Kimihiro Watanuki

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Kimihiro Watanuki

Kimihiro Watanuki (四月一日君尋, Watanuki Kimihiro^?) is a fictional character in the Clamp manga, and anime, xxxHolic. The manga is currently ongoing and the anime series started 6 April 2006. He is voiced by Jun Fukuyama and in English is voiced by Todd Haberkorn.

1 Story
2 At the Shop
3 Relationships and Connections
4 For the Future?
5 Sources
6 External links

[edit] 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 evidently 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 Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, and so many "chance" happenings which occur not out of coincidence, but "hitsuzen".

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] 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), cleans (diligently), and complains (constantly), 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 part 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 (to the point of coughing up blood). Dōmeki eventually exorcises the spirit against Watanuki's will. 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 he thanks Dōmeki, and receives 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 by a spider whose nest was destroyed by his hand was transferred to Dōmeki. However, though he never really admits it, after realizing that when Dōmeki decided to help him out of the spider's web, he became handicapped from 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 disappointment and anger of Dōmeki. At this stage, there is an obvious change in how Dōmeki cares for Watanuki.

In volume 8 of the manga, Watanuki learns that the Zashiki Warashi has been captured by a "Spider Queen" for attempting to retrieve his right eye. Although Yūko warns him of the risk involved, he sacrifices his own safety in order to rescue the girl. When he is also captured and confronted by the spider queen, he crudely offers his left eye and other parts of his body for the return of the Zashiki Warashi.

The spider queen rejects the offer, asking him why she would want something he is just "throwing away." She tells him that he is "treating like garbage" what the Zashiki Warashi and his Kudakitsune are working so hard to get back. Watanuki learns a lesson of self-worth and importance in the chapter.

[edit] Relationships and Connections

Himawari Kunogi - Watanuki's crush and love interest. However, she avoided any further relationship with him because of her bad luck. Himawari goes to the same school as Watanuki and Domeki.

Yūko Ichihara - Watanuki's employer at his part time job in exchange for a wish he had. Their relationship is more of a master-slave and Mentor-student than anything romantic. She likes to tease him often, going as far as flirting with him or acting seductive, which irritates and embarrasses Watanuki more often than not. Yuko teaches him through experience (often humiliating if not near life and death situations) how he can grow and mature and seek his purpose.

Shizuka Dômeki - A classmate, who Watanuki sees as his rival mostly for Himawari's affections. He is Watanuki's polar opposite in terms of personality; while Watanuki is reactive and easily annoyed, Domeki is generally calm and to the point with everything he does. Around Domeki, Watanuki is safer when encountering any malicious spirits since Domeki is a spirit repellant. Despite Watanuki's rants as to how annoying it is to be with Domeki, Watanuki seems to willingly stay in his company and will make food for Domeki, himself, and Himawari when he says he will not. He often accompanies Watanuki in his assignments, ask him to make lunch for him, gets him to do chores and saves him most of the time in trouble....much to Watanuki's annoyance. However, it was already foretold that Watanuki will meet someone like Domeki and their relationships are said to run deeper.

Zashiki-warashi - A Vestal Sprite of pure and innocent spirit. Naive and shy, she easily moved to tears and has fallen in love or is infatuated with Watanuki. She gave him a Valentine's Day chocolate, but took it from Domeki's body (later returning it to Watanuki). She risked her life trying to get Watanuki's eye back from the Spider Queen, but the Queen's evil spirit was poisonous to her. Watanuki saved her life in turn. In Chapter 121, Zashiki Warashi appears again with the Ame Warashi to check in on Watanuki after a tragic accident from volume 10, chapters 118-119. Watanuki remarks that her voice had "changed," or had become "firmer than before."

Kohane Tsuyuri - The 11 year old prodigy in Spirit exorcism. She is introduced in Volume 9. No one has called her by her first name as long as she could remember. Watanuki being the first to call her " Kohane-chan" and be the one to give her first true act of kindness and in return she becomes the first person to call Watanuki by his first name, Kimihiro, since the death of his parents. She and Watanuki share somewhat a bond (storyline for this one still on going). She can also sense that Watanuki is not like normal human beings and that he could understand spirits like she does.

Syaoran - It is not fully explained yet what the connections are between the two. But it is indicated that the Futures of both Watanuki and the Syaorans of Tsubasa: Reservior Chronicles are closely intertwined. He met the clone on Volume 1 of TRC as well as xxxHolic and Chapter 119 of xxxHolic Watanuki was able to see a short glimpse of the real Syaoran

[edit] For the Future?

In chapter 2 of Volume 3, we are given our first real hint that Watanuki has a higher purpose to the xxxHolic 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. It can also be noted that Watanuki's first name, Kimihiro, means "Prophet", Yuko's fortune teller friend comments this is a good name for him. Watanuki also displays some precognitive abilities, notably the morning before he lost his eye he has a dream where half his field of vision is blocked out.

Lately in the manga storyline Yuuko has been letting Watanuki experience things on his own to contribute to his growth and maturity. This was explained in Volume 8 of the manga, where the change of his character was shown when he saved the Zashiki from the Spider Queen. This was noticed by other supernatural beings as well.

Currently after the events in Volume 7 and 8 of the manga where in Watanuki lost sight of his right eye after it being eaten by the Spider Queen/Ruler of Spiders in Volume 8, Watanuki now shares half of his right's eye vision with Doumeki.

In the latest chapters of Tsubasa that crossovers with xxxHolic, when Syaoran (the real one) was sent to Yuuko, the last thing Syaoran and Watanuki saw was each other. In Chapter 117 Watanuki fell from the school's second floor a result of Himawari tapping him of the shoulder. By Chapter 118-119 of the manga he also discovers Himawari's secret on why she is not his Goddess of Luck. In exchange to save his life Domeki offered his Blood, Himawari asked that she bear Watanuki's scars, and the 3rd person a TRC Character Syaoran (the real one) who paid the price already though what was it is still unrevealed, although it is speculated that it is the 'time' spent in confinement.

Chapter 133 of the TRC series gave a minor indication of Kimihiro's importance to the storyline since it was Sakura who fetched the egg that hatched into a Bird for Watanuki. Yuuko also stated the importance of the Mokona's since they are created solely to help prevent Fei's plans and help save 2 futures (TRC's and xxxHolic's)