Subculture Anime Blog

The Spider Queen.

Summary:

Now in another dimension, Watanuki begins approaching a broken building that the Kuda Kitsune leads him towards. The Karasu Tengu warn Watanuki that he will be up against a foe that he will not be able to match, but he continues the mission given to him by Yuuko despite this. Although he cannot see it, Watanuki realizes that there is a barrier around the area before him. Because of this, the Kuda Kitsune transforms into its larger form to destroy the barrier with its flame. Watanuki enters the building, but it becomes increasingly colder as he walks towards the bottom. When he becomes close to losing consciousness, Watanuki takes hold of a shard of glass to injure himself with. With this, he continues on with hopes of saving the Zashiki Warashi in his mind. Meanwhile, Doumeki meets Yuuko as she is leaving her shop. Doumeki is unable to see anything other than a vacant lot behind Yuuko, which she knows. Doumeki soon questions if Watanuki’s eye will never return, explaining to Yuuko that he overheard Watanuki mentioning this to himself at school earlier.

Reaching the bottom door of the building, Watanuki finally sees the trapped Zashiki Warashi. He is soon met by a threatening woman, however, who shows that she has his eye in her possession. She also explains how sought after it is, as it has the ability to increase one’s power significantly. The woman soon introduces herself as the queen of the spiders who Watanuki tampered with before, and explains that the Zashiki Warashi approached her in hopes of getting the eye back for Watanuki. Watanuki soon attempts to get closer to help the Zashiki Warashi, but the Spider Queen begins to send webs in his direction. The Kuda Kitsune saves Watanuki from his entrapment, but the Spider Queen quickly warns Watanuki to keep the Kuda Kitsune away from her by threatening the Zashiki Warashi’s life. While all of this is happening, the Ame Warashi visits Yuuko and her crew to find that they are leisurely building models.

Watanuki has the Kuda Kitsune back off, resulting in the Spider Queen pulling him to her with her webs. Watanuki only asks for the Spider Queen to return the Zashiki Warashi, but she insists that the Zashiki Warashi is also valuable. Watanuki quickly suggests that he will also hand over his left eye, making the Spider Queen wonder how much he likes Zashiki Warashi. Watanuki expresses his belief that she is a good girl, along with the importance the Karasu Tengu and others place on her, before continuing to insist that he will do other things to get her back. However, the Spider Queen quickly states that she hates this. She makes Watanuki realize that he is easily giving up on the things that the Zashiki Warashi came to retrieve, and that others such as the Kuda Kitsune are worrying about him. The Spider Queen makes Watanuki realize what other pain he is causing by not caring about himself, before obviously refusing his offer. When the Spider Queen gets closer to what she believes to be his crying face, Watanuki quickly pulls out the shattered glass that he has been holding onto to use against her. With this, the Kuda Kitsune also flies up to fire flames at the Spider Queen, and Watanuki is able to retrieve the Zashiki Warashi. The Spider Queen accepts this, but she swallows Watanuki’s eye in return. Soon after, she escapes from the flames while leaving Watanuki and the others below. When the Karasu Tengu finally reach the room, they find that Watanuki has passed out next to the Zashiki Warashi.

In her shop, Yuuko assures the Ame Warashi that the Zashiki Warashi is fine. The Ame Warashi states that she did not help because of the Zashiki Warashi’s insisting that she would go alone, making Yuuko expresses how such actions would affect two people. Everything in the world is half and half. If it wasn’t, the world would collapse. When Watanuki regains his consciousness, he finds that the Zashiki Warashi is crying above him in her world. The Karasu Tengu explain the water’s healing effects, as the Zashiki Warashi apologizes that she was unable to help Watanuki regain his eye. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Watanuki only apologizes to the Zashiki Warashi in return. Watanuki finally returns to to his world by showing up in the shop’s bathroom’s tub, so Yuuko greets him while giving him plenty of time to clear his head.

Later, Yuuko makes Watanuki realize that his eye will never return. Watanuki realizes this, and although he does not believe it is good, he states that he realized something in return. With this, Yuuko presents Watanuki with half of Doumeki’s right eyesight. She explains that she extracted it herself, as Doumeki had prepared this while suspecting that Watanuki’s eyesight would not return. Watanuki takes and swallows the eye to Yuuko’s instructions, soon falling asleep afterwards. While Watanuki rests, Yuuko explains that nothing in the world is his alone. There are always others affected, so one can never be free. This is why life can be interesting, yet sad. When Watanuki sees Doumeki in the morning, he only presents him with a meal in his usual way. Doumeki takes the box to carry to school, stating that he will share half of the burden.

Preview: Wanna buy a dream?

Impression:

What an excellent episode! I was really looking forward to this episode since last week, and it didn’t disappoint me at all. Seeing the Zashiki Warashi return was definitely a highlight for me, as she’s one of my favorite characters in the series despite how little she shows up. I’m not sure if the fight between Watanuki and the Spider Queen was the most exciting I have ever seen, but that has never really been the concentration of this show. At this point, Watanuki has finally started realizing how important he is to those around him. This makes for some of the strongest themes in the series, as Watanuki finally begins to develop more as a person. The way Yuuko explained the connection between people in this episode was spectacular, providing all kinds of insight to those who just cannot understand how they affect others in relationships. This is something I have always loved about xxxHolic, as there are so many great and meaningful themes presented underneath the fantasy like storytelling.

I really loved the atmosphere that was set up in this episode, especially with the Zashiki Warashi crying over Watanuki towards the end. I can definitely see a few people complaining about the visuals though. Other fun things to note in this episode included Moro and Maru doing the recap of the last episode and the hilarious GitS model (excited about the movie?). Also notable, I never noticed that Doumeki’s eye color was different from Watanuki’s. In the manga, it was quite hard to tell because it was only in black and white. I think seeing this adds for a lot more visual impact in Watanuki’s situation. I actually ended up buying two volumes of the xxxHolic manga last week and caught up to the current chapters afterwards. There are so many good things coming, and I am getting more and more excited with each episode. Next week, we’ll get to see the introduction of the Yumekai, which will provide for another great story.