Watanuki is cursed to see the spirits that haunt the living world. He is constantly seeing things he doesn't want to and so when a spirit leads him to a mysterious shop where a beautiful woman tells him she will grant his greatest wish, he jumps at the chance. Yuko, a capitalistic mystic, won't do anything for free. She presses Watanuki into service to clean her house, cook her food, run her errands and so on. Working for a mystic can be an interesting experience when you can see spirits. Watanuki uses his unwanted ability to fiture out more about Yuko.Another great read from CLAMP. Like always they like to mix their storylines from several series and this one ends with a twist from Card Captor Sakura. I understand that later this series gets a little on the raunchy side but CLAMP is never that dirty (except Chobits). ( )

xxxHolic is the story of Wakanuki Kimihiro, a boy who sees spirits. One day, Wakanuki finds himself mysteriously drawn into a shop where he meets Yuko, a woman who can, for a price, grant any wish. Yuko agrees to stop Watanuki seeing spirits but, in exchange, Watanuki must work in her shop. The rest of the first volume revolves around two of Yuko's customers and how she's helping them.

xxxHolic is a fun, light manga, and this is a good first volume, introducing most of the key characters and the basis of their relationships, it sets the stage for what's to come. The art is pretty and the characters are lively and engaging. ( )

A high school student plagued by the ability to see spirits, Watanuki wanders into the shop of Yuko, a witch who grants wishes for a price. Yuko talks Watanuki into working for her (mostly household chores) in order to grant his wish to no longer see the spirits. Premise set, the rest of the volume goes in 'plot/person of the week' form, dealing with Yuko's customers, whom she doesn't seem to so much grant the wishes of but rather attempts to help them break addictions they may have.

Besides a handful of episodes of Card Captor Sakura, this is my first actual experience with CLAMP. While I was sure CCS was not an all-inclusive representation of everything CLAMP is capable of, various other hearsay (though intended to be positive) left me with the impression that their works were likely very, very good at giving people exactly what they wanted and looking very cool while doing it, but not having a great amount of substance besides that. I'm cool with something just being entertaining, but unfortunately I often have to have, say, compelling, multi-dimensional characters with interesting or relatable motivations in order to be entertained, and I thought CLAMP series might spend more time making their character cool, sexy, and fun to cosplay as than on the things I was more interested in. So I avoided them. But hey, had to try it some time, right?

As of yet I am decidedly unentertained, verging on annoyed. Though that certainly has to do with a pet peeve of mine. I cannot stand so many manga's apparent love of mystical, often overly simplistic philosophizing about random 'plot of the week' characters' lives. xxxHolic SWIMS in this.

And its arguments as far as I can tell are either not overly sophisticated, or vague allusions to 'lessons' we will probably learn in the future but make little sense now. The first plot, for example, is about a compulsive liar. For some inexplicable reason this compulsive liar's lying magically manifests itself as a black cloud of smoke Watanuki can see around her, making parts of her body unable to move. She doesn't stop lying (understandable since no one ever actually tells her that's the problem and there's little to help her realize this since the problem only recently started yet she's clearly been a compulsive liar for some time, and it's clearly COMPULSIVE, after all), so the problem quickly gets worse and it ends tragically. Yuko then goes off about how someone with an addiction has to cure themselves, what's considered good or bad differing between people, and creating your own 'world.'

On the other hand, as mentioned, philosophizing like this seems to be common in many manga (though not usually quite at this level). Considering the amount of time xxxHolic devotes to it I still wouldn't consider it a minor quibble, but it's still prevalent in manga to a point that if I were to insist that any series that has it is bad, I'm really just kind of being a twat.

So far, though, there's not too much else to judge. Yuko is perhaps the most interesting element so far. She's cool, collected, manipulative and her character design does a lot to emphasize her mystical, slightly unsettling aura. She's a bit harsh, probably not evil, but we're not really sure what to make of her besides that. I'm not really intrigued by her yet, but I assume we'll learn more about her later and she could eventually become intriguing.

Watanuki, though, is so far just your usual manga high school boy thrown into supernatural surroundings, slightly confused and constantly exasperated. We barely learn anything about him besides that he bickers a little with Yuko, likes a girl, he's an orphan, and other random info that doesn't really help us *get to know* him. It's to the point where I feel like I can't even really fault his characters just because I know so little about what the series intends to do with him.

Thus, while this volume provided fairly low enjoyment for me and there were very prevalent aspects I disliked, I can't quite bring myself to give up entirely on the series just yet, considering its popularity and fairly good presentation. The pandering and shallow entertainment I was slightly afraid to see picking up a CLAMP series wasn't really so much there, so I can only assume there are other reason for people to like this. Till I read on and find out what those reasons are, and determine that those reasons still don't appeal to me, I can't honestly say I dislike it. Likable, interesting characters have gone a long way in the past to make me accept aspects of a series I've been less than enthusiastic about.

In the end, I guess the best suggestion I can give to others currently is that this volume may not be a sufficient introduction to this series, and that if you want to give it an honesty try out, you may want to have access to one or two more. ( )

Watanuki is pestered by ghosts and really wishes it would stop. As luck (or destiny) would have it he is drawn to the shop of a beautiful wish-giver and her two tiny twin helpers. Watanuki is desperate to get rid of his spirit issues, but servitude to the lovely witch for an indefinite period of time is the price.

This manga was interesting. Yuko's circulatory way of speaking is annoying for the other characters around her but I found it entertaining as I also found the twin chorusers. What I didn't care for was the fact that there was a big deal made out of the cross-over between this and the first volume of Tsubasa (which I loved!), but this part only comes about at the very end. I thought this was a bit frustrating. Of course, I am sure this part of the story is followed up in volume 2 and I guess this is probably a decent marketing strategy for getting you to buy it. This manga is certainly appropriate for kids 12 and up and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. ( )