FINALLY, SHE ARRIVES FINALLY, SHE’S INTRODUCED


pictured: A wild Ougi Oshino appears! What will Koyomi Araragi do?

Koyomi Araragi and Ougi Oshino are stuck inside a locked classroom. It isn’t a normal locked classroom – the clock in this classroom doesn’t move, and sound doesn’t pass in or out of the room. It’s a liminal interruption to Araragi’s normal school life - of course, it’s an oddity situation! Classic Nisio Isin. Classic SHAFT. Or is it?

It started as an ordinary October afternoon at Naoetsu Private High School, until Kanbaru brought a strange new girl over to Araragi – a first-year student who sought advice about oddities, and who claimed to be related to the Hawaiian-shirt-wearing-specialist Meme Oshino. Ougi presented Araragi with a paper map of their school and said that there’s something odd about the size of an audiovisual room. Together, they went to investigate. Now they’re stuck inside.

Why this room? Why now? And what’s with Araragi’s memory? Remember that first short in Koyomimonogatari in which he forgot something he’d done in first year? Something about this room is intensifying Araragi’s flashbacks to that year. Is there a reason he chooses a specific desk to sit at? Araragi appears nonchalant about it all. Ougi, however, is interested in what’s going on in Araragi-senpai’s head.


pictured: What will Koyomi Araragi do? Fight Call Hanekawa Bag Run => Can’t escape!

Araragi and Ougi’s situation inside this odd classroom is a simulacrum of an incident in Araragi’s first year at the school. In a specific classroom, on a specific day of that first year, something went down that disrupted Araragi’s sense of normality and he began a metamorphization into the kind of person he is as a third-year student. On that day, Araragi participated in a classroom trial staged by his class, aimed at uncovering who among them cheated on a mathematics exam – and as he steadily recounts the details of that incident through Ougi’s prompts and questions, literal and surrealist scenes from his memory play out in the theatre of the liminal classroom.

Apart from Araragi, who were the major figures in this classroom trial? Not Tsubasa Hanekawa, who doesn’t figure into the tale at all. Nor Hitagi Senjougahara, who hadn’t been a noteworthy classmate to Araragi at that point in his life. Indeed, as per his backstory up until now, Araragi’s student life then saw him almost an isolationist. The only other major character – in both the narrative sense, and in the budget sense because she’s the only other animated character – is the-then class president Sodachi Oikura, who was a mathematics enthusiast, who joined a study group that met the day before the exam, and who had a persistent if unclear animosity towards Araragi.

This double-episode of ‘Ougi Formula’ is the best the series has been in a while. I found it more engaging and enjoyable than the majority of Monogatari Second Season, one on account of how it goes straight to the point about the mystery, two for the fact that we’re finally seeing Ougi as an active participant in an arc from start to finish, and three for the fact that it’s got a straightforward start, middle, and end, without any of the side adventures or hints about adventures ahead whilst Araragi and Ougi work at uncovering Araragi’s memory of the incident. There’s no ‘scene with the sister(s)’ lined up ahead of the main mystery, no overindulgent fanservice moments, and little to no recycling of old monogatari background music. It’s the kind of monogatari anime arc I hadn’t known I needed.



pictured: new mystery, new characters, new weird art style, and though you won’t hear it in this post, new music!

Upon entering the classroom and learning of the impromptu class assembly, Araragi had been assigned as presiding member of the assembly by Sodachi, as he scored better in the exam than those who participated in the study group (Araragi scored 100, Sodachi scored 99, and on average those who attended the study goup scored 20 points higher than those who hadn’t). As Sodachi allows no-one to leave the classroom until the culprit is identified, the assembly goes on for hours, steadily straining all of the students’ attention and patience with one another to breaking point.

Araragi’s memories of the arguments among his first-year classmates on that day is interposed with Ougi’s queries about the incident, and remarks about his character as he understood it. It’s almost as if Ougi knows more than she ought to – it isn’t unsettling to see her act this way when we’ve seen it in other arcs, although it is unsettling that, for this first time that Ougi and Araragi are spending together, they’re stuck in this liminal space together, and he isn’t bothered by her. This goes a step further as Araragi acknowledges that, on the day of the incident, the class together couldn’t conclude who the culprit was – only for Ougi to postulate that the only path out of the liminal classroom they’re stuck in is for Araragi to solve that cold case.

I feel there’s nothing superfluous about ‘Ougi Forumula’ – it’s the tightest that the screenwriting’s been since ‘Hitagi Crab’ at the beginning of Bakemonogatari, and unlike say a trip through an alternate timeline, this is about something that matters more to Araragi, about who he is. This is the core of the arc, and the core of Owarimonogatari – it’s about time we work out who Araragi is, and why he stands in the world the way that he does. This arc delivers on that, and it’s one of the best double-episode openers you could ask for after all of the quagmires of the tease and denial during his arcs in Monogatari Second Season and a minute or two in Tsukimonogatari.


pictured: the implication of this shot is that Ougi is setting herself up as another top to Araragi’s bottom

And speaking of tease and denial, the other outstanding question is the nature of one Ougi Oshino – on the one hand she’s another younger classmate and potential Araragi harem member, on the other hand we the audience have been aware awhile about how she goes on to have a hand in the ‘Nadeko Medusa’ fiasco and also the Tsukimonogatari kidnappings, but before all of that she was all up in the weirdness that’s unfolding here!

As an anime-only fan I have no idea if the visuals of Ougi physically imposing herself over and around Araragi are true to the text or an interpretation on SHAFT’s part, nonetheless it’s true to how Ougi asserts herself and her line of questioning over Araragi’s almost-too-impersonal attitude in this abstract space. She’s arguably the active persona in this arc, as she does most of the questioning – and leading – of Araragi through his memories. And she’s not solely doing it to get out of the room – she’s prodding him, helping him to address his memories. It’s a good dynamic and a welcome break from the normal dynamics that Araragi has with Hanekawa, Senjougahara, and so on.

That the simple brilliance of ‘Ougi Formula’ only came about once Nisio Isin wrote a scenario in which his protagonist and coded antagonist got stuck in a room together I think says something about how self-indulgent he is sometimes. As I’ve said before, it’s as if he has a bit of a bent against ‘killing his darlings’, and so we end up with arcs that take an age to arrive at the heart of the matter, and arcs that take an age to actually arrive (we will eventually both arrive at and skip backwards to the much-telegraphed ‘Shinobu Mail’ arc halfway through Owarimonogatari, and afterwards, skip ahead but back again to the aftermath of Araragi’s death shown in the last Koyomimonogatari short).



In the end, although the arguments in the classroom carried on through the afternoon, Sodachi called for the class to settle the issue through a majority vote on the suspects – herself, Araragi, Senjougahara, and one or two others. Sodachi voted for Araragi. The rest of the class voted for Sodachi. In her despair, Sodachi soon dropped out of school – Araragi doesn’t believe Sodachi to be the culprit, as she called for the assembly and for the vote. Ougi thinks there’s more to it – that Araragi knows. And he does. I’m not going to spoil it – sufficed to say, Ougi identifies the gaps and silences in Araragi’s retelling to unveil the actual perpetrator, and once he's acknowledged who he hasn't included in the story up to this point you understand why he buried the memory of this incident, you understand his underlying motivation in the self-isolating student life he lived from then through to the events of Kizumonogatari.

Having solved the mystery, Araragi and Ougi are able to leave the room.

And that’s the end of the story about Sodachi Oikura, former class president. Except it isn’t the end of the story about Koyomi Araragi and Sodachi Oikura, as the very next day, Hanekawa halts Araragi before he can enter their classroom – Sodachi Oikura has returned to school.

I brought my thoughts on ‘Sodachi Riddle’ and ‘Sodachi Lost’ under one spoiler together for simplicity – they pick up from the scene in ‘Ougi Formula’ which teased Sodachi’s return. In addition, they are also chronologically sequential, which I see as another plus for the first part of Owarimonogatari.

Episodes 03-04: Sodachi Riddle

Initially it might seem counterintuitive to introduce a new supporting character so late in the ongoing narrative arc about Araragi, in the chronological middle of Araragi’s school year. Is the story of Sodachi Oikura close to the centre of what makes Araragi, Araragi? From what we’ve seen, Sodachi isn’t a part of future events in ‘Nadeko Medusa’, ‘Hitagi End’, Tsukimonogatari, or Koyomimonogatari, or even Hanamonogatari – if there’s something to Sodachi’s involvement at this point, it’s about her past, and about Araragi’s past. To wit: I mentioned in my previous post that Sodachi had an animosity towards Araragi, and apart from noting that he scored a point higher on an exam than she had, it happened to go by unexplained.

As Araragi meets Sodachi again, she isn’t about to tell him why she treats him as she does. He attempts to talk it out, but not before she implodes in a bout of angst about how Araragi’s high school life seems to have turned out so well whilst hers hasn’t been happy at all. Araragi has friends! And to top it off, Araragi even has a lover!


pictured: the world of monogatari is about to be served some much-needed High School Drama

I can see the situation from Sodachi’s eyes: it’s heartbreaking to be made an outcast – and harder to come back and see that someone who was around for what you went through is seemingly unaffected by any suffering themselves through the intervening years, and to boot, seems to be incapable of seeing you for who you are. Araragi is perplexed, something’s still missing in his memories about her – however, Hanekawa and Senjougahara interrupt. In a short exchange, Sodachi ups the stakes and slaps Senjougahara – and Senjougahara punches her out.

Sodachi subsequently takes the day and the following day off of school to recover, and Senjougahara takes the days off too, though out of a sense of shame for knocking out a classmate. Araragi will eventually have to see both girls, separately – before that though, he takes the afternoon to investigate a scene from a memory, an abandoned mansion he used to visit one summer as a middle school student, and begins to remember the young girl he would meet there to learn about the wonders of mathematics.


pictured: a window into a more innocent time in Araragi’s life – or are his memories hiding something more serious in plain sight?

Accompanying Araragi on this afternoon through his memories of summer days away from middle school, is Ougi Oshino. It’s a sensitive subject for Araragi, though she shows a steadier hand here, and helps him as an accomplice. Her goals otherwise are still somewhat airy, as she is.

To approach the heart of why I enjoyed these arcs so much: it’s because here, Nisio Isin has stripped away almost all of the side story threads and questionable humour that held back about half of Monogatari Second Season, and instead harks back to the groundwork of Bakamonogatari: this is a story about a young woman with issues that she’s struggling to address on her own, and it falls upon Araragi and co. to investigate and support her through it.

In most monogatari arcs the narrative of Araragi, Oshino, or Gaen helping someone sort out an apparition is allegorical to helping people address the stress or trauma under the surface of their outward lives – in this instance it’s not allegorical, as there isn’t an apparition at all: it’s about Araragi searching for what’s underneath all of the twisted emotion that Sodachi is aiming towards him again after their years apart, and that means uncovering his memories of that one youthful summer he spent meeting with her.



Araragi learns that there’s a mature subject matter attached to his memories of learning mathematics from Sodachi: as Ougi points out that the mansion they’re in – Sodachi’s home years ago – hadn’t been abandoned back then, the implication is that Sodachi had potentially been a victim of domestic violence. Ougi speculates that Sodachi had somehow ascertained that Araragi’s parents were police officers, and that Sodachi invited him over often in an attempt to clue him in to her situation as she was worried about the consequences of asking him for help outright. When Sodachi moved away with her mother, she wrote nothing for Araragi to say why she’d vanished – she had given up on involving him – and they wouldn’t see each other again until years afterward in high school, around which time he’d already forgotten their many hours together, but she had not.

The other mystery Hanekawa points out afterward is how Ougi knew about Araragi’s parent’s occupations.

As an aside before I press on to ‘Sodachi Lost’, I love the OP for ‘Sodachi Riddle’ though I’ll acknowledge that the theming of it might leave an impression that the arc is about Sodachi’s womanhood or about her as a potential love rival for Senjougahara, it isn’t, though it is another possible dimension of her which isn’t explored in Owarimonogatari. Also, ‘Sodachi Lost’ does have its own unique OP that’s available on the Blu-Ray Editions, but Crunchyroll streams the broadcast version, which continues to use the otherwise excellent Sodachi Lost OP.


Episodes 05-07: Sodachi Lost

Araragi has recovered his memories of his clandestine meetings with Sodachi one summer in middle school. It’s now the next day, and as class vice president to Hanekawa, Araragi has to help her out in checking up on both Sodachi and Senjougahara at their residences. In any other scenario, Araragi would go to Senjougahara’s to check on her as he’s her boyfriend, though in this instance, Araragi has a sense of obligation about understanding more of Sodachi’s situation, since he’s affirmed through others that Sodachi knows the occupation of his parents.

According to anyone with their head screwed on properly, Araragi going to Sodachi’s apartment on his own and not to Senjougahara’s house is a no-no. And so Ougi Oshino appears, offering a solution: she’ll accompany Araragi-senpai to see Sodachi, and Hanekawa will see Senjougahara on her own. Hanekawa ain’t having this proposal from the fresh underclassman, whom she knows barely anything about, and who hadn’t been in the picture at all before this week! And so they ask Araragi: who will you pick to accompany you?


pictured: fast times at Naoetsu Private High

Hanekawa and Ougi’s argument over who should accompany Araragi to Sodachi’s apartment is one of the best arguments in the series: it’s a showcase of how the ways in which the young women in the infamous ‘Araragi Harem’ are as much there because he helped them out and became friends with each other as it is because having them around means they perform some of his thinking for him. It’s initially subtle, but as the argument escalates and the traffic goes into gridlock in a clever visual simile that doubles as a callback to a conversation from Season Season, one can’t ignore the truth that it’s so much easier on Araragi when he only has to think about what one girl wants at a time.

Araragi’s stuck in the middle between two assertive but very different young women – Hanekawa is highly intelligent and open-hearted, but Ougi is charming and intuitive in solving mysteries. He’s meant to be the main man in this moment, but he’s taking too long to decide. In the end, Hanekawa takes the decision away from him by appealing to a higher power. Ougi doesn’t have a counterpoint.



Sometime afterwards as they wait outside Sodachi’s apartment, Hanekawa is unhappy that Araragi picked her on account of an offer he couldn’t refuse, and he’s at pains to persuade Hanekawa that he picked her for a pure, wholesome reason. He’s unsuccessful in convincing the class president, but he sticks with the point in his inner monologue.

Anyway, back to the situation at Sodachi’s apartment –



Sodachi Oikura lives on her own in an apartment provided by the government, and as Hanekawa had to pressure her to put on proper attire before she and Araragi entered to speak, it’s apparent Sodachi doesn’t have a good handle on her life. It’s not surprising, and it’s unsettling though not stocking to see her implode at Araragi again (though Araragi stands untouched as Hanekawa intercepts anything Sodachi throws at him!). He knows now through his parents that Sodachi had stayed at their house a while years ago in an attempt to shelter her from her parents (and this is how she knew they were police officers) – but as Sodachi acknowledges now, home life at the Araragi’s had been too happy to handle against the backdrop of her parents’ household, and so she went back to, where her mother was sometimes beaten, and where her mother would beat her as an outlet to the misery. After moving out the mansion with her mother in middle school, Sodachi lived with her mother despite how her mother ignored her and shut herself away. Sodachi survived on social welfare money until one day, her mother vanished.

Here it’s worth acknowledging that the sources of Sodachi’s depression appear to share pieces with each of the other members in Ararag’s harem: she had an unhappy home life and her parents split up (same with Senjouagahara, Hanekawa, Hachikuji), she had been physically abused by one or both of her parents (as were Senjougahara, Hanekawa), she had been ignored / neglected by one or both of her parents (as were Hanekawa, Hachikuji), she is physically frail (Senjougahara was frail while under the influence of the crab apparition), one of her parents is dead (Kanbaru’s mother is also dead), she suffers from low self-esteem and low self-efficacy (as had Nadeko and likely others), and she has delusions about herself and about her situation (as does Nadeko). On that point about delusions, although Sengoku Nadeko deluded herself about her differing desires and personalities, Sodachi deludes herself about how she arrived in her current situation and has suppressed aspects of her trauma.



The disappearance of Sodachi’s mother – who Sodachi states had sealed herself away in a bedroom, until she vanished – is less a practical mystery and more of a matter of the gaps and silences in Sodachi’s story. Initially diverting from the topic to put pressure on Araragi to act as her antagonist and validate her unhappiness, Sodachi sees the wisdom in Hanekawa’s insight that she’s unhappy because she is unwilling to try to be happy – and asks if Araragi and Hanekawa are able to help in solving the mystery of her mother. Away from the apartment, Hanekawa and once again Ougi are able to solve it on their own and begin to quiz Araragi about it, to the point that he has to accept that the most horrible guess is the only possible one: Sodachi’s mother starved herself to death inside the room, and Sodachi ignored this and attended to the corpse for two years.



In light of how real Sodachi Oikura felt as a person through until this instant, the reveal that she’s suppressed the trauma of not only her mother’s death from starvation but her memories of attending to her mother’s corpse is one that’s tested my suspension of disbelief. If you include the events depicted in ‘Ougi Formula’, it’s as if Sodachi is set up to be something of a punching bag of a character – she’s been dumped with almost all of the trauma that Nisio Isin is able to stick to a teenage girl without breaking her as a person.

That said, the audience – and Araragi, Hanekawa, and I suppose Ougi – are able to see how Sodachi is acting out in school and acknowledge that it’s wrong yet still sympathise with how she is struggling to process her traumas. It’s easy to sympathise with her knowing what she’s endured, and that’s why it’s surprising but cathartic to see that is able to accept the truth about her mother from Araragi so openly and so calmly, and sad to know that although they’ve made amends and she’s beginning to turn her attitude around and turn her life around, her social housing arrangement has changed so she has to move away and transfer to another school.



Also, all of this happened without any ‘apparition’ associated with Sodachi – if there was an apparition in ‘Ougi Formula’, it was mostly likely the liminal classroom and Araragi’s associated memory issues, but in both Sodachi arcs if there’s anything approaching an ‘oddity’ it’s Ougi’s ongoing streak of underexplained insights into Araragi’s thought process and the situation(s) at hand.


pictured: Ougi’s shadow looms large over Araragi and Hanekawa’s final year of school

If it isn’t already obvious, Ougi’s persistence to be of use to Araragi in his affairs is an additional sign that there's something odd about her, and it so happens that Ougi’s next move after this is to stand and wait around the public spot where one Sengoku Nadeko will fatefully encounter her. Ononoki already said the quiet part out loud in Tsukimonogatari, so rather than call Ougi a secret final boss, I feel it's fair to describe her as more of a shadow jack-in-the-box that Nisio Isin has been winding up all the while.

As for Sodachi, she has/had a cameo shot in Koyomigatari and appears in the still-somewhat-new Off/Monster Season, though for now, her final note in Koyomi Araragi’s school life is a literal note left for him in his student desk drawer, assumedly in place of the one she ought’ve left for him at her old house all those summers ago. Although the contents of her letter aren’t shown nor articulated in Araragi’s monologue, at the end I am satisfied in the knowledge that they’re both happier and healthier for having met one another again.

Fist 55 episodes are almost solid and are pretty decent, if I could break this series in half this would be a solid okay in my book. Very overhyped, but easy to get the appeal although it had a decent place to end. Unfortunately from episode 56 to 86 most of it felt like plot points that only needed one episode took 2 or 3 for no reason to the point where I was wondering why it took so long to get anywhere. Out of every anime I could compare this to at first I was thinking this had the same problems as Patlabor or Bokurano, but its flaws in the second half remind me more of Iron Leauger as it had multiple points to just end and chose to kept going. The Church of Terra was such a major threat yet nobody did anything or did so little about it after episode 64 knowing full well they were still around after the Earth raid that ended up causing multiple cities being set on fire and major characters like Yang getting offed. Weird plot points like Kaiser Erwin being kidnapped went nowhere, major characters like Oberstein just disappear into the background for forty five episodes at a time, stuff like this make it so decompressed and just pop in again at random... Makes me believe there was some sort of focus issue. Episode 87 onward was a big pile of "... Why are we even continuing right now?" Most of it was just Reinhard being sick (by collagen disease?) and somehow the far future lost so much medical tech we have in the modern day while his marshals have a pissing contest because they can't see through an obvious Church of Terra ploy. The former democratic republicans just stop being part of the story for fifteen episodes, shortly after that Adrian gets arrested offscreen-



Why didn't they just show that? Visual medium, they could have shown this in a fifteen or twenty second scene. This is an OVA and it has extended episode lengths. I get with a story this big you want to gloss over things, but main characters capturing the main antagonist is a major event. JUST. I'd make a Horus comparison, but De Ville went fully Alpharius in the last episode. I don't know. So many off beat decisions, death by a thousand slow paced cuts. Okay, I'm done.

In many ways, ‘Shinobu Mail’ is the story I was waiting on. The story we were made to wait on. I have the impression that Nisio Isin has his own sense of humour about this, though there are also thematic interests in positioning this story here in Owarimonogatari and not after ‘Shinobu Time’ in Second Season: this is about uncovering how Araragi sees himself as an active participant in the events surrounding him, about how Shinobu does and doesn’t see herself similarly, about how Gaen Izuko plans for contingencies, and assuming you’ve already seen the ending of the Koyomimonogatari shorts, it’s about how what Araragi and Shinobu both do and don’t do here inevitably lead them to the events of the exam day at North Shirahebi Shrine.


pictured: Araragi narrowly survives the torching of the abandoned cram school by Hanekawa’s subconscious White Tiger apparition

To start, the overlaps with the events of the ‘Tsubasa Tiger’ arc are more overt here as Kanbaru’s arranged meeting with Araragi at the abandoned cram school is interrupted by a giant suit of samurai armour that attacks them. As they battle it, they learn that armour has nobody inside, it assembles itself again after it’s knocked down, and it saps their strength each time they touch it – an energy drain ability, similar to a Vampires’. It soon outmanoeuvres Araragi and holds him by the neck, but before it’s able to harm him any more the building is engulfed in white flames, forcing it to release him. In its retreat, a ghostly copy of Araragi’s voice announces that it’s searching for ‘Kiss-Shot’ and ‘Kokorowatari’, the apparition-killing sword.

The short of it (pun intended) is that Shinobu’s long-dead first servant – the first oddity slayer and original owner of the apparition-killing sword – is in fact not so dead (despite Shinobu’s stated disbelief) and is almost nearly 100% alive again after hundreds of years (Izuko Gaen’s assertion).

The long of it is that Izuko Gaen is going to occupy a not-insignificant amount of screentime to fill in Araragi, Shinobu, Kanbaru, and the audience on the details involved.


pictured: another Evangelion reference – speaking of, have you heard that the original series first aired thirty years ago this October? Of course you have! You’re on the EvaGeeks.org Forum!

To surmise: the ashes of the first servant scattered on air until one day fifteen years ago they settled at North Shirahebi Shrine. Similar to how the arrival of Kiss-Shot in town had attracted other apparitions, in that ‘air spot’ at the Shrine the servant over the years absorbed strength from other apparitions gathering at the Shrine, and although the Talisman that Meme Oshino asked Araragi to place at the Shrine starved the servant, the arrival of Shinobu one night allowed him to acquire the strength needed to abandon it and the motivation to head out into the world to hunt her down.

Izuko Gaen intends to stop the servant before he is able to attack a human, and as it isn’t a problem that the other specialists are appropriate for, she’s phoned in outside help – who we know to be the vampire hunter Episode from Kizumonogatari, as he appeared alongside Gaen early on in Second Season. Gaen leaves some money for Araragi and the others to go get breakfast and then wanders off (I presumed she goes to pick up Episode).


pictured: SHAFT’s allegory of Izuko Gaen’s overbearing influence on the narrative allows her to neatly illustrate her interpretation of the power standings in the series and, in her view, the narrow significance of Araragi, Hanekawa, and co. as set pieces in her grand designs

At this point I’ll pull a Nisio Isin and backtrack to Araragi and Kanbaru in the burning building: the high schoolers are about break out through the windows when they’re interrupted by the abrupt arrival of Yotsugi, immediately knocking out Kanbaru. Outside, Yotsugi says it’s a coincidence that she saves them, they chat, then Yotsugi flies off to look for the ghost samurai, leaving Araragi and Kanbaru to somehow get themselves lost in the streets on their way to meet Izuko Gaen.

Instead of meeting Izuko at the park, they encounter Shinobu Oshino at the swings. It’s not explained how Shinobu survived The Darkness after being separated from Araragi in ‘Shinobu Time’, but she’s here albeit a bit beat up after apparently battling an apparition alongside Hanekawa-Neko and ‘The Doll’ (Yotsugi). Her pairing with Araragi is still in something of a limbo, though she still has Kokorowatari – she passes it to Araragi when an amalgamated apparition attacks the trio at the park; the sword initially does the job, but Shinobu has to step in to eat it. Shinobu’s mention of another offscreen apparition battle, and the subsequent battle here are arguably irrelevant to the central storyline of the reappearance of Shinobu’s first servant slash former minion – it seems more foreshadowing for the finale of Owarimonogatari, though thankfully less on the nose.

At North Shirahebi Shrine, the trio meet with Izuko Gaen – who introduces herself to Kanbaru and Shinobu as ‘Izuko Oshino’, hiding her true identity as Kanbaru’s estranged Aunt. After Izuko’s overnight monologue and departure at the start of the new day, Araragi volunteers to go into town to shop – and Kanbaru says she’ll watch Shinobu if he buys her a new bra and a newly released BL novel.


pictured: the absence of adult supervision

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Araragi out on his own, and now that Shinobu isn’t hiding in his shadow, he’s able to indulge himself at the bookstore and pick out a photo book of mature women, though he’s unsuccessful in shielding himself from the public’s amusement at seeing him with the BL book he’s hoping to not be seen buying by himself for Kanbaru. It’s one of the better humour scenes we’ve had in a while.

The next worst thing to happen is that on his way out the bookstore, he bumps into a kid who asks him if he gave his message to Kiss-Shot.

I’d not anticipated that Seishirou – the first apparition slayer and Kiss-Shot’s first minion – would appear as a shota similar to Shinobu’s lolli appearance, but here he is, and he wants Araragi to break it off with Shinobu. They argue it out a bit, but before Araragi drinks from a bottle provided by the shota, the bottle is sliced in twain by Episode’s enormous cross: the bottle contained holy water, and had Araragi drank it, he’d be dead. As Gaen and Episode aren’t able to persuade Seishirou to negotiate, he declares that it should be settled between him and Araragi in a duel and then departs, leaving Araragi and the specialists alone. Araragi survived the encounter with Seishioru but still suffers another loss to his image as Episode and Gaen peruse the suspicious books that fell from his bag! He attempts in vain to explain away the books, but they’ve already made up their minds. It’s a great anime moment.

In fact, since the scene at the park ‘Shinobu Mail’ as been on an upwards trajectory, and as Araragi returns to North Shirahebi Shrine to discover Kanbaru and Shinobu arguing with one another, one of Shinobu’s best scenes in the series unfolds. It’s not a scene with Araragi as an active participant – Yotsugi pulls him aside into the bushes so they’re able to overhear but not be seen – and that’s one of the reasons it’s able to shine, as Kanbaru tries to persuade Shinobu to go see Seishirou again. Although Kanbaru has the power disadvantage in the argument, she doesn’t back down from her point that Seishirou spent hundreds of years attempting to revive to see Shinobu again, and after Shinobu threatens her, Kanbaru doubles down on her belief that Shinobu should stop ignoring her feelings about the past and figure out her desires for the future.

It’s not uncommon for people to have better insight into others than they do themselves – Kanbaru seeing into Shinobu’s state of mind here but not seeing her own on the whole in Bakemonogatari or in Hanamonogatari is in line to her character growth through the series, and her argument with Shinobu solidifies my impression from the ‘Mayoi Jiangshi’ and ‘Shinobu Time’ arcs in Monogatari Second Season that the Araragi and Shinobu’s pairing isn’t as interesting to me as the dynamics Shinobu has with other characters (as additional examples of this, consider Shinobu’s conversations with Hanekawa-Neko in ‘Tsubasa Cat’ and with Sengoku Nadeko in ‘Nadeko Medusa’).

And so, for the final showdown that Gaen and Episode set up for Araragi and Seishirou at the track and field area at Naoetsu Private High School, Shinobu observes from afar – and from off-screen, she throws Kokorowatari into the field: the first to deliver a strike with the sword is the winner.


pictured: the format for this final showdown of the minions could make for a decent Ninja Warrior challenge

The ‘rules box’ of the fight up to this point is understood as follows: it’s a run-off for the sword, and Koyomi Araragi is at a significant disadvantage as he’s refused to restore his vampiric pairing to Shinobu and is refraining from relying on her power. Kanbaru coaches Araragi on sprint technique for the duel. On the other side Seishirou is close to full strength, clad in samurai armour – and at the sound of the firing gun, he instantly sheds it to reveal that he’s levelled up from shota vampire to shōnen vampire and goes full sprint for the sword, collecting it before Araragi is halfway. And so how does Araragi get out of this situation? How does he cheat the rules box that Nisio Isin and SHAFT set up for this confrontation, and survive?


pictured: “Hi Phil Swift here for Flex Tape! Did you know that you can stick a Talisman-that-supresses-apparitions (TM) onto a speedy shōnen vampire’s frontpiece with double-sided Flex Tape? You can! Just follow these simple steps!”

It’s incredibly clever for Araragi to deploy Meme Oshino’s original talisman from Bakemonogatari: it’s an item that’s gone largely unnoticed throughout the series, and though Izuko Gaen acknowledged that Araragi placing it at North Shirahebi Shrine forestalled Seishirou’s attempts to regain strength from the apparitions gathering there, she did not foresee that Araragi would remove it and slap it on his opponent in the flesh – and judging from Seishirou’s shock as his body freezes on the spot halfway into his first strike, neither did he.

I do carry a little doubt about Araragi figuring out on his own that he could use the talisman from the Shrine against Seishioru in the fight – for now I feel it fits fine, as it’s more important that it contributes to a satisfactory conclusion for this chapter of the story. Having survived, Araragi retrieves Kokorowatari from Seishirou as he, in a death panic, starts to decay, and Shinobu arrives on scene to console her former minion, consume the remains of his spirit, and grant him a final death. And as for the samurai armour? For Araragi and Shinobu, it’s another detail that goes unnoticed that day …


Sometime afterward, Araragi finishes recounting the story to Ougi Oshino, who points out that if Izuko Gaen retrieved the samurai armour from the fight, it could be used to forge another apparition-killing sword. Araragi – always himself – doesn’t believe it … until, on his last day of school, Izuko Gaen shows up at North Shirahebi Shrine and attacks him with a freshly forged copy of Kokorowatari.


* * * *

For a lengthy narrative arc that began in Monogatari Second Season, the narrative importance of ‘Shinobu Mail’ arriving midway through Monogatari Final Season is fairly clear though likely more appreciable in the light novels themselves – as far as one can discern from SHAFT’s adapation, the intent is for the thematic overtures in ‘Shinobu Mail’ to connect immediately to the remainder of Owarimonogatari, which is about to pick up from Koyomi Araragi’s death in the last Koyomimonogatari short. The arcs ahead build on Izuko Gaen’s expositions about the history of North Shirahebi Shrine and the audience’s familiarity to her approach in addressing apparitions. It’s also important to have seen here how Araragi had to reach outside the boundaries of Gaen’s designs to have a proper sense of agency in handling his own affairs.

I am happy though that ‘Shinobu Mail’ arrived at this interval in the light novel order as overall the arc benefits from the adjustments to the adaptations’ directorial style introduced in Tsukimonogatari, though as with the preceding arcs in Owarimonogatari ‘Shinobu Mail’ arrives with its own stylistic static frames, its own ED edit, and an immaculate new OP sequence and character song.

Episodes 14-15: Mayoi Hell

At the end of Koyomimonogatari, Araragi awoke in the endless white expanse of the afterlife, and Mayoi Hachikuji appeared and said hello. ‘Mayoi Hell’ arc opens at that same moment. In-story it’s been six months since Araragi said his goodbyes to Hachikuji as she voluntarily moved on to the afterlife, so he’s bewildered but elated to see her … however, this happy moment is soon beset by Hachikuji’s acknowledgement that Araragi is indeed dead – and he’s condemned to the lowest circle of hell, no less.

To be clear, Koyomi Araragi isn’t condemned to lowest circle hell for being a pervert nuisance – it’s due to his affiliation with the vampiric apparition Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. I find the former idea amusing, though it’s long enough now since watching that I can’t recall if Nisio Isin or SHAFT included that as a joke for Hachikuji to lob at Araragi. If it’s not there, they could’ve chucked it in for fun.

For now, Mayoi Hachikuji herself isn’t condemned to hell, though on advice from somebody in the afterlife she’s snuck from her post of piling rocks to lead Araragi to another destination.



I’d like to highlight that Araragi and Hachikuji’s journey through the lowest level of circle of hell features select animation sequences in the style of manga artist and illustrator Hajime Ueda – fans should recognise his unique drawing style from the ending theme sequences of all of SHAFT’s monogatari adaptations.



It’s rare for Ueda’s art style to appear anywhere other than the ending sequences in monogatari so it’s close to fanservice to see it incorporated into this arc, and the strangeness of watching Araragi and Hachikuji converse and commute in this stylisation furthers the surreal feeling of their shared circumstances.

To cut to the chase: Hachikuji is leading Araragi to an afterlife copy of North Shirahebi Shrine so that Izuko Gaen can revive him to the world of the living. In order to rid Araragi of his vampiric nature, Izuko Gaen killed him using the apparition-killing sword and arranged for The Other Guy – who was not killed by Ononoki in Tsukimonogatari but had in fact long been dead – to act as an intermediary in the afterlife.



At this moment the metaphysical significance of severing Araragi from his vampire nature takes a back seat to Araragi’s other, more personal question: is he worthy of being brought back to life? On the journey there Araragi second-guessed a fair few of his life decisions, so for him, he feels others deserve the chance more – for Hachikuji though, she exclaims that he loves life too much to let this opportunity go, and as his friend she persuades him that he deserves the second chance.

It's an affective scene for Araragi and Hachikuji and an echo of their tearful goodbye at the end of the ‘Shinobu Time’, as Araragi once again has to let Hachikuji go … or, he would have to, if he doesn’t do one of the most clever and empathetic things he’s ever done: as he takes the tether and ascends back to the world of the living, he uses his legs to snatch up Hachikuji and takes her with him.

And so, as Araragi awakens mere moments after his killing at the hands of Izuko Gaen at North Shirahebi Shrine, he’s not alone in being brought back to world of the living – Hachikuji is beside him. Meanwhile, Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade – who, as forewarned in ‘Mayoi Jiangshi’, has returned to full strength from the instant of Araragi’s death – takes her sharp nails away from Izuko Gaen’s throat, as Araragi is alive again. Izuko greets Araragi and assuages his worries about The Darkness attacking Hachikuji again, as she has a plan for the lost snail apparition. Both he and Hachikuji have new opportunities, and a new dawn rises over the Shrine.



For a two-episode arc at a crucial moment, I feel ‘Mayoi Hell’ got a great deal right. It’s good that Hachikuji features in a supportive role again, and that her role isn’t spoiled by instances of inappropriate comic relief. It’s also rather clever for Nisio Isin to have crafted a believable story thread for her to return in time for the climax of Araragi’s arc, and simultaneously not let that overshadow all that Araragi has to go through himself as he nears the final showdown…

Oh sorry you think I mean his foreshadowed showdown with Ougi Oshino? No, I mean his university entrance exams. He died and came back from the dead, and now he has to go sit the exams.

Episodes 16-17: Hitagi Rendezvous


pictured: space couple

Since their university entrance exams are over and the dilemma of ‘Nadeko Medusa’ is behind them, Hitagi Senjougahara has a simple order for her boyfriend, Koyomi Araragi: it’s been six months since we’ve been on a date because of all this, therefore I’m taking you out tomorrow on White Day. If you’ve thought as I have that there’s been a dearth of shared Araragi + Senjougahara screentime since Nisemonogatari, this two-episode breather ‘Hitagi Rendezvous’ is a more easygoing escapade with our main couple. It’s a date double-episode!

As Izuko Gaen, Mayoi Hachikuji, and Shinobu (now in full form) have some time to themselves to figure out the future, Araragi has no reason not to spend the morning and afternoon with Senjougahara, who by the way, has secretly acquired a driver’s license. In a nod to the famous ending scene in episode twelve of Bakemonogatari, Senjougahara drives the pair to a planetarium for their date. It’s not an uninterrupted date though, as during the planetarium presentation Araragi nods off …


pictured: Ougi floating in Araragi’s subconscious space

… and dreams of Ougi Oshino, who appears to him as if she’s narrating the presentation. Initially Ougi speaks of specific constellations such as the ‘Hydra’, ‘Hercules’, and ‘Cancer’, allegorising their associated mythologies as if to suggest alternate interpretations about Araragi’s adventures with Senjougahara and the others. It’s all a bit too abstract, I think. That said, once Ougi informs Araragi that she’s interested in justice and opposing injustice, it’s apparent that she’s seeking to act out something an of inversion of Araragi’s normal instincts of right and wrong in regard to oddities and interpersonal relationships.

In addition, Ougi appearing inside of Araragi’s dream and monologuing to him as if they’re standing together in person is an overt hint of her association with Araragi’s subconsciousness, and though he doesn’t dwell on the implications of it too deeply, he’s smart not to mention it to Senjougahara once he awakes – as once he awakes beside her, it’s back to business.

The Serious Business of dating:


pictured: SERIOUS TEN-PIN BOWLING


pictured: SERIOUS KARAOKE


pictured: SERIOUS CARRYING-YOUR-GIRLFRIEND-BACK-TO-HER-CAR

‘Hitagi Rendezvous’ is appreciable as an interval to the ongoing narrative about apparitions – although that turns out to be a feint, for it ends up advancing Araragi and Ougi’s arc at the same time that it had us think it’d solely be developing Araragi and Senjougahara as a couple. It’s certainly a short and sweet window into Araragi and Senjougahara’s romance, something I sorely missed – in spite of their relationships’ narrative significance and its popularity among fans, it’s seldom featured for more than a few minutes at a time since Nisemonogatari. The series needs more instalments such as this one, though only one or two more – at this stage in the story, I believe Nisio Isin and SHAFT achieved a good balance between the serious arcs and these lighter arcs.

All that said, once the date is over and Senjougahara has to leave to have dinner with her Dad, it’s over, and Araragi must step outside of his home shelter and into the night … where Ougi Oshino waits.

Episodes 18-20: Ougi Dark

Okay, so Izuko Gaen has some explaining to do. Important explaining. Explaining that’s so important that it’s intercut with scenes of Araragi and the Araragi harem playing Australia’s favourite sport, Cricket. It’s the most important detail you need to take away from this: the gang play Cricket, and it looks like a close game. Don’t think they’ll be playing Test Cricket anytime soon though.

…okay okay so the actual important detail you need to know is that Gaen’s plan for helping out Hachikuji is to enshrine her at the new god at North Shirahebi Shrine. If it works it’s a win for all as Hachikuji will be able to stay in the world of the living without worrying about being pursued for deletion by The Darkness, Shinobu won’t have to be the one to become the new god at the shrine, and Gaen can be satisfied that there’s a god at the shrine doing godly things. Yes, assuredly godly things – think godly things such as Hachikuji pointing out to Araragi that he’s a pervert, keeping an eye on Araragi so that he doesn’t act perverted, and-

Okay alright I’ll talk about Ougi Oshino…



Full disclosure: I’d already gotten spoiled about the Ougi plot point and several others in these arcs from casually scrolling through weekly threads in the r/araragi subreddit over the last couple of years.

In the end, similar to the infamously spoiled ‘Snape kills Dumbledore’ of 20 years ago, the spoiling of the Ougi plot twist in Owarimonogatari isn’t as important to my enjoyment of a story as understanding the why of a plot twist.

In The Half-Blood Prince, Snape’s decision to kill Dumbledore is twofold: an apparent act of defiance against Dumbledore and his allies, and a move to spare the young Malfoy of being made to murder Dumbledore. Indeed, Snape admits no guilt to Harry about it in the aftermath. It’s only in The Deathly Hallows that the audience is allowed to see that Snape had secretly agreed to Dumbledore’s instructions to be the one to kill him, both to appear to act as an agent of Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and also to prevent Malfoy killing Dumbledore and inadvertently becoming the next owner of The Elder Wand, as that would mean that Voldemort would inevitably kill Malfoy for the wand.



I know, I know – to me, that I was spoiled about Ougi seems similar to how I had been spoiled about Snake killing Dumbledore – but this is a post about Monogatari, why write a paragraph about those twenty-year-old books? Because like how the Harry Potter books hid information about Snape in order to slowly peel back his authentic self near the end, there’s been a lot of set-up in Monogatari Second Season and Monogatari Final Season about Koyomi Araragi’s beliefs and doubts, about how apparitions are able to be brought into being by people who ruminate and who come into contact with other apparitions, and hidden information about Araragi and Ougi’s personalities. The point of it all is this: the grand chess game that Izuko Gaen is playing against Ougi Oshino is actually a shadow chess game of Izuko Gaen and Koyomi Araragi against Araragi’s shadow personality.



Ougi Oshino – as an apparition – is a manifestation of Araragi’s self-criticisms and self-doubts, of Araragi’s interpretation of ‘The Darkness’ as it concerns to apparitions that don’t fulfill their roles (or that go against their notional characteristics), and of Araragi’s second-guessing about whether the way he addressed the oddities he’s encountered was the ‘right way’ all along. Ougi’s actions – interrogating Araragi to stir up his memories about Sodachi, prodding Nadeko’s insecurities and mentioning the existence of the talisman to inspire Nadeko search for it, setting up The Other Specialist to abduct the Fire Sisters and Kanbaru to use as bait to ‘exterminate’ Araragi and Shinobu – are all about … acting in the same capacity that The Darkness does, only from Araragi’s shadow self’s sense of rights and wrongs. Is that right?

Am I all that clear on what Ougi was aiming at all along?

Reading Ougi’s intentions as an inversion of Araragi’s moral compass isn’t 100% aligning with all of the occurrences she’s had a hand in. As I indicated above there’s some insights scattered through ‘Ougi Formula’, ‘Sodachi Riddle’, and notably ‘Sodachi Lost’ – these are simpler to parse in that they’re overt instances of Ougi’s interference. Araragi’s subconscious ascertained that Sodachi would be back at the school, and so Ougi acted – both to help bring back Araragi’s memories of Sodachi, and to try to step in at the moment when the pair might make amends. Ougi’s intentions around activating Nadeko in ‘Nadeko Medusa’, and her actions afterward in hiring The Other Guy appear to accomplish nothing other than to subdue Araragi’s agency in his own story. Ougi herself outlined her interest in ‘justice’ and ‘opposing injustice’ – is acting against Araragi as his shadow personality all that amounts to?

I’ve the sense afterwards that there may be some minor puzzle pieces about Ougi’s intentions missing from the adaptation. Adding to that, there’s a lot of exposition in the course of ‘Shinobu Time’, ‘Shinobu Mail’, ‘Mayoi Hell’, and now ‘Ougi Dark’ about how apparitions are allowed and not allowed be in the world – mostly courtesy of Izuko Gaen, who at times appears to me to be a stand-in for Nisio Isin’s authorial intent – and although those explanations adequately describe the nature of ‘The Darkness’ and therefore shed some light on the nature of Ougi’s behaviour as an apparition, I don’t believe these altogether answer for the gaps and silences in Ougi’s intentions and actions. It doesn’t help that those expository scenes aren’t as memorable as the more emotionally propelled scenes. Even an hour afterward it’s as if a lot of that exposition is just rules talk that’s there to establish the boundaries of the showdown, the rules box of the climax.



As with knowing that Araragi survives the ending of Koyomimonogatari & the ordeal of the ‘Mayoi Hell’ episodes if you already watched Hanamonogatari, then you already know that both Araragi & Ougi survive this ordeal too. Thus if you’re following the suggested watch order and not the strict chronological order, the satisfaction for the conclusion comes down to the way in which Araragi and Ougi cheat the ‘rules box’ for apparitions caught in a lie – as once Araragi acknowledges that Ougi originates from him, she is no longer filling her role as Ougi Oshino, and is therefore then a target of ‘The Darkness’. And so how do they cheat the ‘rules box’ (the scenario described by Izuko Gaen) and survive together?

As Araragi attempts to protect Ougi from The Darkness, Meme ‘Hawaiian Shirt’ Oshino returns at the last instant – and instead of acknowledging the lie and stating that Ougi is not his niece, Memes Oshino addresses the pair as if Ougi is his niece. The lie of Ougi Oshino is no longer a lie – and The Darkness disappears. After all, if Ougi is also fulfilling the function of Meme Oshino’s niece, she’s fulfilling her role as an apparition! Or something like that. It all works out, and it’s satisfying enough as an ending to Koyomi Araragi’s arc and the question mark of Ougi Oshino.



Also – although it’s not the focus, there’s a major win here for Hanekawa that’s been brewing in the background all the while. It’s apparent by the end that Hanekawa had been the first to figure out Ougi’s identity in ‘Sodachi Lost’ and she knew that Araragi would want to save Ougi once he understood for himself, so she spent months away from school searching for Meme Oshino in the hopes of bringing the specialist back to town. When Hanekawa arrives with Meme Oshino at the climax, Hanekawa sees that Araragi and Ougi are still alive and says ‘I win’: in finding Meme Oshino and gaining his aid to save Ougi, Hanekawa has outsmarted Izuko Gaen, who had belittled her when they met in the ‘Tsubasa Tiger’ arc of Monogatari Second Season.

And the coda scene about the day of the graduation is a welcome inclusion.

Zoku Owarimonogatari Episodes 1-6: Koyomi Reverse

The six-episode instalment Zoku Owarimonogatari is an after story to Koyomi Araragi’s arc through Owarimonogatari.

One day in the week after his graduation, a listless Araragi accidentally passes through an apparition in his bathroom mirror and into a kind of mirrored world where his house and the surrounding districts are backwards (but Araragi doesn’t log this detail as important) and his family and friends are also not as he knows them…


pictured: Sodachi is now happy, cute, and staying at Araragi’s house as a childhood friend!

For Araragi, a pixie-cut Sodachi who’s supposedly his childhood friend and appears and acts cute and is staying in his house as if it’s normal is noteworthy. To be fair it’s also odd that Araragi’s sister Karen is short instead of tall, and odd that Ononoki is extroverted and expressive instead of introverted. Tsukihi is normal. Sodachi in his house, though? Some might suggest Araragi stay in this alternate reality on account of this point alone, if not for the necessity to return to Senjogahara and the others as he normally knows them.

It’s an intriguing scenario though one that isn’t immediately threatening so Araragi takes time to have a think about things and wanders over to North Shirahebi Shrine for advice, where he meets Tall, Adult Hachikuji. No, not the alternate Hachikuji he met in ‘Mayoi Jiangshi’ – it’s ‘Goddess of the Shrine’ Adult Hachikuji, who’s happy to pick him up and spin him around a bit because it’s natural to her that she does this.


pictured: adult-sized goddess Hachikuji may also be a good deal for Araragi – apart from when she picks him up and spins him around


pictured: a smug, knowledgeable Nadeko

As he shares saké at the shrine with Adult-Goddess Hachikuji and former Goddess Nadeko, he finds Nadeko has a good point: mirrors, in the narrative sense, don’t just reflect things left to right, they show another side to people. In this mirrored world, he’s not simply seeing alternates of the people he knows, he’s seeing other sides to the people he knows: Kanbaru had attacked him as the Rainy Devil as that’s a side of herself that she suppresses, Hanekawa had saved him from Kanbaru as Black Hanekawa as that’s a side of herself that she hides, and Shinobu is not a childlike vampire but a beautiful princess in a lavish castle all to herself, and that’s another side to her that Araragi hasn’t known about.

However, as Araragi spends more time with these alternates as his normal self, the more he upsets the balance of the mirrored world.


pictured: adult-sized not-so-adult Hachikuji, fun at parties

Araragi’s search for a solution leads him to the bathroom in Kanbaru’s house in the hopes that he’ll see an image in the water which will help him, based on the story Kanbaru had told him before in Komoyimonogatari. Laying back in the bath, he doesn’t have a vision in the water per se, but he does see someone who walks in and accompanies him in the bath – Kanbaru’s mother, Tooe Gaen.

The appearance of Tooe Gaen is arguably the most interesting part of Zoku Owarimonogatari. One layer of it is that she’s supposed to be dead, and yet here she is, in the mirrored world, walking in on Araragi sitting in her bath, and then sitting in the bath with him while they talk about why he’s there. Their heart-to-heart is well worth watching, as it touches on threads of Araragi’s ‘other side’, and his unfinished business and regrets from his past. “It’s not your other side, but you can’t let it be on the opposing side”, Tooe says – her speaking tone is at times similar to Kanbaru’s memories of her in Hanamonogatari, her demeanour is reminiscent of Kanbaru’s, and also of remarks about ‘the other Gaen sister’ from Izuko Gaen and Kaiki on other occasions.


pictured: Tooe Gaen – not your usual ‘older woman’ trope

Another layer that’s interesting – and speaking of Izuko – is that Tooe Gaen appears in the mirrored world, and Izuko Gaen doesn’t. In the logic provided up to this point and later, the people who appear in this world are other sides of the normal worlds’ inhabitants. Araragi knew Izuko Gaen, who isn’t here; and had never known Tooe, who is here. He hasn’t heard enough of Kanbaru’s memories of her mother to subconsciously procure a vision of her, and nor does he know the whole story of the Gaen family’s interest in oddities, or at least not until Kanbaru speaks about it in Hanamonogatari. Nevertheless, Tooe appears in the mirrored world instead of Izuko, and as such I’ve wondered if Tooe is not in fact ‘dead’: is ‘Tooe’ who Izuko used to be before she became a specialist, before they made Ononoki? Is this ‘Tooe’ another side to Izuko, a persona of how she remembers her late sister? It’s known that Tooe’s passing is one of Izuko’s lasting regrets, could Izuko’s memories of her sister have been vivid enough to have persisted as a shadow, and appear to Araragi in the mirrored world?

Whichever way it works, it’s what’s on screen and it’s assuredly what’s in Nisio Isin’s books, so it’s what the audience and Araragi have gotta work with. The good news is, Tooe gives Araragi indispensable advice about where to go next: Go back to school, kid!


pictured: Ougi, inside the other side

Apart from all the others who’ve appeared, there’s another side to Araragi who’s supposedly the ‘normal’ Araragi in this mirrored world, who hasn’t appeared. And what kind of a person would that be? We already know the answer: Ougi Oshino. This is why Araragi’s bedroom closet in the mirrored world is filled with the girl’s school uniform, why Araragi puts one on before he cycles over to the school, and why he finds Ougi sitting cleverly amongst the disorganised desks and chairs in a boy’s uniform. (this also offers another reason for why Ougi appears as a boy in Hanamonogatari)

Ougi – as Araragi’s unspoken side, his shadow side – is Araragi’s safety switch for stepping out of this mirrored world and back into his own. It’s also clear now thanks to Ougi and the others that Araragi’s initial impression – that he’d stepped through an apparition in his bathroom mirror – had been incorrect. Instead, what happened is that Araragi saw himself in the mirror for the first time in a while and, as he tried to remember something he felt he was forgetting, he inadvertently used the power of apparitions and inverted a sizable portion of the town and its inhabitants. It’s fortunate that Araragi and Ougi are together though, as because of Ougi they’re able to switch it all back to normal.



If there’s one person unaccounted for in all of this, it’s Hitagi Senjougahara – though, honestly, how would it be any other way? Araragi is happy with her – he hadn’t sought out her other side in the mirrored world because he hadn’t needed to see her other side (assuming she’d been there – I thought it possible Araragi’s subconscious protected her, and hadn’t inverted her along with the others). As such, once he’s back in the normal world with his beloved, he doesn’t need to worry about his unaccounted-for regrets, or the regrets or other sides of the people he’s helped – Araragi and Senjougahara are both ready to step forward into a new life, and into adulthood.

Once again, the apparition named Ougi Oshino – only now that Araragi and the others have allowed her to exist after all, is it appropriate to say she’s only an apparition? As I see it, Araragi inadvertently brought about an apparition – an apparition who is a person. Ougi enrolled in school, she attends classes, she wears the uniform, and she speaks to other students and other people outside of Araragi’s knowledge and perception. She’s a person.

Do Araragi and the others actually discuss the implications of his unintentionally bringing about a new person into the world? Do Araragi and the others discuss the implications of allowing an apparition to live as an otherwise ordinary person in the human world? Were these kids never allowed to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, have they never seen the episode where Data created Lal?

Hanekawa has probably thought about all of this because that’s how Nisio Isin would write her, but apart from her bringing along Meme Oshino to help Araragi save Ougi, how do we know what she thinks about the implications of all of this?

Not even Izuko Gaen appeared to have a problem with a high schooler accidentally ‘creating’ an oddity, nor if that oddity was also a person – her issue was more with the nature of the oddity and its impact on the town! If Ougi hadn’t stirred up Nadeko and hadn’t half attempted to knock off Araragi, would she have attracted Izuko’s attention at all? And Izuko didn’t go through a moral quandary in asking Araragi to exterminate the person he’s unwittingly brought into being, a person who was born out of the other side of himself – she speaks about Ougi as if she’s a problem and not at all a person, lays out her game plan to address ‘the problem’ as if it’s an undebatable opinion, and nonchalantly asks him to do it.



I know those aren’t the kinds of questions that Nisio Isin seems inclined to investigate, though at the end of it all, it’s the one thing that sticks out as an odd omission given all of the other obscure observations and topics which he weaves into this series…

… Congratulations?

(imagine if someone had swapped out Shinji’s boys’ school uniform for a girls’ uniform as a prank before the TV ending of Evangelion)