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Watanuki, high school student with a part time job like no other, is back in Volume Two. His boss, Yuko, a granter of wishes, has more adventures for him, more spirits and bad mojo to investigate. In Volume One we learned that Watanuki can see spirits, leading fate to draw him to Yuko for help. In Volume Two, it’s more of the same as Watanuki blindly stumbles from phenomenon to phenomenon, helping those who need it, or just encountering the bizarre.

Like the first set, Volume Two is comprised of four episodes. The first is a quaint little adventure, where the complete mischief of the full moon comes out to play. Fans of the manga will be happy to see Mokona take a starring role in this episode, as Watanuki meets two fox people who make. . . what else? Stew.

“Indulgence”, the second episode, is straight from the manga almost shot for shot. Yuko gets called in to help a woman get over her online addiction, and in doing so she uses a red baseball bat marked to resemble Zantetsuken from Lupin III. It’s a fun reference, and reminds us that xxxHolic is a smart, current show.

“Hydrangea” takes us to another world, where a little girl is lost and needs Watanuki’s help. He is forced to recruit his pal/rival Domeki, and the two (led by a feisty yet adorable rain god in an amazingly cute Loli outfit) struggle to hang onto their lives and right something that has gone very wrong. With this episode, xxxHolic strays into a darker place, one that gets explored even better in the fourth and last episode, “Contract”.

A young antiques student happens by Yuko’s house while Watanuki is doing a bit of spring cleaning in the warehouse. She spots an old pendant and (with Yuko’s reluctant permission) takes it for study. The item is no less than a monkey’s paw, and it grants the woman’s wishes. The episode starts out like the others, but with each passing moment it gets creepier and creepier, delving into the places people will go to fulfill their wishes. Eventually the story comes full circle in a morbid way. It is, by far, the best episode on the disk.

Volume Two doesn’t have many extras; there are the obligatory stream of trailers, which all look marvelous, and an image gallery that is perfectly lovely and fun to flip through. The last extra is a textless song, which pops up on many anime DVDs and has to be the most useless extra ever. But the episodes are excellent, and this DVD doesn’t need to rely on extras to draw in viewers. 

Clamp uses the xxxHolic manga to weave links between their different worlds, but in the anime, xxxHolic is a world of its own. Though there are hints and references to other worlds, xxxHolic stands on its own feet, and that’s not a bad thing at all. 

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