天下制覇

Om nom nom nom nom.

Impressions:

Delicious delicious eyes. I like to eat them and gnosh them and mmmm soo chewy and delicious. Silly Clamp and their recent eye eating escapades.

Alright, so it was a bit better than the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle eye-eating scene, but we got multiple people eating multiple eyes here, so is it really that much better? Really? Speaking of TRC, I caught up on the manga this weekend, Clamp stuff being one of the few things I can stand to read for any length of time. Too bad TRC’s gotten kind of dumb lately. It’s bad enough that there’s Syaoran1 and Syaoran2, but Fai1, Fai2 was pushing it. Now there’s Sakura2 as well. Let’s just give it a rest already, eh? Oh right, xxxHOLiC.

The Vestal Spirit (man, does she ever get a name? I need to catch up on xxxHOLiC and figure out why exactly Watanuki traded away his memo– oops, spoilers).

Dammit… FOCUS.

This is one of my favorite stories in xxxHOLiC and overall, they did a pretty good job with it aside from the really funky BGM they used at the very start of the episode. From here on out, Watanuki grows up and is more ready and willing to accept his responsibility and work with Doumeki and Yuuko instead of just spazzing out constantly. This is especially important for the Himawari arc coming up, and even though I’m assuming they’ll just sort of ignore it or skip past it, all the dream interrelated activities with him and Sakura. I’m sure people could write a treatise on the deeper meanings of Watanuki’s shared sight with Doumeki, but I’m not going to be one of them.

I do like the Spider Queen a lot as a character and it’s a shame that she’s not around any more (that I’m aware of). Alright, technically it’d translate closer to Spider Mistress, but let’s stick with Queen. Like most of Clamp’s characters, she’s really not particularly evil or malicious, but she’s not going to do things out of the goodness of her heart. I love her speech to Watanuki about not throwing away what everybody else is working so hard for. It especially works well with the central themes of xxxHOLiC and the whole ‘price of a wish’ thing. It’s hard to say too much more without just verbatim repeating her speech, so I’ll just leave it there.

Moving right along next week to the dream raiser. Silly tapirs. That goes on for a little while, then the medium girl before the water stuff which leads right into Himawari’s arc. Glee.

Blah blah blah, Maru and Moro do recap. WATANUKI DAIJOUBU?

The winds clear and Watanuki/Crow Tengu look on a ruined mansion while some funky music plays. The Pipe Fox curls itself around Watanuki’s neck as he heads towards the miasma. The Crow Tengu warn him, but he’s resolute and walks forward into it with confidence.

He stops and holds out his hand, feeling in front of him. The Pipe Fox transforms into its larger form and lights the miasma on fire. Watanuki nuzzles it in thanks. The Crow Tengu helplessly watch him go in.

The insides are completely ruined and the miasma is getting thicker. Watanuki goes to where it’s the thickest, down a stairway into the basement below. It starts getting colder as they go down as well.

He struggles to keep awake as they climb down, and his head starts spinning.

Watanuki collapses once and shakes his head. He grabs a piece of glass and squeezes it, drawing blood and helping his mind focus.

At the store, Yuuko goes out for the day. She meets Doumeki right in front of the shop. It’s the same place that he found Watanuki before. Behind her, the shop has vanished. Those that don’t need it, won’t see it. She asks him his business. Doumeki asks about Watanuki’s eye and wonders if it’s really gone. Yuuko says that she doesn’t know yet.

Watanuki reaches the bottom level. The Pipe Fox growls at a doorway where the miasma is flowing forth. Watanuki pushing in and finds the Vestal Spirit in a spider web, unconscious. A woman notes that he finally arrived. He’s cuter than she expected. She opens her hand and Watanuki can see himself out of her palm. She’s holding his eyesight.

It’s a very powerful thing that many of the spirit world wanted, but the spider who had it was one of her relatives, so she ended up with it. She’s the Spider Queen. The Pipe Fox growls at her, but she warns him that he’ll hurt the Vestal Spirit if it attacks.

She tells them that the Vestal Spirit came to her, begging for his eyesight, but was trapped. After all, a Vestal Spirit is a valuable thing as well. Watanuki moves foward to attack, but the spider webs blast at him. The Pipe Fox knocks a few away, but Watanuki is quickly captured.

The Pipe Fox starts spitting flame around, easily melting the webs. The Spider Queen warns them to not try anything too reckless or she’ll slit the Vestal Spirit’s throat.

At the store, the Rain Spirit barges in, but only finds the girls (and Mokona) working on plastic models. She’s pissed and demands an answer.

The Spider Queen faces off against 4/1 and the Pipe Fox. Watanuki orders the Pipe Fox to stand down. He’s then taken in the webs and brought up to the Spider Queen’s letter. She asks him if he has anything to offer her, but he just glares. Watanuki then tells her to return the Vestal Spirit. She’s surprised that he’d ask for that and not his sight, but Watanuki tells her that she can do with it whatever she wants, just return the Vestal Spirit.

The Spider Queen laughs and tells him that eating a Vestal Spirit’s soul would add 100 years to your life, so it’s valuable too. Watanuki interrupts her and offers his other eye as a fair trade. Of course, a complete set is more valuable. The Queen asks if the Vestal Spirit is precious to him. He admits that he doesn’t know, but lots of people love her and she seems like a good girl.

The Spider Queen tells him that she hates that. She hates people like him, that would so easily give up something precious to them. The Vestal Spirit risked her life for him, but he’s okay immediately throwing away what she sought for him. To him, she’s worth something so easily thrown away. Watanuki protests, but she notes that even the Pipe Fox is worried about him. She wants something precious to him, not something that would be easily given up, and that’s why she hates it and will refuse the deal.

Watanuki harumphs in annoyance. She moves in closer to look at his cute expression, but Watanuki suddenly thrusts his shard of glass at her, stopping just short of her face.

He demands that she return the Vestal Spirit. This, the Spider Queen likes, but still refuses. Watanuki summons the Pipe Fox, who spits fire and pushes her back, letting Watanuki swing over and save the Vestal Spirit. She’s fine with that, but will be keeping his eye. She swallows it and the Pipe Fox blasts fire all over the place. The Spider Queen retreats, and the miasma immediately disappears. The Crow Tengu rush in to find Watanuki and the Vestal Spirit passed out.

At the store, the Rain Spirit angrily waits. Yuuko tells her that it looks like everything will work out. The Rain Spirit is happy, but sulks again, wondering what that girl was thinking to put herself in such danger. Yuuko reminds her that everything in the world is connected.

Water drops.

Watanuki opens his eyes, and is in the lap of the Vestal Spirit, who is crying over him. She was so scared. The water of her mountain will quickly purify the miasma his body took in. She apologizes over and over again for getting him hurt and drawing him into it. He wipes away her tears with his bloodstained hand.

Watanuki crawls out of a bathtub and is back in the store.

Yuuko opens the door and welcomes Watanuki back. The water connects the mountain and the store. She tells him that they’ve got the first aid ready when he finishes cleaning up and getting changed and closes the door. The Pipe Fox pops up with Watanuki’s glasses.

Maru/Moro tend to the Pipe Fox while a bandaged Watanuki drinks tea with Yuuko on the porch. There’s no way to get the eye back from the Spider Queen, but somehow, Watanuki is happy about how this turned out.

Yuuko holds out her hand and has half of Doumeki’s right eye’s sight.

It’s up to him what to do with it, accept it or not. Watanuki reaches out and wordlessly swallows it. His eye opens, it’s now yellow, but the sight has returned. He passes out in Yuuko’s lap.

He’s now learned that everything is connected and related. There is no true freedom from others in the world. Everybody relies on one another.

The next day, Watanuki holds out a huge lunch for Doumeki. He did the work, so Doumeki should carry it. Doumeki ignores him for a moment, but then says that he’ll do half and takes it. The usual Watanuki ranting ensues.

Preview:

Selling a dream to a tapir.