Watanuki Kimihiro's Powers and Abilities
Watanuki Kimihiro is a high school student with short black hair, blue eyes and nerdy rounded glasses. He loses the sight in his right eye due to a grudge later on in the series, which changes the color of that eye to a dark green and brown shade. Watanuki is described as a high-strung and emotional character who is very childish at the beginning, but later on matures into adulthood and becomes more serious. His mood mostly depends on the person he is talking to. If it is his crush Himawari, he is excited and cheerful. However, if it is Doumeki, then he is irritable and angry.
When it comes to his powers, from the very beginning it becomes obvious that he is attracting many spirits and supernatural being of various looks, and they keep bothering and following him everywhere; some do it out of curiosity, while some are dangerous. This makes Watanuki's high school life even harder, especially because he is not very sociable to begin with. He also has an ability that allows him to experience other people's emotions. If he is near a person with negative emotions, he feels dizzy. However, if he happens to be close to a person who is happy, he feels lightheaded and cheerful too. During the series, Watanuki learns many things and evolves greatly. He even manages to break the barrier between the real and Dream World.
Ichihara Yuuko's Powers and Abilities
Ichihara Yuuko, also called "The Dimension Witch" and "The Far Eastern Witch", is another protagonist of this anime. She is described as a tall, attractive woman with long black hair, a pale face and unusually red eyes. She is portrayed as mysterious and wise, but she often acts immature. This is her way of lightening the mood in dark situations. She is the one who guides Watanuki throughout the series and enables him to learn more about his spiritual abilities and the world that surrounds him.
Some of her most powerful abilities include traveling through time, granting wishes, creating gods for other worlds, creating powerful seals and barriers, and manipulating time. She also possesses knowledge of all types of various magical objects, most of which can be found in her shop.
Shizuka Doumeki's Powers and Abilities
Shizuka Doumeki is Watanuki's close friend and high school classmate. He is described as a tall boy with short black hair. Personality wise, he is the complete opposite of Watanuki - expressionless, calm, cool and serious. He also has a special ability which allows him to repel bad spirits, whereas Watanuki attracts them. This makes them even more complementary, providing the basis for their friendship.
Doumeki is raised in a temple, inheriting his grandfather's ability to exorcise evil spirits by using an invisible bow and an energy arrow. Later on, he helps Watanuki by sharing one eye (in a spiritual way) with him when he becomes a victim of a spider's grudge. This makes their connection even stronger. Although he tends to call Watanuki an "idiot", he is often saved by him when in dangerous situations.
Kohane Tsuyuri's Powers and Abilities
Kohane Tsuyuri is a good friend of Himawari, Watanuki and Doumeki. She is a pretty girl with long wavy blonde hair and a sultry look on her face. Some of her powers include the ability to see and sense spirits, sense auras or curses and also exorcise spirits. She has been aware of her abilities since she was a child, and her mother went to great lengths to exploit them as much as possible. Kohane was forced her appear on various supernatural TV shows for her mother's material benefit.
A friendship with Himawari, Watanuki and Doumeki, including the acquaintance with Yuuko made her smile again, but also made her explore her supernatural powers further. She becomes able to sense the future and her ability to exorcise spirits surpasses even Watanuki's ability.
Spirits and Supernatural Beings
Maru and Moro
Maru and Moro (Marudashi and Morodashi) are two spirits that live in Yuuko's shop. They are described as cheerful and dutiful twin girls, one with pink and the other with blue hair, who tend to Yuuko's errands. They have no souls and their whole existence is about taking care of the shop and obeying the owner. However at times, Maru and Moro are shown to have their own feelings; this is most evident when we see them playing games.
Black Mokona
Black Mokona (Mokona Modoki or Larg), is a cute rabbit-like creature that appears in xxxHolic. There are two types of them - the former is black (named Larg) while the latter one is white (named Soel) who also appears in Tsubasa Chronicle. Both Larg and Soel are copies of the original dimensional god Mokona, who appears in Magic Knight Rayearth, created by Yuuko and Clow Reed. Each Mokona is given an earring which matches the color of the gem on its forehead. The blue earring seals magic power while the red earring boosts magic power. They were created in order to stop the plans of Fei Wong Reed and provide help with their numerous supernatural abilities. There are minor differences between the two mokonas, such as the white one is more cheerful than the black one.
Some of their most astonishing abilities include: traveling between worlds, seeing ghosts, clairvoyance, communicating between different worlds and among each other, inhibiting magical curses, being immune to bad luck, super strength, and drinking sake.
Tengu Guardians
Tengu Guardians or Karasu-Tengu are funny, biker-like and midget-like guardians, who are all assigned to protect Zashiki-warashi. There are six of them, and they are shown as traveling on snowboard shaped flaps. They possess a fan of immense power which they later on give up. They often attack Watanuki because he unintentionally makes Zashiki-warashi cry, and their appearance in the anime is often comical.
Ame Warashi and Zashiki Warashi
Ame Warashi or Rain Sprite is a proud, high-ranking and powerful spirit whose main ability allows her to control rain. She is described as a redhead wearing a Gothic Lolita costume and holding an umbrella, which she often uses to hit anyone she dislikes (especially humans). Besides being able to create rain clouds and produce changes in weather, she is also able to detect differences in the characters and their special abilities. There is a scene in which she easily creates snowmen and controls their actions. Ame Warashi often acts as a chaperon to Zashiki-Warashi and acts hostile towards Watanuki, even though it becomes obvious later on that she is just pretending to dislike him.
Zashiki Warashi or Vestal Sprite is a spirit who lives in a sacred mountain with pure spiritual energy along with the Tengu Guardians or Karasu-Tengu. Her humanoid form is one of a young girl with black hair wearing a kimono. She is based on a spirit from Japanese folklore, and her most prominent characteristic is that she is childish in nature and also very shy and naive. One of her abilities is to steal or borrow souls, which can be seen in the episode in which she accidentally steals Doumeki's soul while trying to get a good Valentine's Day gift for Watanuki, whom she has a crush on.
Mayuko, Kudakitsune and Chibi Kitsune
Mayuko is a woman who appears from nowhere and approaches Watanuki asking for his help. Later on, it is found out that she is a spirit who feeds on other people's feelings, and Doumeki saves Watanuki by shooting her with his invisible arrow.
Kudakitsune, or Mugetsu, is a pipe fox spirit (Izuna) given to Yuuko as payment by Ame Warashi for Watanuki's help. However, he quickly becomes attached to Watanuki and helps him during dangerous situations, eventually becoming his protector. He is described as a furry yellow snake that is able to transform into a traditional gold and white Nine-tailed fox.
Some of his powers are great strength, being able to sense various types of energy, as well as the presence of other spirits, Fox Fire (ability to create illusions or burn down anything in front of him) and immortality.
The Chibi Kitsune and his father Kitsune are two fox spirits who run the Fox Oden cart. They look like ordinary foxes except that they wear kimonos, and talk and act like humans. One of Chibi Kitsune's abilities is to make himself partially invisible in front of others and also to cook delicious oden. Both of them cannot be seen by regular people so they get really surprised when Watanuki appears next to their stall, between the worlds. The bond between father and son appears to be very strong.
