XXXholic: AnotherHolic- Landolt Ring Aerosol by NisiOisin

Kimihiro Watanuki sees spirits all the time, and he doesn't want to. So, he agrees to work in the shop of Yûko Ichihara, also known as Yûko the Time-Space Witch, so that she will take his powers away. Being able to see spirits means torment to Watanuki, but also makes him perfect to work at Yûko's shop. For it is a shop that grants wishes. Any wish you want may be granted, but the wisher must also pay a price for that wish. It is Hitzusen, or "Destiny".

This book contains three stories. In the first, Watanuki is sent by Yûko to a 100¥ shop to buy a pair of cheap sunglasses. On his way back, he sees a woman throw herself into traffic for no apparent reason. When Watanuki talks to her, it seems that all her life, she's had an excessive desire to break taboos. This has caused her no end of trouble as she has committed suicide (or tried to) by slitting her wrists and throwing herself into traffic, like she did this day, and she is rather unhappy about it.

Watanuki thinks he almost sees something, or some kind of spirit, riding on her shoulder and brings her problem to Yûko. But can the Time-Space Witch help this troubled girl, and does the woman actually want any help?

Second, a classmate brings to Watanuki a story of a girl who is haunted by the spirit of her dead friend, a girl who died after leaning over the white line in a train station and was struck by the train, killing her. Now, she is recieving text messages from her friend at the exact same time she died every day. Watanuki is more than happy to try and play detective, but when he is troubled by not knowing whether it is an actual spirit of the dead or something else, he brings the story to Yûko.

Lastly, Watanuki is working to be free of his curse, but when the sight of ghosts and spirits actually leaves him, he's downcast and feels at a loss. But when he meets a strange and difficult man with a horrendous personality, Watanuki is left alone to decide whether he wants to stay free of spirits or return to his virtual indentured servitude with Yûko.

I didn't like this story at all, really. In the first story Watanuki seems like an extremely unpleasant young man, not at all the kind anyone would be friends with, and in the others, he's more of a boob who can barely exist on his own without Yûko. Neither of which seems correct from a reading of the manga.

Also missing from the books are the other characters who make XXXHolic what it is, from Shizuka Dômeki to Watanuki's crush Himawari-chan. Even the two little girl-things that are a sign of the shop's magic and Mokona are missing. The only characters from the manga who appear in the novel are Watanuki and Yûko. Which is okay, but doesn't give the true feel of the manga.

Another thing I didn't like is that NisiOisin's story treats the whole concept of ghosts and magic as unreal and not true. In every case, the concepts of the story are shown to be unreal. The girl from the first story is deluded about the lengths to which she will go to break taboos. The ghost from the second story is invented to give the girl getting the text messages a reason to talk about herself, and so on. Only in the last story do we learn that the man is so unpleasant that he drives everyone away, even spirits.

None of these stories, I felt, were anything like the stories in the manga. These were bad (very bad) imitations of the Clamp stories NisiOisin was trying to emulate, and they felt forced and wrong. Like someone selling you an apple, but you bite into it, and its a lemon instead. Not what you are expecting, and not what you paid for. NisiOisin may be a celebrated Japanese writer, but he's not to my taste at all.