xxxHOLiC The Movie: A Midsummer Night's Dream

xxxHOLiC is one of my favourite series (though, I only read the manga) so when I heard that there was a movie for it, I immediately jumped and went to find it. I was not disappointed! Story -- If anything made me hesitate about seeing this movie, it was the story. For most movies based off of an anime series, their plots generally leave something to be desired. For the most part, they tend to feel like one long episode rather than an actual movie. However, xxxHOLiC's movie actually felt like a movie. I can't quite put my finger on it, but regardless, this movie deliverson plot. The mystery and intrigue build and build, occasionally relieved by humour (mostly on Watanuki's part) or heightened by some frightening scenes. Near the end, the story got a little confusing, but that's quite typical of xxxHOLiC and CLAMP in general, so it wasn't all that unexpected. What was interesting, though, was that this movie explains the meaning of the series' title. This hasn't even been done in the manga to my knowledge, so I do wonder if this is something CLAMP has confirmed themselves or if it was made specifically by the movie's director. Still, when it was revealed, it made sense and sheds more light on the manga's themes, which I really enjoyed. Art -- If you know CLAMP's latest art style, you'll know that they're in a tall and lanky character phase. This movie carries over that style into its art and it takes a bit to get used to - all too often, the heads seem to small, the limbs too long and rubbery, etc. But putting that aside, the art is fabulous. The colours and rich and vibrant, and the scenery in the house is especially something to be marvelled at. On my DVD, I even took a few minutes to go over the slides of the background art so I could get a closer look at them (because you only get a few seconds to see them in the actual movie!) Sound -- As usual, the seiyuu did excellent jobs. Even the English voice actors didn't do too badly (the only exception, for me, was Mokona's English voice but Mokona has such a small role in this movie that it wasn't too detracting). The music was wonderfully done, as well, thanks to the work of Saitou Tsuneyoshi. There are some very good tracks on the OST, and they really contribute to the atmosphere and feeling of the movie - everything from building mystery and wonder to Yuuko's jazzy, fun theme at the end. And maybe just as importantly, silence is used effectively to build suspense at the freakiest of moments. Character -- I really suggest knowing what xxxHOLiC is about before going into this movie because you really need to understand who the characters are. I showed this movie to my non-otaku friends and I had to explain who everyone was and what they did before they could understand it. And because this is a movie and not the actual series, there isn't too much character development here (since most of that seems to be reserved for the actual anime and manga), which is where it may fall short. This movie is more plot-driven than character-driven, after all. The original characters for this movie were average - not particularly memorable but not bad, either. Enjoyment & Overall -- Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and have watched it multiple times and intend to watch it more in the future. If you're familiar with xxxHOLiC, it stands on its own well enough, but you might also want to check out the Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles movie, too (if you buy the DVD, they come as a set), since like the original series, they intertwine and events that occur in one movie affect what happens in the other. Still, I thought the xxxHOLiC movie did a much better job in terms of presentation and plot, but that'll lead us into a completely different review. In any case, I'd definitely recommend this movie to any xxxHOLiC fan.

Addictions… they are something that you can put your whole life and wellbeing into, not caring who you harm and sometimes even forgetting why you started it to begin with. No, this is not a two step ‘drug addiction’ seminar; it’s the start of a strange twist of fate for Watanuki and his friends. The movie starts out like any other episode of the anime really, with Watanuki being loaded down with a mass of spirits who all seem to want his attention up till he finally reaches the place that he works at, Yuuko’s wish granting house where he works like a slave forher. I can understand why they started it out with this as there is a need to explain who the characters are within the movie, but for people like me who know the story from both the anime and manga, it feels like a cop out. The reason why Watanuki is working at Yuuko’s place is so he would not have this trouble with spirits hanging on him all the time, but here we see that even though he has been working there a little while, the spirits do bother him. I can feel a little bit of annoyance when Yuuko talks about how he doesn’t see them that much but that’s because he is working at her place. Outside of that, nothing has changed at all (At least that’s how it feels). Surprisingly, most of my problems with this Movie were only in the first few minutes of it, up till we have them going to a mansion that a woman had asked Yuuko to help get into (besides some animation hiccups I guess). The storyline was very well thought out and the characters were as loveable and funny as in the anime. Some minor problems of the show were pushed off to the side because of the rest of it being rather good. I felt like I was watching part of the anime without the cuts from it having to go into the next episode. I know some people get mad when a movie doesn’t feel like a movie but to me, I was happy to see this. Since I loved the anime already so it was nice seeing they had not changed anything. The mansion was pretty creepy and was a lot like the Winchester mansion with doors and staircases leading no where and the ‘room within a room’ aspect but I had to wonder slightly why it was like that. I felt like we were going threw a ton of dimensions, rooms that felt like the outside, rooms so small you could hardly walk into, and even a really strange tiny tunnel that Watanuki had to crawl through to get to the restroom (and make himself look like a walking stick the whole way with his strange limbs). Then we have a strange feeling of a murder mystery where everyone was given an invitation to be there and then people start disappearing starting with one person and then going on to more. All of them had a common intrest; all of them collected things like an addiction. Now you can understand why I brought up the addiction part in the beginning of this review. And even in the end of the movie, I felt that I had still questions that were left unanswered and no closer to them. I’m not against not having all the answers, but there was one that bothered me and sadly, I can’t say it or it will be a large spoiler. The artwork is really strange, and sometimes goes overboard compared to the anime. We do have the long limbs and over exaggerated faces that Watanuki is known for, the overly Slenderman look-a-likes of all the characters and the sometimes overly barbaric proportions of head to body ratios everybody whines about. But then we have some creepier looking things in the movie then just how the characters look. There are times when we are given CG rendered rooms that look almost perfect to the cartoon aspects and then they are placed next to rather low detailed objects like the characters for example. Sometimes it didn’t work but I found that most of the time it did as it would give you a very chilling feeling and add to what I believe the creators wanted. I was not disappointed in the slightest of the movie and that’s surprising as my expectations were pretty high seeing as I liked the anime and manga both. If you are in the same book as me, I think you would really enjoy it as well.

xxxHolic is probably my favorite manga and one of my favorite animes. My experience with anime movies has never been too promising; for example, I've seen and hated 5 of the Naruto movies, the Tsubasa movie was dreadful and so the Fairy Tail one, some Digimon movies were also quite bad (though there are some that deserves to be recognized as very good). So I avoided the xxxHolic movie for quite a while, and when I finally made up my mind into watching it I decided not to expect that much from it. However, I'm glad I did, because I had a great time. It'snot perfect, but it's pretty great mixing good comedy with some very disturbing (and quite effective) thriller moments. Story: It's quite simple, there's a request from a woman because her key won't unlock her mansion, and Yuuko sends (as per usual) Watanuki to handle the job. Now, while the premise is pretty much the case of the week format of the manga and anime, the development is quite clever and has distinctive elements that make us feel that we are watching a movie and not just an extended episode, which is quite important; many anime based movies feel just like an extended episode, but here the storytelling takes different paces. While usual episodes tend to move a bit slowly to introduces us to the problem before speeding up in the end, here the pace is way more regular, speeding just a bit in the end, little by little, until it creates a perfectly balanced climax. Now, there are some flaws here and there: mostly the villain at the end is not very compelling, but the way Yuuko and company takes care of him is quite brilliant. Mostly, it's very cleverly handled, but the ending could have been better handled; it's not that it's bad (not at all!), it is that you feel like "ok, this was a good film, but that's it", it doesn't feel transcendent. Still, you are up for bid enjoyment if you like xxxHolic. Character: xxxHolic strongest point has always been character; we get to explore them in depth, we get to know what is right and wrong with them, what are their strengths and their weaknesses and the movie is live ups to the anime/manga character treatment, with the sole expectation that the villain (as mentioned before) is a bit rushed, but that's a minor flaw to an otherwise greatly developed cast of characters, including Watanuki; I mention him because it's not rare for main characters to actually go out of character in movies, but he still feels the same and he reacts as we could expect, and for me that's a winner. Sound: Marvelous, xxxHolic has always had a great track (and so its sister series, Tsubasa) and the movie doesn't fall behind. Not just the music, background sounds are in complete sync; there's a moment when a ghost appears out of nowhere at Watanuki's back and the track there just lands perfectly. When scenes must be bizarre, the track is right, when there's need for comedy, drama or thriller, the track is still right. Enjoyment: I had a great time! It's the best anime based movie I watched thus far, and this actually encourages me to see some others out there that I haven't checked out because of my bad luck with anime based movies. Though it's certainly not the best I've seen, it's still pretty damn good. If you are a fan of xxxHolic, I'm quite sure you'll like it.