Angel

Angel
Season 1, Episode 3
Air Date	April 20, 2006
Location	Yuuko's Shop
Episode Guide
Previous Falsehood	Next Fortune Telling

Angel (エンゼル, Enzeru) is the third episode of the xxxHOLiC anime series.

Overview

After a game of baseball in the park, Watanuki and Yuko are joined by Himawari, who asks for a favor. Watanuki is put up to the test of investigating the school of Himawari's friend, who has had strange rumors revolving around a game called Angel-san.

Plot

Himawari seeks Yuko's help regarding her friends who are using ouji boards – or as they're nicknamed, "Angel-san" ("Enzeru-san", for those curious about the episode title) – to connect with bad spirits on the school rooftop. Yuko agrees to help, but orders Watanuki to go to the school, and has Doumeki go with him. Her apparent reason is to save Himawari from compensation.

Watanuki sheepishly arrives at the school wearing "Chobits ears" and encounters Doumeki waiting at the gate. In flashback mode (with Maru and Moro reading "The City with No People In It" in the background), we're informed that the ears are in fact transmitters that allow Yuko and Watanuki to communicate, and also for Yuko to hear what’s going on, while she and Mokona play CLAMP-style chess. (CLAMP no Kiseki, anyone?)

In the school, Watanuki is increasingly overpowered by a strange and fetid stench as he and Doumeki climb higher toward the rooftop, where Himawari's friends are supposed to be. Through Watanuki's spirit-sensitive perspective, the air is thick and cumbersome with the presence of bad spirits.

When Watanuki and Doumeki finally reach the rooftop, Watanuki rushes over to the three girls using "Angel-san". They desperately tell Watanuki that the Angel-san has been relaying scary messages, where on the board is heavily etched, "Go die". The two girls holding onto the pen are too afraid to let go, for fear they'll be cursed – that they'll be punished. Unwillingly, their hands begin to write, "I will not allow you to leave until you die." Watanuki pries apart the hysterical girls' hands, and all the smoggy air immediately dissipates. The girls become even more hysterical and rush toward the ledge of the roof, like they're about to jump off. Watanuki does the noble thing and blocks them, but Doumeki asks, "What have you been doing by yourself all this time?"

The three girls are evil spirits, and push Watanuki off the roof. Doumeki quickly catches Watanuki, and the two are caught in a precarious situation. A concentration of spirits made up of the three girls surrounds Doumeki and wraps itself around his arm, which begins to bleed. Yuko says the concentration of spirits is the product of the many students using ouji boards and hoping to see something terrible happen, like a death. These spirits were birthed from such gruesome and immorally bad thoughts.

But suddenly, a giant snake emerges and swallows the concentration of evil whole. It quickly changes its target to Watanuki and Doumeki, who are now with their feet planted “safely” on the rooftop. But just as the snake lunges, Yuko saves the two by offering the "Chobits ears" to the snake, who immediately complies and stalks off. In a heartfelt, yet monotonous way, Doumeki tells Watanuki that he believes that Watanuki does in fact see strange things, even if he himself can’t see them. He then completely ruins the tender moment by saying it was a shame to lose the ears, since Watanuki looked so ridiculous in them.

In the park the next day, Yuko, Mokona, Himawari and Watanuki are enjoying Watanuki's cooking. Yuko reveals that the giant snake was the protector of the region of the school. She also says that Doumeki has the innate ability to ward off and neutralize evil, and was the reason that Watanuki - whose blood is delicious to spirits, and who actually attracted the snake in the first place - was able to essentially make it out alive.

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