10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 18

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 18

Shinobu tells Araragi the tale of when she landed in Japan 400 years ago, was treated like a god, was attacked by the nameless darkness, and saw her first servant kill himself.

When Monogatari makes stylistic choices in their animation, I am always impressed. Because Shinobu's story takes place in Japan 400 years ago, we are presented with scrolling woodcut paintings which are only missing the vertical cursive kanji as she relates it to Araragi. The plot points are simple. As Heart-under-Blade, she traveled to Antarctica to see auroras, got bored, landed (literally) in a Japanese lake, splashed all the water out of it, which came down as rain, and surrounding villagers worshipped her as the lake goddess for about a year because she ended their drought.

An aberration hunter, who had the demon-killing sword that Shinobu now makes replicas of, came to visit the new god, also carrying a short-sword which could restore aberrations. Strange kind of demon hunter who can kill and revive demons. However, surrounding villages soon became empty of people, and when the aberration hunter came to Shinobu for help, they were eaten almost whole by the nameless darkness. Shinobu escaped with only a quarter of her body, and the right hand of the hunter, by jumping back to Antarctica. Losing most of her body, with how powerful a vampire she was at the time, was not that big a deal with her almost instantaneous healing.

After about a hundred years, growing lonely, she revived the hunter by drinking the blood still in the right hand. The aberration hunter was furious about turning into an aberration himself, and soon committed suicide by walking into the sunlight. The replica sword Shinobu now has was made by the resurrected hunter by transmuting his own bones. And Shinobu did not come back to Japan until 300 years later, whose events led to her weakened form, bound to a half-vampire in Araragi.

Besides the artistic visuals, I'm struck by how powerful Heart-under-Blade was, just being able to make anything and do anything at her whim. Now I understand why in Episode 7, she thought nothing of just deciding she could time travel, even when she had never done it before, and all she was missing was enough spiritual power. Because she was used to doing that all the time. Nowadays, she's just a cute little girl who still can't remember people's names.