So this episode, being the second to the last, put the main story to its climax(-ish) state quite fast. Other anime would usually give more time and progress the story throughout longer episodes. But they did a good job of creating a well structured main story leading to the end without leaving any plot holes or making it too fast paced. Mind you, this is Nishio Ishins “Monogatari” series and this is kind of pace that the series would go. It takes the main story and mixes it up with the side stories, and Ishin-san does it quite well.
Shinobu! Damn I love this girl… When she said she was actually talkative, she really is talkative. We also get to see her love for donuts a lot clearer here.
Ok, in this episode I found it quite odd and disappointing to know that Araragis aggression is quite up there. Here, he strips Tsukihi, ties her hands, and gropes her under the pretext of asking why does she not have any scars (-.-“). Really, Araragi knows he has got a harem in his hands. This is most likely just fan service but, I prefer an MC that won’t go physical under such odd pretexts. BTW, showing that Tsukihi had no scars was a foreshadowing of her part in the main story.
The sisters have boyfriends?! That’s a nice way of introducing such things. Despite my distaste for incest I was taken aback by the fact that a female, that is supposed to be part of the MCs harem, is in another relationship? Now my feeling for this goes back and forth between saying this is the right thing and but its Araragis harem! Hopefully they get into more detail by the next episode and things get clearer, at least for me.
There was this scene where while Araragi was speaking of their boyfriends that Tsukihis “tail thing on her head” was doing some weird gestures, I feel this was implying something on Tsukihis part. Also I found the cut of when Araragi sighs after the conversation to emphasize this more. Dunno, this just got me thinking…
Lol, for Kaikis return! Usually trouble characters don’t return or if they do return, they do so after a long time. But in this series, Kaiki returns with his iconic character and expressions simply as an informant to Araragi and us, the audience. And along the way Kaiki still manages to get away with snatching someone else’ (Araragis) money. Whether his role in the series has officially end with be determined in the next episode.
So with Kaikis explanations, Kagenui Yozuru and Ononoki Yotsugi are some sort of ghost busters. And now their target is someone immortal. Araragi would of course assume he is their target, but really this arc is about Tsukihi. Now why they wanna kill her? They explain that they have a hatred for oddities that pretend to be human and deceive humans. Really that reasoning isn’t much when I think about it story wise. But then again this entire series has always had unique people with characters that can go beyond reason. Isn’t that how the world is right now? Beyond reason… Unreasonable.
So I guess by now you guys have noticed a considerable emphasis on the word “fake” in this series. Well, the title of the series is “Nisemonogatari” which translates to “Impostory”. So we got the fake sisters as well as their fake justice, and the Con man, the fake man known as Kaiki. I’ll go into more detail in the full review of this series.
Now Kagenui Yozuru says that Tsukihi is a fake sister. But I don’t think so, how I see it or how I’d like it to be is Tsukihi inherited immortality whilst in her Moms womb. So she is still Araragis sister, she does have the families iconic “tail in the head thing”. This is just my theory but we will hopefully get a better understanding of things in the next and last episode.
Overall this one’s a well structured episode leading towards the end without making things go too fast. Yes, perhaps this arc was the one that was given less attention and ended up having a less dynamic story. Still, it’s something worth watching…
~OkamiSan
