanuki stay at her place, and conveniently left a pair of nail clippers in his room. He cut his nails, only to almost get a hair cut by some weird scythe-like pincers that came outta no where.

In the end of the episode, Yuuko lectures him that people warn others through superstitions, and not actual warnings. Because if you tell someone not to do something because it'll lead to a supernatural occurrence, usually the person will call you crazy and do it anyways. Watanuki also reveals that he did believe once in his life. He hid his thumbs whenever he passed by a graveyard or a hearse, and he never cut his nails at night...but his parents still passed away...so he didn't believe from then on.

Watanuki is drying laundry in the front yard, when a lady passing by laughs at Watanuki (because he's the dork that he always is). Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call, apparently Yuuko and Mokona are out of town on business. And they'll be gone for a while, so Watanuki can have the upcoming days off.

While walking home, Watanuki being the typical Watanuki (making faces and fuming over stupid things) bumps into the lady again. They go to the nearby park, and talk a little. He gets to know her, the lights dim and some Barry White plays to set the mood ...:...: Alright, I lied, they go to the park, Watanuki finds out that the lady is still brooding over her sons death, and that she's very lonely. Knowing the feeling of losing a close loved one himself, he starts to comfort the lady, and sort of grows a mother/son relationship with this lady. Telling her what happened at school, to making her lunch, and spending all his free time with her. She even says that if her son had lived and grew up, that she would imagine him to be a lot like Watanuki.

Meanwhile, he starts to come down with a nasty cold, coughing and even passing out at school. Doumeki ends up carrying him to the nurses office, where they dim the lights, play a little Barry White....Actually Doumeki is concerned for Watanuki, and tells him to carry the pipe fox with him.

Watanuki heads back to the park, the lady tells him not to over exert himself, but he let's her know that he wants to spend time with her too. She checks his forehead to see if he had a fever, and it brought back a nice little flashback of when he was sick as a kid, and his parents would check his temperature the same way. He tries to play it off, that he can fend for himself, and that he has a thermometer (making it sound like he didn't miss that memory of his family). She hugs him and lets him know that he's a good kid. Real touching scene

Watanuki was nearby, so decided to stop off at Yuuko's, the phone conveniently rings, and it's Yuuko. She knows that he's sick, and she tells him that it's because he is seeing that woman. He coughs up blood and passes out...

aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddd end scene...quite the cliffhanger.

Part 2...
So he awakens to the 2 girls dragging him to the entrance of the house, where Doumeki takes Watanuki to his place and lets him sleep. You find out that Doumeki got a call from Yuuko, warning him about what Watanuki is doing and the lady. That if he keeps seeing her, he will die.

Even knowing this, Watanuki goes to see the lady the next day at the park. She sees that his condition is getting worse, and tells him that the past few days were wonderful, but that they should stop seeing each other, and she quickly scurries off (<--- Would've been ran off, but you can't run in a kimono :!!:)

While at home, Watanuki dreamed of the lady (or had a vision) and saw that she was crying. He staggers to his feet, and goes out to the park to find the lady. At the park, she tells him that, as she thought, the more he saw her, the worse his condition got...Watanuki tells her that he knows, that he still came to see her. That if she's lonely, it makes him feel lonely too...

Doumeki finds them both in the park, and from his perspective, she is transparent, and not human. He shoots his spirit arrow (whatever you call it) at her, Watanuki jumps in front of her, but at the last second, she moves in the way and takes the arrow. As she's moving onto the next place, she tells him that she took the arrow because she's not lonely anymore, because Watanuki was there with her. That he had someone who needs him, and doesn't want to lose him.

Watanuki blacks out again, wakes up to Yuuko's house. They let him know that he'll be okay (she's finally home). She tells him that Doumeki didn't want him to die. They finish the ep with Watanuki trying to hit on Himawari again, and, to Doumeki's surprise, he invited Doumeki to lunch too... (So he didn't hold a grudge against him)

Last episode was a flashback of Watanuki when he was in 6th grade. He didn't have many friends, since he could see spirits and weird things that no one else could. Everyone felt that Watanuki was weird.

Until he's chased by an arm (that's right, an arm chases him...:...:) to the river, where he meets a boy that saves his life; and the boy can see the spirits too!

The episode shows some of the things that they did as friends, and explains how Watanuki knows about the spirits, and can somewhat differentiate between them. He finds out that he can get rid of the lesser spirits by using salt (something that the Japanese feels has a cleansing ability) or that spirits don't climb up Cherry Blossom trees.

In the end, saddening once again, Watanuki finds out that the boy is actually a spirit himself. That he had died 7 years ago (on Watanuki's birthday, April 1st) by those very same arm spirits (yea, that took away from the mood of the story...). As the boy is fading away, he gives Watanuki a piece of his bone, that he can use to fight the spirits.

Watanuki admits that that bone has saved his life in the past, but that it has long since turned into dust. They end the season with Himawari, Yuuko, Doumeki, Mokona and Watanuki eating a bbq dinner/birthday party for Watanuki...that he has to cook...

Seriously?! How old are those?!

Hopefully we get to see more of the goldfish eating Cat Girl. :p

After episode 11 you can clearly tell that Himawari is either maliciously attacking Watanuki or doing so inadvertently. Whenever she touches Watanuki bad things happen to him involving the part of his body that she touched. I.E.: Dropping the carrying towel and realizing that there is a corpse in the 2nd story window of the abandoned house. Also when she touches his shoulder in episode 11 and he falls from the 2nd story of the school building when his shoulder bumps a window pane and it falls out. The episode ends with a cliff hanger when Himawari confronts Watanuki inside of the shop but the real question that still remains is if she is doing these things to Watanuki on purpose or if it is inadvertent. Regardless she seems to be aware of it now and episode 12 should prove to be an interesting one.