xxxHolic Vol. 4 Review

            In the first three episodes of the volume, the first half of the series will end and the second half will begin with more lessons for Watanuki to learn. In episode thirteen, Watanuki will meet a girl named Mie. She seems nice enough, very polite and everyone loves her but something about her has been changing lately. Her personality has grown darker and Watanuki is seeing wings growing out of her back. With a warning from Yuko, Watanuki will investigate further and find out the truth behind the wings.

            In the next two episodes, Doumeki and Watanuki meet twin sisters. While they may look alike though, their personalities are completely different. One is always cheerful and talkative and one does nothing but sulk and lets out a negative attitude. As the four go out on a couple of double dates, Watanuki will learn the true power of words. Especially their ability to bind ourselves and others to a dark fate.

            Finally in episode sixteen, Watanuki has grown tired of his full sized pipe fox. Yuko helps him to get the fox back to its travel size but along the way, will also help reunite him Ame-warashi and Zashiki-warashi.

Good and the Bad

            As with the three previous three volumes of xxxHolic, the four episodes on this volume accomplish their intended purpose of keeping the audience interested. The next two episodes serve as the launching point for the second half of the series. In the two episodes, Watanuki and Doumeki go out on a couple of double dates learning about the twin who constantly bounds herself to failure with her own negative words and thoughts. The premise for the episode and theme behind Yuko’s lesson for Watanuki is a slightly new twist on the tried and true ‘think positive’ message. The change in the older twin though really happens way too suddenly. Just a couple of small nudges to think positively and suddenly her world is changed? As though she had never heard that once before in her life?

            Seeing character return for the final episode of the volume is where this series once again manages to bait me in. The episode itself has a strong story and premise within it. Yuko helping Watanuki to get the pipe fox back to normal size works as a solid premise to get Watanuki into the setting he needs to be in. While the relationship development between the characters is still rather weak, the scenes they spend together come across well. The primary reason for this is that while there is some physical comedy with Zashiki-warashi, most of these scenes were played down. xxxHolic is a series that never lets herself enjoy the quiet moments nearly enough so letting these two have some time to just be quiet and smitten is fun.

            As with previous volumes, the development of characters in xxxHolic remains much too slow. In this volume Watanuki will see his token development but there is one piece that gets completely cut off. In episode thirteen, Maru and Moro have a very sudden and abrupt piece of character development inserted. The scene will catch audiences off guard as they learn a new truth about these characters… before it is just as abruptly cut off by a Watanuki/pipe fox gag. I can’t imagine how many audience members would have loved to have heard those two continue their little speech for just ten more seconds.

Music

            Starting with episode fourteen, the series will feature a new ending theme. The new song, “Kagerou” by BUCK-TICK, is a soft rock song that fits well with the closing each episode. The song is accompanied by Maru, Moro and Mokona doing air band to the song as the closing animation. That proved to be interesting to watch a couple of times.

Dub vs. Sub

            As with previous volumes, the constant use of Japanese words and phrases make this series much more enjoyable in the original Japanese. Brina Palencia does a great job with the role of Zashiki-warashi, J. Michael Tatum as Doumeki and Colleen Clinkenbeard remain highlights of the dub cast. The original Japanese makes all the terms and phrases sound much more natural though.

Extras

            Only an image gallery and clean animations are included.

Overall

            Once again I find myself torn on how much I actually like xxxHolic. While the characters are continuing to encourage curiosity on what will ultimately happen to them, I’m still not excited to see more. With its very slow story pacing and yet more overreliance on sight gags, xxxHolic has so far not lived up to the hype. With the second half now completely underway though, the series has at least earned enough passing notice to pull me in for the rest.