Book Review: XXXHolic Omnibus – Volume 4 by CLAMP

Image Description: book-cover of XXXHolic Omnibus – Volume 4 by CLAMP.

Title: XXXHolic Omnibus – Volume 4
Creator: CLAMP
Social Media: Goodreads and Twitter
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Format and Price: Paperback at $33.42
Stars: 5 out of 5 stars

About The Book:
FATAL ATTRACTION
Watanuki just can’t seem to get a break. Whenever he makes efforts to spend time with his beloved Himawari, he’s given an excuse—or worse yet, he ends up alone with Dômeki. But when Watanuki finally gets a little more quality time with the girl of his dreams, he comes to discover the reason behind her constant avoidance and personally experiences the disastrous consequences of getting too close to her.

Yarr! Thar Be Spoilers Ahead. Ye Have Have Been Warned.

General Observations:
~Cross-Over Moment: In this Omnibus there’s a cross-over moment between Watanuki and Sakura from Tsubasa Chronicles. Apparently, the two of them can share dreams, and it turns out that Sakura going into a coma in Tsubasa Omnibus Volume 6 was an intentional decision on her part.

Sakura can apparently see snippets of the future (the extent of her clairvoyance isn’t established) and chose to put herself into a coma. Sakura did this in the hope of preventing the events of Tsubasa Omnibus Volume 6, unfortunately, this ended up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. From a certain point of view, I can understand Sakura’s thought process, any action she took could lead to the undesired outcome, so inaction could have been best choice she could make with the limited knowledge she had.

I have mixed feelings about this, I’m not a big fan of passive characters, and Sakura continues to have to this problem despite her self-awareness of it. I think Watanuki’s response to her situation (while not having all the information) was acceptable. Watanuki was kind, empathic, and encouraged Sakura to talk to Syaoran about her feelings. Simple but honest.

~Character and Plot Development – Himawari: In this volume, The reader finally gets to know what Himawari’s drama is, I know that might sound like minimalising her situation, but there’s only so much hype one can tolerate. It turns out Himawari’s situation is that she is somehow cursed to cause major events of Bad Luck. These events of Bad Luck are often fatal and manifest towards people who come into physical contact with her.

Every time Watanuki has had some form of indirect contact with Himawari, he has an injury, and this volume Watanuki almost dies because he falls through a second-floor window (a window Himawari came into contact with). Watanuki doesn’t care that Himawari could kill him by accident. Watanuki still wants to spend time with her and wants her to be happy.

I think the events involving Himawari are meant to show how Wei Fong is getting stronger, he’s able to reach out and use these dark cosmic powers to hurt Watanuki and, by proxy, Yuuko. I will acknowledge that this could just be speculation on my part and I could have it all wrong.

Sakura’s Side Quest from Tsubasa Omnibus Volume 6 has significance in this Omnibus. When the egg was passed to Yuuko via White Mokona, the egg duplicated into two, one magic and one mundane (although I hesitate to describe an egg teleported by a magical creature from an Acid-Tokyo alternative-dimension mundane). The egg is placed near Watanuki while he sleeps and, due to absorbing his emotions/intentions, the egg hatches.

A tiny and adorable canary emerges from the egg. Watanuki gives this magical creature to Himawari and, due to magic and/or something Watanuki did (it’s not quite clear), the canary will be immune from Himawari’s Curse of Bad Luck. I mean, a cat could still attack it and eat it, but protection from Cosmic Harm is still pretty good.

~Character Development – Black Mokona: As much as I dislike how the main characters of the Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-verse appear to be passive characters, essentially tossed about like chess-pieces, the side effects of those choices usually manifest within the XXXHolic series (you really do have to read both series to get a better understanding of what is going on).

In this volume, the reader gets to look behind the curtain, and gets to see how these events are affecting other important characters. Maru and Momo are dolls but are connected to the foundation of The Store. Due to the events that have unfolded in Tsubasa Omnibus Volume 6, require energy to maintain the store in the dimension it’s currently located in (I think?).

Yuuko implies that Fei Wong is getting stronger due to harvesting of souls from his Ko creatures and this is causing problems the Cosmic Balance/Order of the Multiverse (I think?). Yuuko is her usual vague self, however, I suspect that there’s more to this. I think The Store is under attack and Yuuko doesn’t want Watanuki to know about it, and cause him to worry.

It was just heartbreaking to see how this affecting Black Mokona. It turns out both Mokonas just want to be together, and make the people around them happy, but they can’t do that. It’s just so sad. Then I remembered that Yuuko and Clow Reed made the Mokonas together. It makes me wonder what the nature of their relationship truly was.

All in all, while the ending of the volume was confusing and lacked closure, there was a lot of character and plot development, and plot-events are also interconnecting in a way that makes a degree of sense. Looking forward to the next volume.

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