Line #16 Headscratchers/Bakemonogatari


1	* Why is everyone getting on Araragi's case for helping everyone? I could sort of deal with it in the Suruga Monkey when Araragi genuinely thought that playing the martyr was the only way to resolve the curse and Oshino just decided to be a dick for no discernible reason and didn't tell him about his alternative measure, but Nadeko Snake just irritated me. Jesus Christ they were just kids! They put the curse on Nadeko to relieve some stress, not because they thought it'd actually kill her! ''Of course'' trying to defeat the Snake Constrictor was the right thing to do. Better to try and exorcise it off Araragi when he's ''right there'' than to try to find Random A. Guy who probably ''doesn't even remember'' cursing Nadeko in the first place. Poetic justice isn't worth much when it kills junior high kids.
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4	** It can be Lampshaded in a few ways. The way Kanbaru probably saw it (at the very end of the Nadeko Snake arc) was that the kids should have realized the consequences of their actions before they put a course on her, thus it is karma in action. Also if Araragi was permanently disfigured, Senjougahara [[{{Yandere}} would have a field day with those kids]].
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6	** [[spoiler:It is hinted later that the curse didn't rebound, because Meme helped them out again.]]
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8	** No Meme gave them the means to dispel only one curse. Nobody realized Nadeko had TWO curses put on her. That is why Araragi had to forcibly remove, and fight the one that rebounded and attacked the boy. Araragi's plan might have been to take the curse onto himself, then go back to Meme for another dispel charm and clean up the problem, but Kanbaru stopped him, and it went back to the boy. Nadeko was also killing the snakes as part of a ritual to try to stop the effects of the curse(s), because the curse charms used against her by the anonymous girl and boy, were actually real.
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10	** It's important to realize that, while the below entry explains their lectures to Araragi pretty well, it's not primarily the 'helping everyone' part that people get on his case about. One of the running threads throughout Araragi's Character Arc in the first set of novels is that his usual course of action is "run into something dangerous, push everyone else as far away from him physically and emotionally as possible denying any viable paths of aid or help, isolate himself in order to take all the pain and damage unto himself, and then take whatever action most closely resembles suicide as possible'. Throwing himself onto the grenade is always, literally, his first course of action, and he NEVER thinks about the consequences or how it will effect others. One of the major under-themes of the Bakemonogatari part of the story is the characters screwing up and making their personal situations worse due to poor choices of action, and one of the overt themes for Araragi in particular is recognizing the above-mentioned flaws, continuing the climb out of the VERY dark place he was in prior to Bake (see: Kizumonogatari where he's essentially given up on life), and changing. The climax of the Tsubasa-Cat arc at the end of the Bake novels/tv series is the Sawari-Neko/Black Hanekawa forcing him to realise through her diatribe and faux attempt on his life that (a) he CAN rely on all his companions for help and (b) that sacrificing himself is NEVER the right solution.
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12	** Also, yet another reason several of the characters lecture him is for the simple reason that he HAS a significant other, Senjougahara, yet he's constantly playing the knight in shining armor for a wide array of cute girls that keeps growing. And likewise, that he always befriends and begins to hang out, flirt, and generally cross certain boundaries with some of them. Another of Araragi's glaring character flaws, which is a deliberate, serious satire of the usual 'dumb, obtuse harem protagonist', is that he fails to ever realise the effect his actions and attitudes towards the other girls have within his personal sphere. This is why he hurts Hanekawa so badly (although as he himself and Nishioishin point out, this is probably more Tsubasa's fault/flaw than Araragi's).
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14	*** It doesn't really even need to be lampshaded. It's one of those things that gets lost in the cultural divide between Japan and America, and it shows up in tons of their fictional works. To the Japanese, the idea of "sticking your nose in other people's business" to put it colloquially, especially if you really don't know or aren't connected to those people at all, even if done with the best of intentions, is looked upon as one of a great many respect/manners-breaking faux-pas. Senjougahara accuses Araragi of this when they first meet, and several times afterwards. One of the things she implies often is that its a NEGATIVE quirk of Araragi's that she happens to find charming despite that fact. To put it laconically, the Japanese don't think it's necesarily a good trait, as Americans tend to, to run around wanting to save everyone and doing good deeds against people's wishes for your involvement, ESPECIALLY since this involves things like personal honor, debts being accrued between saviors/victims, and possibly sacrifice on the party of the "defender". This 'concerning yourself with everyone's problems' is not taken to be a good personal trait. Other really good examples of this in anime are xxxHolic's Watanuki Kimihiro (who Araragi seems very likely to be an Expy of and who gets accused of much the same thing constantly by his occult mentor) or Fate/Stay Night's Emiya Shirou.
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16	* Does anyone else find it humorous/notable that this series/these novels basically shares almost the exact same description and basic format as CLAMP's xxxHolic, if it were a moe' harem and minus the depth and running/connected plot that accompanies the other property? Probably not a coincidence since Nishioishin is admittedly a fan of CLAMP and xxxHolic (and his professional xxxHolic fanfiction is equally hilarious, since Yuuko and Watanuki are wildly out of character and basically act 100% exactly like, well, Senjougahara and Araragi), but...yeah.
17	** It isn't really a surprise. Nishio even said in an interview that the setting was inspired by xxxHolic, that he liked the more subtle and mystical form of magic that it portrayed
18	** To be fair, I'd say Bakemonogatari and the rest are equally deep, but in their introspectiveness.
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20	* How come Araragi freely admits to liking some of the other girls in the show (including his sisters) when he's happily dating Senjoughara (and knows what she'll do if necessary)? I mean, it's funny, but is there an actual reason?
21	** It's most likely a very skewed comedic version of TheFourLoves, in that he has a very strong, yet very different, affection for every girl in his life. Everyone gets Agape, Senjougahara gets Eros, the fire sisters and Hachikuji get Storge (except for when the funny lust kicks in), and Hanekawa and Kanbaru get Phileo.
22	** I agree with the TheFourLoves explanation, but the other main reason is that he ''is'' happily together with Senjougahara. He is so comfortable in his relationship with her that he can't conceive of ''not'' being with her, leaving her, or actually cheating on her (what he does with his sisters and Hachikuji doesn't really count, it isn't romantic or arousing for him at all, it's a joke ([[BrotherSisterIncest except]] [[GRatedSex that]] [[NeverLiveItDown one scene]] in Episode 8 of Nisemonogatari...)). She on the other hand is far less confident in her ability to keep him on her own merits, despite his assertion that there is nothing about her he doesn't love, shown in how when Hanekawa threatens to ask Araragi out, Senjougahara instantly backs down (odd that she wouldn't threaten Hanekawa, but it was mentioned they have a special relationship) and, indeed, caters to her; which along with her childhood traumas explains her Yandere attitude.
23	** In one scene of episode 3 of ''Nisemonogatari'', Senjougahara says she has a very lenient attitude towards adultery, and will continue to allow Araragi to "play around" with other girls, but warns him about letting things get too serious. As mentioned above, Araragi's relationship with her is very different from that of his with the other girls.
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25	* Maybe I missed something, but was I the only one who thought Kaiki’s attempt to deceive Nadeko was almost hilariously bad? There was no way she was going to buy that. Nadeko is a bit of an airhead but she’s not stupid enough to buy from some guy that Araragi conveniently died. He might as well have brought Araragi along and presented him as a ghost! Kaiki is meant to be an incredible deceiver, but that lie was just really lousy, not to mention he didn’t seem to be putting any effort in making it look real (though this could be just because [[TheStoic he never seems to be doing much effort]] anyway). Why didn't he used the [[spoiler: manga artist thing]] right away? It was definitely a better (if a little bizarre) plan.
26	** Because he's even more committed to being a fake villain than he is to being a fake specialist. Even if [[spoiler: trying to convince Nadeko to return to humanity]] had been the best plan (which is far from obvious -- she could just as easily have killed him on the spot when she found out what he knew), it just isn't his style to play the hero like that, or at least that's what he deceives himself to believe. That's why Izuko was concerned that he would fail -- not because deceiving Nadeko is hard, but because she knew he would subconsciously sabotage his own villainous plot in an attempt to [[spoiler: save the girl who he admitted to pitying, just like he had in the past.]]
27	** It's alarming to realize that, if things had proceeded according to the stated plan, it all would have been jeopardized when Araragi showed up. This was Senjougahara's one job, the one element Kaiki couldn't set up on his own, and she completely dropped the ball by failing to keep him away from the scene when the plan absolutely required it. Worse, because Kaiki orchestrated things so neither teen would mention his involvement to the other, we never see this snafu addressed or explained. Did she try and keep him from going and he went anyway? Did Kaiki make that request of her establishing his "fake" plan knowing Araragi would inevitably appear in any scenario? We're never given the opportunity to learn.
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29	* I know that love is blind and there's no accounting for taste, but seriously, why is Araragi still with Senjougahara instead of Hanekawa? The first one's just decided one day out of the wild blue that she "loves" him and ever since then her expressions of affection have been so superficial as to border on the comical, whenever they aren't downright disturbing. She keeps threatening and insulting him throughout their relationship, and even though the same can be said of the other, she's way more messed up. Meanwhile, Hanekawa has known him forever and never been anything but sweet and kind towards him, loves him enough that she compares the suffering of knowing he doesn't like her back to ''years of being physically abused by her parents'', and (if he were to make such a sociopathic comparison) is every bit as beautiful and intelligent as Senjougahara, albeit in a very different way. Is he just really that much of a masochist?
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31	** Perhaps it's because he and Hanekawa are a bit too close to be together. They've been through a lot together, so it makes sense that he sees her as more of a sister figure. Not only that, but he also gives off the vibe that he actually looks up to her. He's always admiring how smart she is, along with her other positive traits [aside from her (apparently) huge breasts, of which he also admires, but in an obviously different way].
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33	** It's been {{Lampshaded}} in-story that Hanekawa is a better match for Koyomi and that the two might end up together. Also, he was willing to [[spoiler:get himself cut in half to save her]] in ''Nekomonogatari (Kuro)''. Think about that for a sec.
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35	** In Nekomonogatari (Kuro), Araragi figured out the dark secret, the cat spirit only attacked Hanekawa's step-parents and then stopped. It was Hanekawa herself who attacked everyone else over that time period. During their confrontation, Araragi calls her out on it (quite correctly too for that matter). Then she cut him in half, HANEKAWA CUT ARARAGI IN HALF, not the cat. Then she wouldn't release the cat spirit, she wanted to keep the power, even if she had to remain a monster. This is why he decided he would not date her. The real Hanekawa is a cruel, vicious, angry, abused girl, who had no choice but to behave because she wasn't powerful enough to fight back. When she got the cat's power she did what no other character in the series did, she bent the oddity to her will, (not counting Nadeko) and used it to rampage. How likely is it that all of her victims, were people who pissed her off back in the day? If that is not enough to kill the romance prospects between them, then love truly is blind, and has no accounting for taste. Senjogahara is nowhere near as frightening to him when you think about it.
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37	** She didn't decide that she loved him all out of sudden. She decided that after he saved her, which in this series is a pretty regular reason to fall for somebody; plus, Senjougahara has some abandonment problems in her background that justify why she'd fall so fast for a guy who saved her and why she isn’t exactly a lovey-dovey person (also allow a [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Doylist]] parenthesis to say that a good part of Senjougahara's character seems to be a parody of both Tsunderes and Yanderes. She exaggerates everything, just like Araragi). She also gets a lot better when it comes to showing affection towards Araragi later on. About Hanekawa, she and Araragi could’ve been an item, but their timing was terrible. Hanekawa was sweet and kind towards him, but that was it. For all he knows, she was just being polite and nice to a friend, like she is to everyone else — which is also another point for them not being together: Araragi at some point believes he is in love with the idea of perfection Hanekawa embodies, even though deep inside he knows no one is perfect. That’s why he vows to never date her specifically, and anyhow he didn’t believe someone as "perfect" as her would ever want to date him. By the time she confesses, Araragi and Senjougahara are a couple, Senjougahara has had her fair share of CharacterDevelopment, and Araragi decides that he likes (maybe even loves, for all the reasons you mentioned) Hanekawa, but not more than he likes Senjougahara. Also, answering your last question: yes, Araragi is pretty obviously masochist when it comes to girls. I wasn’t even surprised that he didn’t consider Senjougahara's (doubtful) bursts of violence worrying or anything. [[BlackComedy He does heal quickly, after all]].
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39	** Araragi considered Hanekawa "too perfect" for him, fearing he couldn't live up to her standards or act on her level. Meme, Episode, and Shinobu all independently remarked how creepy it is that she apparently has no flaws. Neko White reveals their hunches were correct: Hanekawa cuts away all her negative emotions like stress and envy, which eventually hit breaking points and manifest as aberrations.
40	*** Did they ever point out that her "creepy perfection" can count as a flaw? It's loopholey, but still.
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42	** It's a pretty logical outcome, actually. Araragi and Hanekawa have disturbingly similar characters, it's downplayed a lot at first but as stories go it becomes more and more evident. They have similar strong points, similar flaws, similarly shaped crisis events that made them as they are, etc. And as similar characters go, there's usually very little space for romance in such couples. It's repeatedly shown they understand each other way too easy yet both can't take a step in situations tied to their flaws (like both not being able to ask each other out, even if providing very different reasons as to why). Senjougahara fits a lot better precisely because she's quite different - and able to cover for Araragi's flaws as much as he can for hers.
43	*** Bonus points if you notice how well Senjougahara and Hanekawa connect with each other in later stories despite having seemingly very little common ground: if Senjougahara can deal quite well with Araragi, she can do the same with Hanekawa exactly because she's dealing with a pretty similar character.
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45	* A real headscratcher is where does Kaiki get off thinking Araragi has paedophile tendencies, and he is only making things worse? Think about it logically. Koyomi's links to each girl is thus, Senjogahara literally fell into his arms. Kanbaru attacked him over her Psycho Lesbian Crush. Nadeko was doing a dark ritual at the site where Meme asked him to secure it with a talisman, possibly screwing up his efforts. Karen and Tsuhiki are both attacked, due exactly to Kaiki's actions. Hanekawa's issues while tied deeply to Koyomi are her own fault. Only Shinobu and Mayoi are cases where he charged in, and Shinobu begged him for help when they first met, when he was trying to NOT GET INVOLVED. Some of them are his age or very close, the younger ones, he seems oblivious to (excluding the toothbrush incident), the youngest looking ones, Hachikuji, Yotsugi, and Shinobu, are all actually older than him. The thing with Nadeko becoming a Snake God IS his responsibility, she took the talisman from his house, when it was under his care, so he IS duty-bound to resolve it. Where are these paedophile tendencies of Koyomi's that bother him? Nadeko, the nutjob target says things and he believes them? What are the two biggest common factors between him and Koyomi? Hitagi Senjoghara and Suruga Kanbaru, two young girls Kaiki is obviously and deeply attached to. The two girls who are both bonded to and crazily affectionate over Koyomi Araragi. I think it is more a case of Hypocrisy and the Green-Eyed-Monster effect. The two YOUNGER GIRLS, he has a thing for, are with the one person he really does not approve of, instead of him.
46	** Koyomi's paedophilic tendencies are in full display for dear viewers each time he meets Hachikuji, that one time he kissed Shinobu in Onimonogatari (while she was in her child form) just to get her to shut up, that time he wanted to trick Yotsugi to kiss him (again, in Onimonogatari) and him getting hot for seeing child!Hanekawa. You have to actually not pay attention when he goes full pedo-mode. Of course, this is played for laughs and in the Light Novels is kind of a running joke that Araragi denies being a lolicon. About him making things worse, while most problems the girls face aren't his fault, it's his involvement that generates more stress for them and for the people around him. But you can read why Koyomi's actions make things worse the more he gets involved in the main page, so there's that
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48	** You have to actually not pay attention to the characters, and what exactly they are in this series to not really notice how wrong that is. Hachikuji is a specific type of ghost, that only a select type of people can see, oh and she is actually 22 years old, technically an adult. Those who can see his moments with her, would also know her true age too. Issues concerning Yotsugi are creepy for a completely different reason. Yotsugi is in essence, a reanimated corpse, and has been, for 15 years. According to her story she was 12 when she died as a human. Then the Occult Research Club got a hold of her corpse, and revived her as a doll-like tsukumogami shikigami, as a "project" of theirs, in college. Of which Kaiki himself, was also a part of, both the club and the project. That alone is creepy for a whole other reason, and separate discussion. (I hope they got an A for it. Otherwise that will come off as even more depressing.) Technically, her body is at least 27 years old. Her mind, if it is still even remotely human, would be a 15 year old teenage girl. This is also a separate, and highly debatable topic as well given her interactions in the series. Shinobu is a roughly 600 year old vampire, who can easily change her form to an older teenager/young adult simply by drinking Araragi's blood, which she did at one point. Araragi, is only 17, this is a pedo situation, but he is not the offender in these situations, the 3 older inhuman girls are. At worst he is sexually harassing 3 adult females, and they don't seem to really reject it either, as all 3 later admit to real romantic feelings for him too. But as you stated, this is played for laughs. As for Hanekawa, knowing his history, and bond with her, this can be up for a lot of interpretation by anyone.
49	Are you referring to the Not Quite the Right Thing entry? Yeah that doesn't seem quite accurate. Check out the Fridge page, Logic and Horror sections for another view on that. Follow things through logically, and most of the females in the cast, would either be dead, or transformed into monsters/ abberations/oddities, if not for Araragi's actions. Hachikuji, and a few others being exceptions. Also there is a bit of disparity between the Light Novels, the Manga, and the Anime, in some cases more details, and different details are revealed in the Manga, and Light Novels, compared to the Anime. Again it seem more likely that Kaiki, is just in Denial, Hypocrisy, and Jealousy, all of which seem to be degrees that border on Insane Troll Logic. Given that he is also conman who deals in Blatant Lies too... Further reinforced by given how much he knows of the all the other characters in the series, like how Tsukihi Araragi was an oddity, how long, and to what degree has he been spying on them all? So he would know full well the true nature of Araragi's relationships.
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Context Headscratchers / Bakemonogatari