S I T E I N F O R M A T I O N
A b o u t H i t s u z e n
Hitsuzen has been open since June 28, 2007. The very first word that came to mind when I got the approval email, was Hitsuzen. If you have read or seen anything CLAMP related, you must have come upon it. Hitsuzen is a word often found in their works, especially in xxxHolic.
According to Yuuko in the first chapter of Volume 01, Hitsuzen is "A naturally fordained event. A state in which other outcomes are impossible. A result which can only be obtained by a single causality, and other causalities would necesarily create different results."
"Hitsuzen has no direct translation into English, but can be interpreted as referring to "inevitability", destiny, or fate. Interpreting hitsuzen as "fate" is not inaccurate, but in the context of the story, "fate" is implied as something that is immutable and definite, giving the idea that whoever is bound by fate is nothing more than its puppet. Instead, hitsuzen is the idea that an action is inevitable because without it, other related events in the future could not happen.
Therefore all decisions and actions are related, and there can be no coincidence, only hitsuzen. Hitsuzen has been mentioned in Cardcaptor Sakura by Kaho Mizuki as she remarks that "there are no coincidences, only hitsuzen". Other English translations of the remark have rendered hitsuzen as "inevitability". It could also be interpreted as a form of determinism." (found at Wikipedia.org)
But why choose it as a title? Yuuko mentions to Watanuki that him entering her shop was fated. Nothing in this world is random, everything is fated. So, they were both meant to meet, Watanuki wanted to get rid of the supernatural beings that were always after him and Yuuko was the one able to grant his wish; in other words, they were fated to meet, hitsuzen.
L a y o u t C r e d i t s
A b o u t x x x H o l i c
Watanuki Kimihiro, is a young highschool student who is troubled by something very unique: Supernatural beings (spirits, ghosts, etc) tend to follow him wherever he goes. One day, he is being chased by a spirit who begins to smother him, he arrives in front of a wooden gate and bangs on it. For some reason, the spirit disappears and Watanuki gets up. But suddenly, his legs begin to move on their own and make him enter the house beyond the wooden gates.
Once inside he meets a strange woman who tells him that he was fated to come into her "shop". While Watanuki does not understand what this woman says, she explains that everything in this world is fated, there is no such thing as coincidences. The woman, who identifies herself as Ichihara Yuuko, tells Watanuki that she is able to grant his wish, to stop having the ability to see spirits. In exchange to fulfill his wish, Watanuki is forced to work as a part-timer in Yuuko's one of a kind shop, where you never know what exactly will come asking for their wish to be fulfilled.