Unmarked spoilers are ahead, per Spoilers Off rule.
×××HOLiC is best described as “dreamlike,” and naturally is quite capable of inducing bad ones. The series is notable in that, for the most part, it manages to creep the Dickens out of you without anything graphic.
- Episode 10, where they tell ghost stories. The three stories told in the anime is different from the three stories in the manga, so we get double up of creepy.
- Himawari's story in the manga: A hotel got an uneven number of rooms, where there should be a room, there's just a wall. The people staying at the hotel keep hearing sounds from there, so eventually they break open the wall, and find a room where "Father let me out" is written all over the walls in blood.
- Himawari's story in the anime is even worse: A man kills his wife and decides to hide it from his son. But the son never asks why his mom is gone, and carries on as normal. In the end, the dad asks him if he doesn't miss his mother... "But dad, mom's been next to you the entire time."
- Watanuki tells about how he met a man at a crossroad, who carried an umbrella even though it wasn't raining. He passed Watanuki, and Watanuki just kept on walking... but at the next crossroad, he meets the man again. And at the next crossroad, again. And the man's eyes... *shudder*
- Regarding Watanuki's story, is made ever creepier when Yuuko asks if he ignored what happened and went on the same way or if he changed his path. When Watanuki confesses he doesn't remember, Yuuko says he must have changed his path, for if he had met the man once more (as seeing the same thing four times in four crossroads, since four is a number of death) something terrible would have happened. And we're left to imagine... Have a nice night after that!
- The ... hand in episode 24 of the anime is very very creepy. Especially when it starts to chase Watanuki ... and in the end, there's lots and lots of them!
- Episode 8/Chapter 18: The monkey's paw story. The conclusion where it strangles the woman itself...
- What's more, the woman's last wish was that she would "disappear." Right after the paw kills her, her body vanishes and everything returns to normal, with no one even notices her absence.
- It gets even worse when you noticed something. The monkey paw became active once Himawari caught it. Why did it open when she caught it? Then you learn what type of powers she has...
- What's more, the woman's last wish was that she would "disappear." Right after the paw kills her, her body vanishes and everything returns to normal, with no one even notices her absence.
- Scary hands seem to be a motif for ×××HOLiC. There's a rather terrifying hand Eldritch Abomination in chapters 10 and 11 of Rei.
- You may become wary about destroying spider webs after reading the arc where the spider enacts revenge on Doumeki for destroying her home.
- The woman who brought the cursed framed photograph to Yuuko. Not only did this woman commit murder and got away with it but she begs Yuuko to get rid of it because the photograph keeps replaying the crime over and over again. She swears she would do anything to get rid of it, and though Yuuko initially warns her not to make this wish, she does so when the woman insists. So the woman is rid of the photograph which broadcasted her crime — but the price she paid for its destruction is heavy. Her image cannot be captured by any technology, otherwise the image in the photograph will be shown. If she is photographed, then it will show in the photograph. If she appears on live television, then it will show on live television. Given how tech-savvy Tokyo is, and given the current cultural climate of internet usage worldwide, the only way this woman could ensure that nobody would discover her crime would be to self isolate and never leave her house.
- The “angel wings”. They look innocent to those who can actually see them (and most cannot) but these “angelic” wings are in fact a parasite that devours your soul. Once the wings attach to you, there is no known way to remove them. As it devours your soul your negative emotions heighten considerably, leaving your prone to explosive bursts of uncontrollable anger. As the wings grow bigger your emotional state escalates, leaving you prone to physical violence. As it finally finishes “eating”, your mental state has deteriorated into unstoppable rage, leading to an explosive outburst that may end with you taking someone’s life. When the wings have fully consumed your soul it will finally leave you, sometimes latching on the nearest person to repeat the cycle, and you are left in a permanent catatonic state in a soulless body. Yuuko grimly tells Watanuki in the manga, after they witness such an event, that it is impossible to save the person once this happens to them, and there is no means to get their soul back.
- And as Watanuki reacts in shock to the truth about these wings, Yuuko looks towards the sky and sees more in-flight.
