Subculture Anime Blog

Purchasing dreams.

Summary:

Watanuki tells Himawari about the dream he had during the night. In it, he continually ran away from a large shadow approaching him. When he finally looked behind him to see what was chasing him, it turned out to be a giant Mokona. Himawari can only see this dream as very cute, as the two then wonder what the dream meant. Watanuki eventually asks what kind of dream Himawari had, so she replies that it was a slightly bad dream. In it, she was also running from something. Himawari describes that the steps behind her continually became louder, but before describing what she saw when she looked behind, she realizes that she has activities to attend to. Watanuki presents Himawari with a gift of madeleines before she leaves, stating that it is a thanks for telling him about her dream. As he hands them over, however, he feels something strange.

Watanuki ends up helping Doumeki with school duties later, becoming annoyed as usual despite his volunteering for Himawari. Watanuki eventually sees that Doumeki is eating the madeleines he made, further finding that Himawari had given them to Doumeki. This makes Watanuki despair even more, as he ignores Doumeki’s telling him about his own dream. In it, Doumeki saw his grandfather riding on a white horse. As Watanuki walks home, he realizes that he is being followed. He begins to run, but when he finally turns around, he sees that he is being chased by a large ayakashi. Not having faced one in a long time, Watanuki fears that he will be eaten if he is caught. Watanuki is unable to escape the spirit’s grasp despite his attempt to run, but a man on a horse saves him by firing an arrow into the ayakashi’s eye. When Watanuki looks up, he believes he sees Doumeki before passing out.

When Watanuki regains consciousness, he finds Yuuko sitting on top of him. He wonders about his circumstances, but Yuuko makes him realize that what he saw was a dream. Watanuki wonders why he would be in the street if what he saw was a dream, so Yuuko further explains that what he saw was a premonitory dream. While at a swing set with Yuuko, Watanuki realizes that this means to have had a dream that would become reality. Watanuki does not remember having such a dream, so Yuuko makes him realize that this was Himawari’s. Watanuki wonders how he could have experienced Himawari’s dream, so Yuuko states that he bought it. With this, Watanuki remembers the madeleines he gave her earlier. After remembering the man on the white horse, Watanuki realizes that this was actually Doumeki’s grandfather. This part of the dream came from Doumeki indirectly receiving the madeleines as well.

As Watanuki has the arrow that was shot in his dream, Yuuko believes that they should sell it to the person known as the Yumekai. Wondering where he would be, Yuuko has the arrow point them in the right direction. Yuuko then shows Watanuki that they must pass through a narrow passage between a pole and a wall, all to his confusion. When Watanuki follows Yuuko, however, he certain feels as if he is in a different place. With this, Yuuko explains that they have arrived in another world. Pointing to the sky, Yuuko introduces Watanuki to the Yumekai who is flying with a horde of balloons. She further explains that he is one that buys dreams, as the Yumekai makes it to the ground to greet Yuuko.

When the Yumekai sees the arrow that Watanuki is holding, he instantly becomes excited about it. The Yumekai begins suggesting that he will trade two dreams for the arrow, but Watanuki only remains confused. Yuuko enters the conversation to suggest that the Yumekai should know more than well enough how much the dream is actually worth, forcing him to hand over three more very valuable dreams to Watanuki. When the Yumekai inserts the arrow into one of his balloons, it begins shimmering extremely brightly. The Yumekai realizes how well Yuuko’s judgement was, believing that the dream would only become better with time. Yuuko and the Yumekai prepare to part ways, but Watanuki hands a balloon to the Yumekai when he realizes that he will be visiting the kitsune’s shop. When Watanuki suggests to give the balloon the owner’s son, the Yumekai becomes amazed at the heart of the human before him. The Yumekai promises to have the dream delivered, before finally giving his goodbye to Yuuko and Watanuki.

Exhausted by the time he gets back to the shop, Watanuki quickly decides to go to sleep. However, he quickly opens his eyes to see Doumeki’s grandfather sitting close by. Doumeki’s grandfather soon asks about his grandson, so Watanuki expresses how he cannot figure him out. He describes how he was able to get along with Doumeki despite their differences, further mentioning the right eye he now has. In reply to this, Doumeki’s grandfather only states that his grandson can endure a lot. To prove this, he shows Watanuki a certain picture. Watanuki wakes up right after seeing this, when Yuuko enters to tell him that what he saw came from one of his now popped balloons. Watanuki realizes that the person in a kimono he saw in the photo was actually a young Doumeki, instantly exciting him. He finds that he does not have the photo, however, since he did not accept it before he woke up. Watanuki’s thoughts are further interrupted when Mokona appears and lands on top of him. Mokona has with him a large amount of eggplants, making Watanuki guess that this was also a premonition from his dreams.

Preview: Kohane.

Impression:

Haha, okay. Let’s get this out of the way first. What was up with the addition of the fanservice mag in this episode! I guess Prod IG decided that Yuuko needed some reading material while waiting for Watanuki to wake up this time! Anyways, besides that silliness, this episode followed pretty closely to the chapters in the beginning of volume nine. The Yumekai actually didn’t appear exactly like I envisioned him, simply because I didn’t expect his way of talking to sound so elderly. I do like characters that speak kansai though. More than the Yumekai himself, I really love the way he plays into the development of Watanuki’s character. He quickly saw how kind Watanuki was, further showing how respected he is with those in other worlds. I thought the last part with Doumeki’s grandfather might have seemed a little forced, so I think I may prefer the manga version of that slightly more. I definitely wouldn’t say that it was adapted bad at all though.

I also liked how they handled some of the visuals in this episode, especially those dealing with Himawari’s dream trade with Watanuki during the conversation at the park. The xxxHolic anime has always done well to represent that atmosphere that the manga has, though I’m sure there are many who wouldn’t agree with me on that opinion. Besides that, watching Yuuko being her usual fun self in this episode was as fun as ever. Who can blame the Yumekai for submitting? Also, to answer some questions from last week, it seems like Watanuki’s right eye color will only appear different at certain points. I think this makes a lot more sense, since seeing two different eye colors all the time would just be distracting. Next week Watanuki will finally meet Kohane, starting one of the most interesting pair ups in the series.