Another one of the anime series I finished watching and now be recommending to you are the 2 seasons of xxxHolic. While the title may have the adult characters XXX in them, this series is far from adult themed. On the contrary, it is mostly humor and Japanese-culture based.

The story follows protagonist Watanuki, a high schooler who is fed up with seeing strange spirits everywhere. On his way to school one day, he finds this mysterious fortuneteller and her store, and decides to go in. He wishes for the spirits to go away, and while he can’t see them anymore, his troubles are far from over, as he now has to work for the fortuneteller to work off this wish. The two other main characters, Doumeki and Himawari, also accompany him on his travels through Japan and the spirit worlds he gets roped into going. Watanuki also has to cook and do other chores for the fortuneteller, Yuuko, while proprietors come in and tell her about their troubles.

This series was very well done storywise, and has a very interesting artistic style – the arms and legs of all the characters are much longer in proportion to the rest of the body. The story left me wanting to know more about the culture of Japan, as it went in-depth about superstitions, cooking, and ghosts. It also even went into great depth on how to play Mahjong! The music and sound were pretty well done, but the aspect of this series I’ll remember most is how Watanuki’s mood can drop at the change of a hat – from swooning in love to great anger. The way he flails his arms and legs is quite funny as well (and is accompanied by a wonderful sound effect!).

It also left me putting a Mokona (the dancing animal in the video above) on my Christmas list, too. It kept getting drunk and wanting food – so funny. It put a big smile on my face.

Enjoy!