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Title: xxxHOLiC
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, the only thing you might worry about in XXXholic is the twisted fantasy horror that is present in all of the stories. Some stories are more depressing than disturbing, so your kids may not be interested in them anyway. There is occasional drinking, as Yuko likes to get drunk, but it’s purely for laughs. CLAMP fans, especially fans that like Tsubasa will adore this series, as it is very original for CLAMP and still retains their sense of humor and charm. Fantasy horror fans, you’ll love this one. It’s a guarantee. |
Diana Wynne Jones wrote fantasy books for children because often her husband would fall asleep while reading to their kids, which resulted in frustrated children. I mention Diana Wynne Jones because her fantasy at its darkest would be equivalent to XXXholic, which is the story of how Watanuki Kimihiro gets tricked into becoming the indentured servant/cook/errand-runner to Yuko the Dimensional Witch in exchange for not having spirits haunt him. Watanuki has to perform the oddest errands, from having to retrieve a soul from a spirit to getting wine from a tree, while working with his rival Domeki and spending time with his crush Himawari (who is cute and sweet enough to make us see why he falls for her). He also learns more about himself, about human nature, and the spirit world he can see.
From reading this, you might assume that this is a fantasy horror, a spiritual story, a romantic comedy and a coming of age all rolled into the one. The truth? It is. That may be the reason why Kevin had trouble describing it, as each story varies from the next. Some are mostly comedy, some are depressing, some are touching, some are plain spooky, and others are a blend of all four with more to add. But what all the stories maintain is a bizarre supernatural atmosphere. These types of stories fall into a genre called Gothic, I think. If not, then that’s what I call them: stories where the setting is horror but the story itself isn’t. Even in a funny story like Watanuki going to fetch wine for Yuko he has spirits surrounding him that want to lynch him for being human; in another story a ghost gives him a birthday present. XXXholic does tie into other CLAMP series besides Tsubasa, for the record. Since Yuko is a Dimensional Witch she can travel to other worlds and is aware of the other characters from CLAMP’s numerous series. One tasty tidbit was Watanuki finding a staff identical to the one in Card Captor Sakura. Yuko tells him it’s a toy version of the original and that she’s worked with Clow Reed, the staff’s creator. Others include the black Mokona, which is surely based on the white puffball from Magic Knight Rayearth and the twin of the white Mokona traveling with Syaoran in Tsubasa. I can’t recall anything else off the top of my head, but I can assure you that CLAMP fans will not be disappointed.
The series that XXXholic is most similar to is Pet Shop of Horrors. In fact, I picked up PSOH because another manga fan told me “If you like XXXholic, then you’ll like this.” Tokyopop may have released it to compete with Del Rey. Both stories are similar in tone, although not identical, and both CLAMP and Matsuri Akino know the perfect time for humor and the perfect time for horror. They also know how to create three-dimensional characters, something that will always add depth to a story. I’m not going to accuse one or the other of plagiarism as CLAMP has a more famous track record and PSOH was written before XXXholic. One could have inspired the other. Or maybe it’s just a strange coincidence. People say that great minds think alike. I’ve left the artwork for second-to-last because it’s one of the great elements of the series. Instead of using gray tone, CLAMP only uses black and white, even for rain and shadows. Their art style here is so that, to paraphrase Kevin, it is as cute as Card Captor Sakura and gothic as Othello, even though they didn’t write Othello. Character designs are fairly original, and even the ones that are less so are cute enough to make up for it. (Can you say Himawari?) The backgrounds, surprisingly enough, don’t try to choke up the series with supernatural aura like Sandman and PSOH, but instead let the supernatural beings supply the bizarre atmosphere, if you know what I mean. Houses look like houses, wells look like ordinary wells, and even the sky when Watanuki journeys through it in one story makes me think that CLAMP was using photos for reference.
It would be the perfect series except for one thing: it leaves plotlines hanging. Not always, but it’s happened more recently. You see, what happened was that Watanuki met this mean girl who had wings growing on her back that kept on growing bigger and bigger. Eventually the wings flew off with the girl’s soul, leaving her as an empty shell. Yuko was musing who could’ve done such a horrible thing. Add to the fact that pretty much the same thing happened to Sakura with her memories in the beginning of Tsubasa (and that Tsubasa and XXXholic cross-over as both occur in the same world technically) and I thought this was going to lead to why Sakura had lost her memories in the first place. But then the next volume started off with something else about Watanuki fetching wine from a tree and visiting a woman who made him ill. I felt like shouting, “WHAT ABOUT THE WINGS?” in the bookstore. It was frustrating, to say the understatement of the year, even worse than getting bad grades in school. Maybe CLAMP would’ve spoiled something, but it would’ve been nice if they had included an explanation! There. That’s out of my system. Now did Del Rey remember to include everything, including the color pages? This time they did! And boy do they look beautiful. They also included the usual list of suffixes in the front and the reference notes at the back. I love the reference notes because they help explain the mythology that was part of XXXholic and once they even noted a Star Wars reference because it was actually a Star Wars reference in the original Japanese. (I laughed hard at that note, even though Tokyopop actually did use to add American references and slang to their translated manga.) Del Rey knew the right CLAMP series to pick up. I just wish they would keep on picking good series for me to review. Bad reviews are longer and more entertaining to read, but it’s nice to mull over the classics and praise their brilliance especially when you get nice color pages and informative reference notes. My instincts tell me it’s not yet time to finish writing the review. But I can’t think of anything else to write. I think I’ve managed to say what XXXholic is about, which will help people who are considering it.
- -Review By Jaya Lakshmi - -