10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 12

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 12

Episode 12? Where's 11? Recap show covering Nadeko the snake girl from the first season. Like all the girls in the second season, her aberration wasn't really banished. Araragi will have his hands full with this snake's poison.

New arc, which means new girl, which means flash-forward to final confrontation, which means back to introduction of the arc's themes with lots of head tilting. The name of this arc is 囮物語 (otorimonogatari), or Decoy Story. Otori (囮) means bait, lure, trap, like in hunting or a sting operation, so we have to wonder who is setting the trap, and for whom. In the previous story with Nadeko, the snake spirit came from a curse because of a rejection of love, but Nadeko thought to cure the curse by killing all the snakes around the old shrine. This caused the aberration to grow and take her over. The original snake spirit was not killed though, it just slithered away in the final battle. I guess he's back now.

As for the themes for this arc, you need to hear the rapid fire monologue from Ougi Oshino, the younger cousin of the occult expert Araragi and Shinobu know. When you see head tilting, you pay attention with this show. The point here, is that aberrations of these spirits don't just happen to pure victims, they have a hand in turning something most people wouldn't notice into big trouble. Nadeko turned a "regular" curse into a snake apparition by killing all the snakes around the shrine. Has she really paid for that yet from the spirit who slithered away? Also, the snake spirit is caused by a lover's curse. So, might there be some malice somewhere in Nadeko over her crush on Araragi? We'll see, we'll see.

One other thing to note about Ougi's strange conversation with Nadeko after almost running her over on her bike: she already knew who Nadeko was without meeting her, but all her justifications for it had nothing to do with knowing what she looks like. And Ougi muttered that "she got the order wrong" for meeting Nadeko, that "she wasn't acquaintances with her yet." She was supposed to introduce herself first, then talk about all these prior connections. Definitely something intriguing with Ougi Oshino.