Xxxholic

"There is no coincidence in this world. The only thing is Hitsuzen." Said like a catchphrase from the proprietress of a shop that grants wishes. This essentially means that everything in the world is ordained by the choices people make. Or, more accurately, a mix of fate and choices. We as humans change. With change comes choices we will have to make. Those choices create hitsuzen. There's a common theme between Holic and Tsubasa, making your own fate. In Holic, this comes through our main character, Watanuki Kimihiro. I, for a long time while reading, did not like Watanuki. He's annoying, oddly logical in a supernatural environment, and super strict in strange ways. It was these traits that turned me off of him for a long time. It is also these traits that endeared me to Watanuki over time. It was these particular traits of Watanuki that also allowed him to create his own fate. He is his own being, his own existence, and despite his obvious flaws, he wouldn't be Watanuki without them.

His boss, the proprietress of the wish granting shop, is Yuko. She has a butterfly motif, and besides some scant few details revealed slowly and consistently, there's not much known about her. She drinks liquor a lot. Yuko is an important character in both Holic and Tsubasa. In Holic, she's Watanuki's mentor. In Tsubasa, she's the space-time witch who is helping behind the scenes. I really like Yuko. She's goofy in times of calm and serious when needed. Exactly my type. She's also intentionally mysterious. She's extremely adept in the ways of the supernatural and seems to know everything that's going on everywhere. She cares a lot about her shop and Watanuki. If Watanuki is the soul of XXXholic, Yuko is the heart.

XXXHOLIC is all about the shop. It's put in a semi-episodic way, but in reality, the things we see happen happen for a reason. Whether it's to teach Watanuki something or to further the background goals of Yuko. For a price, Yuko grants wishes. The price she asks will be equivalent to the difficulty of the wish. The two stories happen simultaneously, and the crossover that is promised happens quite a bit. The wishes that Yuko grants she grants to both Watanuki and the characters in Tsubasa very frequently. The wishes people make are powerful. Enough to change a great many things. Enough to create something seemingly impossible. Enough to change inevitability.

Overall, i enjoyed Holic. Its themes and characters set out what it wanted to say and did it extremely well. It's not saying much to say that this is a great clamp manga because all of what clamp creates is fantastic. Every reference and callback to previous stories for seemingly no reason is no coincidence. (Maybe except Miyuki-chan).