Bakemonogatari

That didn't feel like an arc so much as a long prologue for the next season.

Was that really Platinum Disco? Hahaahahahahahahhahahaha.

Has monogatari always been 90% talking before anything even happens? I have the strange feeling it has.

I also get the feeling it's always been fanservice with a plot... When Did Araragi find out he was missing a reflection? In the shower with his sister of course.

I liked how this (paraphrased) abridging highlighted the bigger picture:

Ougi: Araragi, all these mistakes are making you a more mature human.
Araragi: I'd rather mature less destructively.
Yotsugi: Ougi is manipulating everything to force you to mature.
Teori: I been played and I would have no further part in this. Take my life with a posed look.
Araragi: "Oh no"
Yotsugi: I'm a monster and I don't want you to become like me.

I don't know what you're talking about: Monogatari has no plot.

Anyway, all this arc did was turn the subtext about Araragi into text text. Everyone just flat out tells him his problem, and his transformation into a vampire is established as his metaphorical "monster" in the same sense everyone else has had.

edited 2nd Jan '15 5:25:58 PM by Clarste

Huh. Yotsugi suddenly dropped her highly irritating "Yay~" shortly after they moved to that snowy mountainous area to perform the...check-up. Wasn't it bordering on a Verbal Tic before? Kaiki I think, had to threaten her to get her to stop it, and even then she almost let slip another one.

edited 6th Jan '15 2:09:34 AM by HanabiraKage

She changes her verbal tic regularly. That's part of her character: awkwardly doing extremely anime-style verbal tics in order to pretend to be human. None of them are intrinsic to her character, but the fact that she keeps changing them is.

It doesn't really seem forced on her part though. It's like she randomly decided to pick up one tic at some point, and it became a habit.

As much as I hate to agree with Araragi, Yotsugi being capable of feeling embarrassed while still remaining stoic is...oddly attractive. I feel like giving her a hug or something.

Her original tic was "...I said with a posed look" which was basically a parody of stuff like Index where characters seriously talk like that. In her next appearance in S2, she changed it to "Yay~!" like some pop idol, while claiming she was embarrassed by her previous one. Both of those tics were referenced but not really used in her most recent appearance, and they talked a bit about how she goes out of her way to become humanlike (without the intention of becoming human), so I don't think it's a large leap to connect those qualities.

edited 6th Jan '15 4:19:02 PM by Clarste

The Sisters talk like that to emphasise how odd and robotic they are though, so it wouldn't be a good way of emulating humans.

They talk like that because the writer is a hack, but that's a different topic.

The Sisters? Are we talking Index in this example right?

Yeah.

Well, I am anyway.

Does the novel explain why Tadatsuru is all glowy?

I found Yotsugi sitting motionless in the crane machine entirely too hilarious. She was so unresponsive that I really thought she'd been "switched off". (And I died at the ending gag where Karen and Tsukihi brought her home after catching her from the machine, even if it was entirely planned on Gaen's part. Oh god, Araragi's harem just got another addition.)

And poor Shinobu, I felt really sorry for her trying to maintain her pride there (Kagenui wasn't helping), down to the extra fancy outfit she was wearing. Which just made Yotsugi's "...I lost to that?" line at the end even funnier. (Epic snowball fight was epic, too.)

Creepy Ougi was creepy. Her appearance was incredibly abrupt though. And the series is even lampshading his/her Final Boss status now.

Only in Monogatari can you have an extended serious discussion with the protagonist holding up his helper's skirt for no good reason. I was caught off guard by Yotsugi suggesting that she be sacrificed...it shows how much she's come to care for Araragi's group. Unless it was a reflection of her not valuing herself, but so far one of the things about Yotsugi has been how she apparently has a full (if highly weird) emotional complement even though she doesn't show any of it on her face.

SHAFT gags this episode - the silhouettes beside Araragi in the scene where Tsukihi mentions the Fire Sisters' disbanding are the Madoka Magica girls, and one of the cookies Yotsugi is baking looks like Kyubey.

The endcard of Yotsugi was beautiful, too.

edited 7th Jan '15 11:37:58 PM by ashnazg

I'm pretty sure that conversation had very little to do with her own opinions and everything to do with Araragi. She was just laying it out on the table as an option to see how he would react. It's pretty much established as his character flaw that he's too willing to sacrifice himself for others, so at this point his character growth will have to come from sacrificing someone else for his own happiness, which was made explicit in the same conversation you were referring to ("you haven't matured at all"). Which is... a bit of a weird thing to force your hero to do, but that's what's being set up by the story. I'm curious to see how that will play out. Allowing someone else to sacrifice themselves for him seems like the least unreasonable path, which I'm guessing will be Shinobu if this story is going to actually end.

edited 8th Jan '15 12:06:33 AM by Clarste

Oh, I didn't think of it that way. That's interesting.

Someone on another site pointed out that Araragi has a reflection in his car's rearview mirror in Hanamonogatari. A continuity slip, or foreshadowing?

Yotsugi did kind of sacrifice herself for him, or that's what she thought she was doing. Not her life, no, but she sacrificed his perception of her as human when she took the actions of a monster. In the end Araragi is still pretty accepting of her and Kagenui and Gaen have her live in his house to mitigate the damage, but still.

Any new info on the Owarimonogatari anime yet? It's supposed to start next month but we don't have a release date beyond that...

Everything we know

I think what SHAFT is doing is waiting until they have a release date to start seriously advertising

edited 6th Sep '15 1:25:46 AM by Hylarn

Crab a best

edited 6th Sep '15 1:27:50 AM by MoreThanBored

The Owarimonogatari anime is going to cover the first two volumes (out of three). Koyomimonogatari (the preceding arc) and the third volume of Owari are going to happen later, because things can never be simple with this series

http://www.kizumonogatari-movie.com/

IT'S HAPPENING

edited 30th Sep '15 10:19:18 AM by MoreThanBored

I've never been entirely sure why people want Kizu so much. Good to hear, though, I guess.

For the record, here's◊ the source code for the page. It says "Nope, not showing you today."

Anyway, Kizumonogatari is now one of those infinitely delayed things that can't possibly live up the the extended hype people forced themselves through. Frankly, after S2 it probably won't have anything new for most people.

Boring fights?

x3

Because it's been delayed for nearly half a decade and people want to see every story adapted.