xXxHolic vol. 16
The adventures of She Who Waits For CLAMP Manga To Be Published in the U.S. continue...
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Watanuki Kimihiro, a once relatively normal high school student, has entered a downward spiral. After the witch Yuuko's disappearance at the end of last volume, he decides to take over her magic wish-granting shop and wait until she returns. He has no assurance that she will, of course, but that doesn't stop him from hanging out in the place, taking on her role as much as possible, and growing his own inherent powers to the point where his body may not even be able to sustain itself outside the shop. He also doesn't age. (It wasn't previously clear that the shop prevented aging, but it apparently does.) Doumeki and Kohane hang about and bring him food, a-quiver with fear that he will get himself killed by running the shop incorrectly. His former obsession, Himawari, is not around.
To put the situation clearly: Watanuki cuts himself off from the world outside while his friends grow and change over the course of several years. He pines for a woman too old for him, is worried over by a woman too young for him, and is apparently abandoned by the one woman in his life who is (was) actually his age. He wears the said older woman's clothes, smokes her pipe, drinks her booze, adopts certain of her mannerisms and does her job, consequently destroying his body and risking death in multiple ways. His customers visit him with horrible stories of cats being killed to make musical instruments, and he doesn't bat an eyelid - a sure sign of his rapid mental decay. He relies on the long-suffering Doumeki to bring him food between his college classes.
He also continues to see dead people in dreams and communicate with alternate versions of himself in other dimensions, though for some reason he can't see Yuuko this way.
While Tsubasa has simply grown more and more outlandish and confusing, this story has reached the point of "seriously troubling." What will Watanuki do, if and when Yuuko returns? It's not even certain that he'll be able to leave the shop again, actually. Yuuko may end up stuck in her own shop with a kid harboring a disturbing Yuuko obsession.
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Watanuki Kimihiro, a once relatively normal high school student, has entered a downward spiral. After the witch Yuuko's disappearance at the end of last volume, he decides to take over her magic wish-granting shop and wait until she returns. He has no assurance that she will, of course, but that doesn't stop him from hanging out in the place, taking on her role as much as possible, and growing his own inherent powers to the point where his body may not even be able to sustain itself outside the shop. He also doesn't age. (It wasn't previously clear that the shop prevented aging, but it apparently does.) Doumeki and Kohane hang about and bring him food, a-quiver with fear that he will get himself killed by running the shop incorrectly. His former obsession, Himawari, is not around.
To put the situation clearly: Watanuki cuts himself off from the world outside while his friends grow and change over the course of several years. He pines for a woman too old for him, is worried over by a woman too young for him, and is apparently abandoned by the one woman in his life who is (was) actually his age. He wears the said older woman's clothes, smokes her pipe, drinks her booze, adopts certain of her mannerisms and does her job, consequently destroying his body and risking death in multiple ways. His customers visit him with horrible stories of cats being killed to make musical instruments, and he doesn't bat an eyelid - a sure sign of his rapid mental decay. He relies on the long-suffering Doumeki to bring him food between his college classes.
He also continues to see dead people in dreams and communicate with alternate versions of himself in other dimensions, though for some reason he can't see Yuuko this way.
While Tsubasa has simply grown more and more outlandish and confusing, this story has reached the point of "seriously troubling." What will Watanuki do, if and when Yuuko returns? It's not even certain that he'll be able to leave the shop again, actually. Yuuko may end up stuck in her own shop with a kid harboring a disturbing Yuuko obsession.