Kimihiro Watanuki
Encyclopedia : K : KI : KIM : Kimihiro Watanuki
-->
Story
Watanuki is a high school student whose life has been a rather difficult one — not only have both his parents died, forcing him to live alone, but he is plagued daily by spirits that only he can see (both the ability to see them and the cause of their attacks are apparently heritable traits—apparently Watanuki's blood smells very delicious to spirits).On one run-of-the mill day, while Watanuki is being attacked by a monster, he falls over and his hand lands on a fence. Oddly, the monster is instantly repelled. Beyond the fence is a very strange house, and before he knows it, Watanuki has stumbled past the two fence posts and into the courtyard of the house. Two little girls appear at the front door and take him by the hand, welcoming him into the house as a guest. Watanuki argues that he only stumbled in on accident, but a strange voice replies that it was inevitable he stumble in—it was destiny. This voice belongs to the powerful sorceress Yūko Ichihara, and the home he has stumbled into is actually a store that grants wishes.
Yūko asks what Watanuki wishes for, and he replies that he only wants the spirits and ghosts to leave him alone. Yūko agrees to fulfill his wish, but only for an equitable payment—he must work at her store as payment, and when his "diligence" has balanced out his wish, she will grant it. This marks the beginning of Watanuki's very involved part-time job, a fated meeting with a certain quartet from , and so many "chance" happenings which occur not out of coincidence, but "hitsuzen".
At the Shop
Life for Watanuki changes significantly once he starts working as Yūko's assistant (rather, her very indignant indentured servant) who not only cooks (wonderfully) and cleans (diligently), but finds himself performing very odd jobs and learning more about the occult.Watanuki learns the power of fortune telling, not realizing that it is the beginning of a transformation of himself. One of his biggest problems revealed is his skewed vision of self-worth; he would gladly give up any of himself in order to help another. This may be the reason why Yūko asked him to work for her in the first place—perhaps nothing was important enough to him to pay for the wish. This causes trouble when others make a decision to help him at their own cost. Watanuki cannot accept that someone would sacrifice themselves for his sake.
Watanuki puts himself in great physical danger to spend time with the spirit of a woman who lost her child while he was still young. He does it out of loneliness and because he does not want the spirit to feel the loneliness he has felt. He continues to accompany the spirit even though the visits cause him to become extremely ill. Dōmeki eventually exorcises the spirit. She leaves thanking Watanuki for taking away her loneliness and reminding him that there are people who would not want to see him disappear. After realizing that Dōmeki only attacked her so that Watanuki would not die, and a little hint from Yūko that he indeed would be missed and that he is needed.
In Volume 7 a grudge supposedly intended for Watanuki of a spider who's nest was destroyed by his hand, was tranferred to Domeki. However, though he never realy admits it, after realizing that when Dōmeki decided to help him out of the sipder's web, that caused Domeki not being able to open one of his eyes, Watanuki made a way to have the grudge transferred to him by "something worse" to the spider, thus making lose one of his eyes.... much to the dissapointment of Domeki. (at this stage there is a obvious change in how Domeki cares for Watanuki)
For the Future?
In chapter 2 of Volume 3, we are given our first real hint that Watanuki has a higher purpose to the ×××HOLiC universe than to simply do Yūko's handiwork and have his wish granted. In the final panel, Yūko cryptically remarks, "Watanuki is a good kid, didn't we both think that? Clow..." This strongly suggests that Watanuki's arrival at the store was expected and possibly prepared for, just as Clow Reed and Yūko prepared the Mokona's for the Tsubasa group's arrival and Sakura's staff (the Sakura of Cardcaptor Sakura) well in advance. Yūko also mentions that her store was created specifically for a future event. At this point, the audience can only speculate as to what said event is. It is also worth mentioning that Watanuki and Sakura Kinomoto share the same birthdate: April 1st. Because Clow Reed and Yūko are old friends, there might be something about Watanuki too that renders him as special as Sakura.Sources
- http://www.tsubasachronicle.net/ - a comprehensive site including information on TRC, xxxHOLiC and CCS.
- http://fukanounashigoto.free.fr/tsubasa-holic/
External Links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.