hontou ni sou omou?

The ×××HOLiC movie, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, was released on 2005-08-20 (ANN - see also for introductory synposis) and I’ve been looking forward to it since watching the trailer. Really hope that Arienai Fansubs will pick this up as my understanding of the movie, based on my half-baked Japanese, is far from perfect. Also looking forward to a post from CLAMP specialist, Dav, at Takoyaki & Ocha. I would be most grateful if readers could point out my errors or omissions.

I’ve chosen to use “×” (multiplication sign) for the first three characters instead of xxxHOLiC or XXXHOLiC - mostly because the series name is read simply as “holic” (ホリック) with the first three characters representing blanks rather than sounds. There’s variation on the official website so this is just a note on my personal perference.

Kimihiro Watanuki - a young man with the cursed blood of being able to see spirits but also attract them to him; Domeki - a schoolmate, archer, from a family of exorcists, his special ability is to repel spirits with his mere presence; Himawari - love interest of Watanuki, smells of trouble despite her utter niceness; Yûko Ichihara - the time-space witch, a powerful (moon) magic-user whom Watanuki works for to cure his curse. Further summary, spoilers and 129 screencaps. The screencap quality isn’t great as the file size was a manageable 445 megs. If it were the same quality (assuming same encoding) as for the trailer, it would have ended up at almost 900 megs!

Watanuki is on his way to Yûko’s shop for work but is harassed by spirits. They suddenly retreat because Domeki has drawn close. Domeki infuriates Watanuki as usual and there’s a short chat with Himawari who is unable (yet again) to accompany Watanuki. He refuses Domeki’s company and so has to endure the spirits until he touches the warded fence of Yûko’s shop which forces them away. Arriving to find a very glum Yûko who wants more drinks, he proceeds to do his chores. While dusting part of Yûko’s hoard of treasures (the accumulated fees of her services which she in turn sells when someone who needs them turns up), a customer appears. She wants to return to a mansion but is afraid to. She asks Yûko to fulfill her wish and hands over an ornate key.

[Pretty much a quick recap of the manga on Watanuki's problem, his natural antipathy to Domeki balanced against the usefulness of Domeki's presence to his well-being, his hopeless (and probably deeply problematic) infatuation with Himawari. That woman is trouble. I'm only at Vol.6 of the manga but the foreboding signs are getting heavier and more obvious.

More references of the basic concepts of Yûko's SOP. Yûko tells the customer that her coming is not "guuzen" (coincidence) but "hitsuzen" which connotes inevitablity and necessity. In the manga, DelRay leaves this word untranslated but it's more than adequately explained through Yûko's dialogue: "A naturally fore-ordained event. A state in which other outcomes are impossible. A result which can only be obtained by a single causality and other causalities would necessarily create different results. So reads... the Kondasha Japanese desk dictionary, second edition." :) I like this idea a lot and it is subtly different from the more oppressive fate/destiny (sadame) concept that CLAMP used abundantly in Tokyo Babylonn and X-1999.

The other is that Yûko provides services but demands proper compensation. Watanuki tends to think that this is merely an excuse for Yûko's greed a running joke in the manga is Watanuki interrupting at this point to describe Yûko as preparing to swiftly sink her poisonous fangs into the poor customer (毒牙一発 which DelRay translates as "in her clutches"). Again, Yûko explains this in the first volume of the manga: "Proper compensation must be made for offered goods or services. One must not offer too much for payment. One must not charge too much for the product. Reasonable... equitable... and fair. If it isnt... someone gets hurt. Your body in the material world. Your fortune in the celestial world. Your soul in the heavenly world." Again, I find this idea very compelling. It's a fairly subtle take on karma as it also places some responsibility on the buyer not to offer too much.]

Yûko and Watanuki arrive at the mansion with Domeki in tow. It’s clearly not a normal dwelling, evidenced by the weird architecture. The master of the house is never seen and only communicates by notes that appear mysteriously. It’s also a magical house as the door opened to a blank wall to Domeki but opened to the lounge when Watanuki tried it.

[Reminded me somewhat of Kim's mansion in Ghost in the Shell: Innocence in terms of its creepy gaudiness and potential to change like it was alive or an extension of a will.]

The other people in the house have been also invited to the house. They are all big-time, fanatical collectors and not very nice people. The Mugen-like collector says something about the invitation of the master of this house implying that Mugen-man’s collection not being complete and is pissed off at the insult. Their conversation produces a swirling black smelly spiritual atmosphere that makes Watanuki sick and he looks for the lavatory which he only finds after a tortorously long walk down passageways of very different styles. This emphasizes how big and strange the house’s interior is. On the way back, Watanuki hears a young girl crying, the sinister laughter of a young man and is scared out of his wits by a female apparation. He rushes back to where the others are - having a sumptuous dinner.

After dinner, they notice that some of the collectors have started to disappear but can only retire for the night, the master still having yet to appear except via note. Watanuki and Domeki share a room and the former has sepia-toned dreams of the house and a small girl as well as the swing which he saw outside. He awakens to see that the room has changed and that Domeki is no longer in it. A ghostly figure of a young girl appears, knocking on the door. Despite a note warning him not to leave the room, Watanuki leaves to look for Yûko and Domeki as he is worried about them. He walks through a nightscape and finally arrives in a spiral chamber. The first room he enters contains a vast collection of butterflies’ feelers and Domeki pops up behind him - seems that he also had the same idea.

[Watanuki's outbursts of temper at Domeki can be irritating after a while as they don't seem to have much a logical basis. Although we all have "natural enemies" and people whom we just don't like for some unfathomable and very deepdown primordial reason, Watanuki's exaggerated expressions get old after a while. So it is nice to see that actually deep down, he does care for Domeki and even Yûko. That first reaction of worry for them and that he must look for them was a true measure of the man and a heart that is not simply passively kind but actively caring.]

As Watanuki and Domeki explore the chambers, each contains a huge collection of one particular type of object ranging from leather neck collars to pitcher plants; walking sticks to traffic lights. In the room with the spoon collection, Watanuki sees the spoon that one of the collectors nicked after dinner; that collector was the first to go missing and now his portrait adorns the room. The fat collector and the Mugen man turn up.

The four return to the base of the spiral where the grotesque clock deposits notes saying that since they disobeyed by not staying in their rooms, a game will be played with consequences for win or loss. They appear in another room and the ceiling starts to descend. While Mugen man and Fat guy struggle with a locked door and each other to get out, Domeki finds a small door with the same symbol on Yûko’s client’s key. They manage to get it open and escape into a room while the ceiling presumably crushes the two collectors. The room turns out to be the same room from Watanuki’s dream and he uncovers a portrait of a young girl on the swing. He recognizes her as Yûko’s client and resolves to find Yûko. There’s something about a time limit as the house is filled with the chimes and words counting down the minutes appear on the walls. With just a minute to spare, the ghostly girl (who resembles the client’s child form) appears once more and pushes Watanuki down a stairwell. Trying to save Watanuki, Domeki is pulled down as well. They awaken unharmed at the bottom and enter a collection chamber marked by a human outline with a red heart.

They enter to face the master of the house and Yûko appears, surprising him as he did not detect her presence which Yûko explains was covered by the conflicting powerful auras of Watanuki and Domeki. The master of the house explains something about the auction - not sure what. However it is clear that he is also a collector and he collects collectors! This pisses Yûko off as he has trapped their souls in his vast collection hive-like gallery of portraits. We see the spoon collector there as well. As Yûko is determined to put a stop to this, the Collector blows up the room, summons loads of weird minions from around the house and attacks Yûko with black spiritual stuff.

Watanuki and Domeki try to help Yûko but have to fend for themselves against a giant perpetual motion chicken, wooden peg dolls, giant clay mummies, the rabbit on the moon armed with a hammer. Yûko manages to hold her, effortlessly dodging all the attacks while advancing on the Collector. But at the last burst, just as she is about to reach him, she has fallen in his trap and is collected as a portrait. It seems that all is lost but Yûko addresses the Collector, telling him to remember what he really wanted [I couldn't help but think of Athrun scolding Shinn as the vocabularly was almost exactly the same] and shows him the portrait of the little girl / client which Watanuki discovered. The collector takes the portrait and the house comes crashing down. All that remains is the normal original house.

The client is also there but is an old lady in a wheelchair. Yûko offers to return her key but the client refuses, saying that she no longer needs it. The Collector recognizes her instantly though and recalls how he promised to look after the house in her absence and to await her promised return. He then promises to collect many things in the house to impress her when she does. They seem to have a butler-master type of relationship. However in the course of all that collecting, he forgot his original purpose and the obsession caused the house to change and made the girl too afraid to return. Now that is past, the client reverts to her child form and holding hands, they enter the house amidst bright shining light. Yûko, Watanuki and Domeki watch, smiling.

In a lakeside house, Yûko is relaxing, fanning herself and looking over the lake at the mansion where they just completed their job. Watanuki comes in and he eventually asks if Yûko had suffered heartbreak in the past. I assume that it has something to do with her being “collected” due to this vulnerability. Just as she is about to tell him, Mokona relays an emergency message from the Tsubasa Chronicle gang in the Princess of the Bird Cage Country movie. Yûko exchanges the key for Tomoyo’s bell. Domeki enters and Himawari is a surprise guest. Having completely lost the thread of that tantilising conversation, Watanuki says that inviting Himawari here was the kindest thing she has done for him so far. But, of course, being Yûko, she demands compensation from him - he has to prepare food to go along with her sake. As he alternates between being furious with Domeki’s menu demands and being all lovey-dovey when Himawari confirms Domeki’s requests, Yûko toasts the house and wishes the former inhabitants all the best. End.

[Aargh... I really wanted to know more about Yûko's back story. She's my favourite character in the ×××HOLiC universe - I love her languid manner, her poles of deadly powerful seriousness and flippant zany humourness, her propensity to drink a lot. It was great that the movie also showed that she is not invincible - makes her more interesting though if there was some material that develops her in the style of Motoko Kusanagi in SAC 2nd Gig, that would be perfect. And kudoes to Sayaka Ohara for doing a great job on voiceacting Yûko. My major grouse is that her dress for the house visit was too plain -the choker didn't make up for it. All her outfits in the manga are really interesting, ornately baroque, mixing East and West, old and new as well as being really sexy. Would have liked to see her in more poses and tease Watanuki more.

Overall, an enjoyable one hour movie. Looking forward to the TV series and more volumes of the manga!]