Xxxholic: kei is everything that its first season tried to do and failed miserably. Therefore, combining with the whole, it gave a huge step-up to xxxHolic series, made the ride of watching the anime is somewhat memorable. By getting rid of its episodic nature, both the story and the characters got well-developed over a short period of time. The pacing is faster and the overall tone of the series is more serious than ever I would say. That's a great thing cause I was very annoyed at how comedy was played out in this anime, they're just too much and not even funny. I blame CLAMPfor that.

And again, by developing the story, it cleared lots of mysteries that was presented in the first season. I also loved how the characters became more mature and honest along the way. It made me investigated in them and therefore raised the quality of following their stories.

The soundtrack is a plus. Fitting the moments with melancholic and dark songs. While I don't like how the characters in xxxHolic are designed, the animation gets a bit better than the first season.

XxxHolic is an anime of wasted potentials. Even though the second season fixed many of its problems, it couldn't reach the high of its successors in the same themes like Natsume Yuujinchou or Mushishi. Still a good anime though.