I decided to check out the 2nd season of xxxholic. I am a big fan of the manga, but have yet to see the full first season, although the bits and pieces I have seen left me thoroughly disappointed. I was a little nervous about watching this, but after two episodes, I am pleasantly surprised.

xxxholic season two is proving very easy to pick up, although I read the manga I get the impression one starting the series from this point would find it very easy to jump into. All you need to know is
Watanuki in indebted to work in Yuko’s shop, and her shop grants wishes.

To start off, what don’t I like about this series. The art is terrible, there’s no question about that. One would think a Clamp production would call for high quality art, but this proves that is not the case. Otherwise, there’s a few scenes that make absolutely no sense.

Onto the good. The series is far from the norm, and manages to remain very compelling. And there always seems to be a new oddity in the bunch such as goldfish swimming in the sky. It probably these odditys that just make the show so much fun. The main characters aren’t that deep, but fun. Especially their interactions with each other, they tend to be simple but comical, and the animation adds to that with exaggerated faces.

The secondary characters are fascinating, and are probably what holds interests. Most of them are spirits, all very quirky and full of personality. The monsters that have been shown so far also go into this catogory, very unlike any I’m use to seeing. Especially when they’re smaller then the hero rather then bigger.

Otherwise the opening song is awesome. The opening theme animation captures the series beautifully, I hope to get ahold of just the opening theme soon. The ending song, not so thrilled about, seems pretty terrible to me. The ending animation is very cute, I always wanted to see a robo Mokona. I’m definitely going to keep watching this, and have my fingers crossed that this continues to be good.

Only two episodes in, and I’m finding a huge attachment to the character Himawari, who is Watanuki’s love interest. She’s so sweet, adorable, naaive, but manages to remain pretty smart, so it’s hard not too. I’ve got a bad feeling that she’s got some bad future ahead of her though…