The demensions of the witch
...about words she influences...
When
I first saw XXXHOLiC, I was already a big fan of CLAMP, already cursing them
because they aren’t finishing X, so with curiosity of a cat, I downloaded
the first chapter and there I was like petrified by the art and the characters…
I still don’t know how they manage to make me love even female characters,
and XXXHOLiC has the most wonderful characters ever. And XXXHOLiC has something
that I seek in my manga’s, it has fantastic characters, great design and
SUPERNATURAL and mystic. If you want to find a decent braineating mystic stuff,
then that’s this series. Besides this XXXHOLiC is peculiar in another
way, together with Tsubasa Reservoir makes a story, crossovers from one to another,
and if you actually want to understand completely what’s happening, you
have to read both.
I’m still sure that when the CLAMP came up with this series, definitely were on some crack. Anyway let’s get down at what I love of this series, I think I’ll make few points divided in story, characters and design.
As always we have a protagonist, that as in all CLAMP stories is a werdo, who attracts the spirits and then something leads him to a strange shop with even a stranger shop keeper. And to have his wish granted he needs to work for her, doing all the strange jobs she makes him to, and later without even realizing he begins alone to work on the jobs, offering himself. The best part of the story is the fact how people and creatures meet and then bond, and their bonds grow stronger and stronger from volume to volume. At how the story teaches you how to value everything that happens in your life, because that makes you grow, become stronger and more mature. At how relationships in your life happen because they have to happen so you can go on, because they give you something to learn, because everything that happens makes you learn, even the mistakes… I could go analyzing them like all night and writing a whole report on the fact what else this story can give you other then plenty of fun, laughing, being afraid, suspense and mystery. To wait that the new chapters appear so you can read to see what happen, and then they leave you at one evil clifage when you cry for more, because it can happen the worse or the best, you actually never can expect something from them, even if after 15 years of knowing CLAMP I can normally guess at long lines what would have happen, even if they… in this series managed to surprise the hell out of me, and also to scare me about the future of my favorite character (ok, it’s true that I have to stop loving characters, because when I adore them normally die) . Something that I love of this series is how deep are the characters that appear more then once, from Watanuki, to Yuuko, Doumeki, even Himawari and the Ame Warashi along with Zashiki Warashi. To see their force and how they are prepared to risk everything for what they believe, how they try to help each other in their own way, showing their strengths.
Another great thing of this series how it refers to other CLAMP series and sometimes even to Non-CLAMP series (like in the chapter when Yuuko destroys the computer with the iron bat it’s referred to Geamon from Lupin III, and then later there is reference to Cat’s eye and even Urusei Yatsura and even in the animated series there are reference to Ookiku Furikabute, Gost in the Shell), with them they want to say that everything is connected, because looking at all this series, they all have something in common with xxxHolic, or they have the same publisher, or the same director when coming to the animated version. It’s like a circle of life.
Another plus to this series also is that its drawn by my favorite CLAMP… Mokona… I don’t know I loved her from the beginning when I first met with their works, and she stayed my favorite CLAMP. Besides the style used for it is perfect to show the paranormal and mystic. With that art the characters, be it spirits or not, come almost to life even if just drown on a paper.
Other information on the series
xxxHolic, pronounced "holic", is a seinen manga series planned and presented by Clamp. The storyline of xxxHolic crosses over with that of a number of other CLAMP series, the most notable of which are Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle which was written in tandem with it, and Cardcaptor Sakura whose history it draws on at several points.
xxxHolic has been serialized in Kodansha's Young Magazine periodically since 2003 and published in volumes under the KC Deluxe label. It is currently published in the United States by Del Rey Manga and in the United Kingdom by Tanoshimi.
- Wikipedia