List of xxxHolic characters
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This is a list of characters in the manga and anime series xxxHolic.
Main characters
Kimihiro Watanuki
- Voiced by: Jun Fukuyama (Japanese); Todd Haberkorn (English)
Kimihiro Watanuki (四月一日 君尋, Watanuki Kimihiro) is a high school student plagued daily by spirits who are constantly attracted to him. After meeting Yūko, she promises to remove this unwanted ability in exchange for working part-time in her shop until it equals the worth of his wish. He lives by himself due to his parents no longer being around, so he excels in cooking and cleaning, much to Yūko's pleasure. She also sends him on various jobs that often have a spiritual nature.
Watanuki is known for a having both a volatile and caring nature to him. Depending upon the person he talks to, his emotions tend to be overly exaggerated. While around Himawari, he is very excited and speaks in a high-pitched voice, while he expresses irritation while speaking to Dōmeki. He generally uses very wild facial expressions and arm motions to express himself. He generally gets enraged at the often insane requests of Yūko, though he will pay close attention whenever she is serious with him.
Watanuki is essentially another part of Syaoran,[1] having been created to fill the gap left by Syaoran after he decided to turn back time and erase himself from his own world to save Sakura. Watanuki becomes the child of Syaoran's parents, and fills all of the relationships Syaoran would have made, which means that Watanuki's existence is essential to keeping stability in the universe. Watanuki gives up the memories of his past in order to help Yuko find Fei Wong Reed and protects Syaoran and his friends. This makes him question his humanity, as he cannot remember anything about his past, the exchange, or even things that he has eaten.
After Yūko's death, Watanuki resolves to stay and care for the shop until he sees her again. In order to both stabilize the shop and break free of Fei Wong Reed's trap with Syaoran, Watanuki offers up the remainder of his 'existence'. As a result, Watanuki can no longer age nor leave the shop. He becomes the new master of the shop and takes up Yūko's role of granting wishes to those who come to the shop.
Over the next several years, Watanuki's 'powers' get stronger. He also begins to adopt many of Yūko's characteristics, habits, and even her demeanor.
Yūko Ichihara
- Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara (Japanese); Colleen Clinkenbeard (English)
Yūko Ichihara (壱原 侑子, Ichihara Yūko) is a woman who runs a shop that deals in granting wishes in exchange for something of equal value to the wish; sometimes this is referred to as a soul. She can take anything from a precious object to abstract concepts, such as love and luck in exchange. She usually displays an immature and free-spirited attitude, drinking saké (酒) at all hours of the day and forcing difficult tasks upon Watanuki. While dealing with customers or giving Watanuki advice, she is much more stern and offers cryptic messages to warn him and others of impending danger. She constantly speaks of inevitability and how nothing is a coincidence.
Yūko had a past relationship with Clow Reed, and while she was on the verge of dying, he accidentally used his powers to freeze time for her just by wishing for her to open her eyes. After that point, she battles against Fei Wong Reed by using the wishes of others. She also takes in Watanuki in order to fulfill her wish of keeping him in existence in order to balance the split time line created by Syaoran, and help him better himself. After a while, time returned to her and she dies.
Shizuka Dōmeki
- Voiced by: Kazuya Nakai (Japanese); J. Michael Tatum (English)
Shizuka Dōmeki (百目鬼 静, Dōmeki Shizuka) is a classmate of Watanuki. He lives in a shrine owned by his late grandfather, a Shinto priest, who taught Dōmeki about folklore and shinto practices during his childhood. However, despite his heritage, Dōmeki has a nearly null ability of seeing ghosts or spirits, though he can sense them, and he has a natural ability to exorcise them. He is part of the school's kyūdō club and often tops school competitions. Dōmeki barely speaks unless explaining folklore or asking Watanuki for bento lunches made up of hard to find ingredients in order to infuriate him.
Watanuki generally states that he doesn't like Dōmeki's calm and sarcastic demeanor, and often becomes enraged at any small comment. Despite his hatred, they have been stated to be connected by fate. Dōmeki's natural ability to repel and exorcise spirits works well at keeping away the large number of spirits attracted to Watanuki. Even though Dōmeki may seem sarcastic and rude around Watanuki and is sometimes annoyed with his many eccentricities, Dōmeki does seem to have a great deal of concern over Watanuki's well-being. Utilizing Yūko's shop, Dōmeki has given Watanuki half of his eye, which allows Dōmeki to see and experience what Watanuki goes through. He has also given Watanuki a large amount of his blood, which Yūko states is slowly changing their personalities.
Four years after Yūko's death, Dōmeki is a university student studying ancient history and often visits Watanuki in the shop. Because Watanuki cannot leave the shop, Domeki provides assistance both with Watanuki's work and by providing essentials, such as food. Yuko gave Domeki a magic egg which can only be used once, however Domeki does not know what it does or when he should use it.
Himawari Kunogi
- Voiced by: Shizuka Itō (Japanese); Cherami Leigh (English)
Himawari Kunogi (九軒 葵, Kunogi Himawari) is Watanuki's love interest. She has a cheerful attitude and is very friendly around Watanuki and Dōmeki. She is often cheering for them, if not commenting them on their "comedy acts" together. Despite the fact that Watanuki is very open in showing his feelings and admiration for her, she seems very oblivious to the fact that he likes her. She has never shown any favoritism between the two, but Watanuki always thinks that Dōmeki is more favored.
Himawari possesses extremely bad luck that affects everyone around her except her parents, as they brought her into the world, and those with spiritual abilities, such as Dōmeki and Yūko. For example, the house next door became a target of arson just because she picked up a ball near her home. People she was connected to were hurt, including all her friends, a girl in the neighborhood who ended up committing suicide, and her class teacher was stabbed by his wife when he was caught in an affair.
Watanuki originally believes that she is his "goddess of good luck", though Yūko and others state the opposite. She attempts to stay away from Watanuki in order to protect him, often making excuses in order to avoid being around him. She eventually causes him to fall out of a two story window, decides to bear his scars in order to save his life, and attempts to cut all connections with him. Watanuki, however, states that he is truly happy around her no matter what and refuses to stop seeing her. He later gives her a small bird he names Tanpopo (タンポポ, lit. dandelion)[2] that is immune to her bad luck[3].
She is the only main character not seen visiting Watanuki in the shop since the story jumped forward 4 years.
Kohane Tsuyuri
- Voiced by: Rina Hidaka
Kohane Tsuyuri (五月七日小羽, Tsuyuri Kohane) is a young girl known publicly as a child prodigy, medium and exorcist, having been featured on many paranormal-based TV shows. After first developing her powers, she helped her mother learn that her father was having an affair, causing a drastic change in her mother's personality. She soon stops touching Kohane, doesn't refer to her by name, takes away any objects or food not considered "pure", and cuts off all contact with other people. She focuses on having Kohane on as many television shows as possible, and buys large amounts of extravagant items. This treatment causes Kohane to have a quiet and lonely demeanor, though she attempts to stay strong for her mother's sake, blaming everything on herself.
She eventually meets Watanuki, who can also see spirits, and forms a bond with him. Despite constant protest from her mother, he keeps in contact with her, all while trying to make her feel happy. Her powers of exorcism develop from Sakura's feather, though her ability to see spirits is natural. She asks Yuko to grant her happiness, which Yuko does by fixing the various external problems in her life, such as her reputation, in exchange for her exorcism ability (which despite not being her own, Yuko says is a fair trade since she offered it believing it was hers), although she refuses to take away her sight as well, saying that that would be too high of a price. Yuko cannot fix her issues with her mother, as a person's true character can only be changed by their own will.
Four years after Yūko's death, Kohane is now a student at Tsuji Academy and often visits Watanuki in his shop. She still lives with the grandmother fortune teller.
Secondary characters
Zashiki-warashi
- Voiced by: Sumi Mutoh (Japanese); Brina Palencia (English)
Zashiki-warashi (座敷童) (Vestal Sprite) is a spirit girl who lives on a mountain with pure spiritual energy. She develops a crush on Watanuki as his exploits become known among spirits, and she first meets him when she accidentally steals Dōmeki's soul while attempting to get a good Obon gift for Watanuki (in English Valentine's Day). He later sees her while giving her a White Day present, and rescues her from Jorougumo that captures her after a failed attempt to recover Watanuki's eye. She is very shy and prone to crying, which causes her guardians to defend her.
Tengu Guardians
Unlike most depictions of tengu, which consists of well-trained, devote, and focused samurai and birds with the IQ of humans, these tengu are a bit more laxed in appearance. They are all similar in appearance, having blue jackets, carrying paper-looking blades, and sometimes sunglasses. All of them are midgets in size (about two-feet tall) and act and resemble western biker gangs, even down to shaved heads, some of them bearing mohawks. There are six guardians all assigned to protecting Zashiki-warashi, and are prone to attacking Watanuki for making her cry. (This constant line of attacking a seemingly innocent being is a running gag in the show). The tengu travel on snowboard shaped flaps of what might be metal, wood, or plastic, and use them in midair. It is later revealed that the tengu possess a fan of immense power, considering their class of troop, but give it away as compensation to Yuko if she'll open the Spider Matron's barrier. They are primarily comic relief in the show.
Ame-warashi
- Voiced by: Akiko Yajima (Japanese); Kate Oxley (English)
Ame-warashi (雨童女) (Rain Sprite) is a high ranking rain spirit, who has a very hostile attitude toward humans due to the fact that "humans have no care or regard whatsoever with living nature". She is somewhat close and protective of Zashiki-warashi, and greatly dislikes Watanuki, despite him helping to fulfill her request. She owned Kudakitsune (Pipe fox) which later becomes Watanuki's. She gives it to Yuuko as a compensation for fulfilling her wish to retrieve the sick hydrangea.
Kudakitsune
Kudakitsune (管狐), later named Mugetsu (無月, lit. moonless or no moon) by Watanuki[4], is a tube fox spirit given to Yūko as payment by Ame-warashi for Watanuki's help. It quickly becomes attached to Watanuki, and protects him during dangerous situations. It is generally a small snake-like being with a fox head, but it can transform into a traditional Kitsune when it reveals its true power. It is able to create "Foxfire" in the form of large fireballs, and it can detect evil spirits. It takes a large amount of pure spiritual energy to revert it to its initial form.
Maru & Moro
- Maru voiced by: Voiced by: Kazuko Kojima (Japanese); Leah Clark (English)
- Moro voiced by: Voiced by: Hisayo Mochizuki (Japanese); Brina Palencia (English)
Maru & Moro (マル＆モロ) are two artificial beings that keep Yūko's shop in existence. They are two energetic small girls, who often speak in unison and repeat the words of others. They cannot leave the shop, as they have no souls. They help Yūko around the shop most of the time, but often go into long periods of hibernation due to the strain from keeping the shop in existence. Just before Yūko disappears, she uses the last bit of her power to revive Maru and Moro and send them back to the shop. After Watanuki pays the price of his time to keep the shop from disappearing, Maru and Moro become his assistants as he is now the 'master' of the store. Later it is shown that they have developed a very close bond with Watanuki similar to the one they had with Yūko. Maru and Moro's full names, Maru-dashi and Moro-dashi, are both words which mean "exposing oneself in public" – similar to "flashing" and "streaking" in English.
Mokona Modoki
- Voiced by: Mika Kikuchi (Japanese); Carrie Savage (English)
Mokona Modoki (モコナ＝モドキ) refers to a pair of two rabbit-like creatures created by Yūko Ichihara and Clow Reed in preparation for the events in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic, as well as to stop Fei Wong Reed's plans and save "two futures". The white Mokona travels with Syaoran's group, while the black Mokona stays in Yuko's shop. Both are based upon the original Mokona, who Yūko and Clow encountered while Mokona was traveling through different worlds. Mokona provided Yūko and Clow with the knowledge of alternate dimensions.
The black Mokona, whose real name is Larg, acts as a liaison between the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle group and Yūko. Mokona likes to be around Yūko, who treats Mokona as a "drinking buddy." He also likes to be around Watanuki and play with Maru and Moro. While allowing the two groups to speak, Mokona can also teleport and receive items from the white Mokona by swallowing them. Like the white Mokona, he has a single earring. It is a blue gem made by Clow Reed and has the ability to seal magical power, and it also holds Sakura's memories of Syaoran and Watanuki's memory of his past.
Haruka Dōmeki
Haruka Dōmeki (百目鬼 遥, Dōmeki Haruka) is the deceased grandfather of Dōmeki, and a former Shinto priest who taught Dōmeki many of his practices. He has the ability to destroy evil spirits, cross into dreams and often appears to Watanuki's dream, taking on the appearance of a teenager. He looks exactly like Dōmeki, though he has a somewhat more cheerful and outgoing personality than his grandson, and he is always smoking. He acts like a guide to Watanuki as Yūko does, often giving him advice, telling him about Dōmeki, and helping him work out problems.