10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 26 [END]

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 26 [END]

Kaiki wins, but as a liar, he is punished. And his story which must end, ends. Another great season of Monogatari also ends, leaving us waiting for the next chapter.

A con artist who never gives up, who holds to his hook, can win the game. And Kaiki wins, even though the ditzy mad deity didn't believe his lie. But, at the moment when he is about to die, Kaiki sees something about Nadeko which makes him believe he can still use his hook of the wish that must be kept secret if you want it to come true. He sees that Nadeko is still wearing her white scrunchy, so there is still a little bit of a little girl who has a real secret wish.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 25

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 25

"So Mr. Kaiki, you're going to deceive me too?"

Wow. I was not expecting that response from the ditzy mad god to Kaiki's outright lie. However, we can tease some foreshadowing from Hanekawa's conversation with him at the beginning of the episode.

First of all, Hanekawa does not believe that Nadeko actually loves Araragi, because she is so self-absorbed, she snubs or ignores others, and only pays attention to her own delusions. That gives me a shiver, because somehow Ougi was able to feed her enough information that she accepted to make her own delusions of a snake spirit, convincing her to eat the talisman that had the snake spirit that was taken from her earlier in the story. Hanekawa even knows about the locked closet, but Kaiki says to himself that whatever is in there is utter nonsense, frivolous even, and couldn't possibly help in his con of the ditzy mad god.

The other thing that Hanekawa asks about is whether Oshino has a niece. She is referring to Ougi, but Kaiki thinks she's only asking about Oshino's family in her attempts to find him. Kaiki says Oshino has no family. He was born alone, and has no one he's related to in this world. Uh oh. So we have three pieces of information related to the story.

First: Nadeko is self-absorbed and pays attention only to her own delusions. This could have major implications to the lies Kaiki will tell, and whether she believes it. From her reaction at the end of the episode, she's not buying them.

Second: Ougi is not who she says she is. She is deeply involved in this story, as she is the one who got Nadeko's delusions working to make her the new god of the Polar Snake Shrine. But as someone who has said that it's her job to punish liars and "bring to an end, things which must end," why would she turn a delusional girl into a god, into an aberration that is no longer doing what it must? I'll have some better thoughts on that after the next episode. All I can say is, maybe her target wasn't Nadeko at all.

Third: the hidden thing in the closet is frivolous nonsense, according to Kaiki, but somehow so non-frivolous that Nadeko's parents still haven't opened her closet months after her disappearance. When something couldn't possibly mean anything, nor help in a Monogatari story, well, of course it's just the opposite.

Meanwhile, during the month of January, Kaiki continues his visits to the shrine, paying his dues, playing with little kids' toys, and bring sake to the ditzy mad god. She really learned to like sake...

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 24

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 24

"I don't know everything. I just know what I know."

Hanekawa finally showed up! My heart can rest easy now. And using her trademark kind look with her trademark phrase on Kaiki was the best.

Actually not a lot happened this episode, as if we're on a holding pattern to learn what Hanekawa knows about Nadeko. And the thing we wanted to learn most from last episode, what was in Nadeko's closet, will probably be revealed in hints through Kaiki's conversation with Hanekawa, and then made obvious during the actual heist phase against the Mad Ditzy God.

We learned a couple of things, though. One is that Gaen is not the only one telling Kaiki to back off. I'm guessing Ougi, or whoever is controlling her. And the second thing is that Hanekawa has been lying to Senjougahara about leaving the country to look for Oshino. She did this as a feint operation to spark some movement from the people who oppose their actions in stopping Nadeko from killing Araragi and Senjougahara. That it spurred Senjougahara into calling in Kaiki was a welcome surprise to Hanekawa. Hanekawa also got a warning from Gaen not to interfere with Nadeko, but she implies to Kaiki that there is more going on there. More pieces are showing up on the board, so this story is getting more complicated. Just like any good caper story should.

Nadeko is still a ditz, and doesn't even know what to do if she gets two 10,000 yen bills. "I'm not giving it back, you know," she tells Kaiki, if he had accidentally dropped another one in the collection box. I wonder what she does with the paper money. At least we know she'll drink the sake Kaiki brought. All gods like wine, apparently. Actually, I act like this too with a good bottle of liquor.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 23

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 23

"She's a total ditz."
"Yay, yay, peace, peace."
"It's me, Nadeko!"

Kaiki has a full day getting to know his mark, and he thinks it's time to report to Senjougahara. The important thing he has to tell her, is that it will be very easy to fool this Mad God, because, he says, "She's a total ditz." People may not have realized it, because they gave her a pass due to her cuteness, but she's an idiot. Actually, part of Nadeko's ditziness, according to Kaiki, lies with part of her madness. She has no ability to trust people, but she also has no ability to sense malice in people's intentions. She will literally believe anything any person tells her. Except for Senjougahara and Araragi, which is why they must die. Because Nadeko can't sense even gradations of malice, when she does realize something bad has happened to her, she also can't let it go. No malice or all malice. Finding out her crush has a girlfriend should not have been that big a deal, but it was an infinite deal to Nadeko, and now that she has the power to destroy a small town, well... Even Senjougahara picks up on the risk involved with Kaiki trying to deceive a Mad God with no sense of perspective or proportion. However, Kaiki has removed a huge burden from Senjougahara, who had not seen a way out of her coming death. She has a small cry in the bathroom, and thanks Kaiki for giving her hope.

However, other people are also aware of the risk involved in trying to fool a Mad God, even if this ditzy god is totally credulous. Gaen sends Ononoki to give Kaiki a message, "Back off." Ononoki has developed another strange habit, besides pointing at things with her palm up and making a spin to turn around, she is now flashing the peace sign. It seems like a throwaway gag, but in the Monogatari way of telling stories, this is a clue for whom she's been spending time with. I'm betting on Kanbaru the Monkey Paw girl, the relative of Gaen, and the sole reason Kaiki took this job to begin with. Ononoki has some other news too. But first, we spin.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 22

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 22

First step in a good con: Know your mark. Kaiki takes the job to deceive a god and gets down to business. Oh, and Nadeko is as mad a Mad God you expect to be.

While it looks like Kaiki is playing detective with a trench coat and sad sack hair style a la Columbo, he's actually doing what a conman must do before he starts his heist: know your mark. This is a caper story, so a bunch of little heists have to add up to a big heist.

In fooling Nadeko's parents to let him into their house, using a great tactic in playing a father who's little girl is also missing and a friend of Nadeko, he gets quite a bit of personal information. Plus, noticing how Nadeko's photo album only has pictures of her, with her fake cute smile, sticking in the question of pictures of Nadeko's friends, since his non-existent daughter might be in those. But, no pictures of friends, only Nadeko. Troubling. But not as troubling as the unopened closet, that even 3 months after she's disappeared, Nadeko's parents still haven't opened.

Seeing as her parents really don't know their daughter at all, it's time to meet the mark herself. And what an introduction! Offering a 10,000 yen bill should make any god happy, but Nadeko is super happy with her first visitor. She is just as deluded as when we last saw her, if not more so and manic. Kaiki picks up on the things we already know about her: how she doesn't like being called "cute," how oblivious she is now of her appearance, and just how vapid she still is. She wonders how she hasn't had any more visitors when the temple has been all fixed up. Just not being aware of other people's perceptions.

I'm not sure if Kaiki has enough information to come up with a plan yet, but he knows for sure that this Mad God is mad. Loving someone so much that she has to murder him, and letting an unrequited love stay unrequited because it stays perfect that way. We're seeing another reason this chapter is called "Passionate Love Story." Another wrinkle is how Kaiki noticed how often Senjougahara mentioned the doings and thoughts of Hanekawa. He's definitely going to need to bring her into the heist, but do so without Araragi finding out. And for some reason, Nadeko still has her scrunchie, in which she had placed her delusions of a snake god fragment. Could be nothing, or it could be the key to the whole deception.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 21

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 21

New arc - Love Story. Senjougahara asks the conman Kaiki for help in fooling the snake god Nadeko has become. Surprisingly, he agrees.

The next chapter in the Monogatari series is koimonogatari (恋物語), meaning Passionate Love Story, or more simply Love Story. Since this the beginning of a new arc, that means rapid fire dialogue, rapid fire scene changes, and head tilts aplenty. Senjougahari calls Kaiki the conman out of the blue because she wants to hire him for a job. Trying to get out of the meeting, he gets trapped into flying to Okinawa to meet her in the airport.

Since they've been lying but playing at making their lies true, they try to one-up each other with terrible disguises. Senjougahara opts for the Groucho glasses, but Kaiki wins by putting on a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. The subtext, of course, is that this is the usual garb of Oshino, the aberration expert, and now Kaiki is supposed to be filling in that role.

The job is to deceive the snake goddess Nadeko into saving Araragi's life, her life, and she supposes, the little blonde vampire. That last part was a little grudgingly, but a devoted lover must make some compromises. Senjougahara only won a temporary reprieve from Nadeko, but she wants a more permanent solution. Her options have become limited, because she can't find Oshino, and Hanekawa has even gone in search of him. So she turns to the conman, the cause of the fake charms that caused Araragi's sisters trouble, and indirectly was the cause of Nadeko's transformation. When Kaiki describes that indirect cause as similar to a chain of bankruptcies caused by the collapse of a ponzi scheme, Senjougahara has a brief flash of anger and dumps her drink on him. That's because what he described is exactly how her family became so poor so quickly.

Now that he knows the job, they need to negotiate the price. Senjougahara has been saving for just such an occasion, but Kaiki intimates that her sum is too low. She says it could be a down payment. She could even sell her own body... at this point Kaiki himself loses his temper, and throws his drink at her. She must have hit a sore spot there as well.

Kaiki excuses himself to the restroom to consider the job. Everything that Senjougahara presented, whether it was guilt over the little sisters, his own indirect responsibility, or even the amount of money, doesn't cross any kind of threshold for caring about deceiving a minor god, which also has some amusing challenge in itself. But he realizes that his old college colleague, Gaen Izuko, has a niece who goes to the same school as Senjougahara, and she might be affected by this snake god. He refers to Kanbaru, the monkey paw girl. This tenuous relationship to a tenuous relationship is enough to make him care, and agree to the job.

As with any Monogatari story, the title has many layers and many meanings, and here, Love Story is no different. On the surface, we have Senjougahara willing to do anything to save her lover, but with Kaiki's leap to help an old school mate's distant relative, we also have, perhaps, a deep unrequited love for the girl who knows everything. Many story threads are going to be woven into this story, and seeing it from Kaiki's perspective is a bonus.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 20

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 20

Gaen Izuko does indeed know everything. Hachikuji has to say goodbye. Ougi gives dark hints about who she really is.

Gaen has conditions on helping Araragi get back to town and reconnecting with Shinobu. They all involve Kanbaru, the girl with the monkey paw that became her arm. Gaen is a distant relative, and needs that arm's spiritual properties to complete a job she's taken up. And she'll need his help to complete the job that Ononoki was supposed to do, she was the client, before they all got caught up with the nameless darkness. With Araragi's agreement, she begins to explain everything.

Gaen does have all the answers about the nameless darkness. It is not an aberration, but more like an aberration enforcer. If an aberration begins not doing what it is defined to do, this thing seeks it out and eliminates it. It came after Heart-under-Blade 400 years ago because she had started acting like a lake goddess instead of a vampire. It did not come after her because she started acting like a vampire again in Antarctica, and she continues to act like a vampire now. So who was the target this time?

Hachikuji is supposed to be the aberration of a snail demon and lost ghost. Her job is to make people get lost if they follow her, but for the last few months after meeting Araragi, she has not been losing people. She directed Araragi to the exact spot where Shinobu had run away, and presumably saved the world in the process, and has been giving exact directions to Araragi and others since then. She was no longer acting like the aberration she was supposed to be. That's why the nameless darkness went after her. And it would keep going after her whenever she was awake. When she was asleep, Araragi and Ononoki were lost in the mountains; Hachikuji was doing her job, so the aberration eliminator didn't follow her. If Hachikuji doesn't want to get eaten, she just has to function as the lost ghost again.

But she doesn't want to do that anymore. She was aware that she was leading people the wrong way and hated it, but meeting Araragi changed that. She changed. The solution is to act like a ghost and pass on. Even Gaen called her the ghost of a ghost, because the original Mayoi Hachikuji died eleven years ago, and this lost ghost changed when Araragi was able to stop her from being lost. She has to say goodbye. With the help of Ononoki, she kisses her big brother friend goodbye.

In the epilogue, it's four months later, and Araragi is telling his story to Ougi. She takes her leave, thanking him for the story, but she has to go to work. From her description of what she does, she sounds exactly like the nameless darkness doing its job. Shinobu, from the shadows, asks why he told Ougi about Hachikuji, when he's been keeping her passing a secret to everyone else? Araragi wants to see how just Ougi knowing something will affect things. I'm reminded of Ougi's supposed chance meeting with Nadeko started the whole snake god story, and how this fits in with how she "rights wrongs and brings to an end things which must end." Ominously, she says Araragi will find out what she does soon enough, and she may need his help then too.

Ononoki turned out to be quite a kind girl for being an artificial construct made out of a corpse. Perhaps Araragi is changing her too.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 19

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 19

Big Brother Araragi has his hands full with three little girls vying for his attention. That nameless thing comes after them again, but Ononoki's jump lands them out of range in more ways than one.

If you have questions about that cool looking phone in Araragi's gorilla sized hands, look here.

Picking up from last week, Shinobu's story about the nameless darkness didn't add much information to what they're seeing now, although, to Japanese audiences, having this thing be the origin for the legends of people being spirited away is an "aha" moment. Ononoki was listening in on the story out in the hallway, because she figured Shinobu wouldn't tell Araragi the whole story if she were present. Then, after much argument over whom Araragi likes the most out of the three little girls, which then includes all the other girls in Araragi's "harem," Mayoi wakes up, and joins the argument. While Mayoi and Shinobu try to determine who is "best girl" in Araragi's eyes, Ononoki has some ideas about the nameless darkness.

Now you know this show is fantasy...

Back when Bakemonogatari was written as a series of light novels, there was an actual possibility of a Zune HD phone from Microsoft. So naïve, so naïve... And yes, that is my actual Zune HD on the right.

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.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 17

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 17

New story arc - prologue to Shinobu's tale of meeting a nameless darkness in Japan 400 years ago. But before that, we get loli-spin, loli-jump, loli-kiss, and loli-punch. Araragi-oniisan has a busy day.

Ah, the start of a new story in Monogatari means head tilting, puns, and rapid fire dialogue. And they all are important details to the story that's to come. Also, no episode 16, since it was a recap of last summer's shows. This new arc is called 鬼物語 (onimonogatari), meaning Demon Story. Since this is ultimately about Shinobu when she was a real monster vampire, this seems apt.

We pick up the main story the day after Araragi and Shinobu come back from their X-Route adventure, and Hachikuji finally gets her backpack back. Along the way, they have a discussion on whether a snail becomes a slug if you remove her shell (Hachikuji's oddity came about from a combination of a ghost and a snail spirit), but if you do that, you end up killing the snail. Hmm. Interesting that they get chased by a nameless formless scramble of darkness later on, and have a chance meeting with the construct Ononoki. She figures out that the darkness can only move about along the ground, and jumps to safety with Araragi and Hachikuji.

After much discussion of his muscles (how does that feel to be on the receiving end, huh Araragi?), much discussion on how Araragi relies on others for information (Shinobu or Hanekawa would probably know what the oddity was, and if not, Shinobu could just eat it) and much teasing of the dormant Shinobu (Ononoki kept stepping on Araragi's shadow where Shinobu would pop out of when she wakes up), Ononoki asks for a reward for her timely rescue. Smooch!

In the epilogue, Shinobu exacts her revenge. Loli-punch! To protect the honor of a passed out Hachikuji. Oh, I guess she wants to call it vampire punch. Fine. And she saw that kiss with Ononoki, and throws a little fit of jealousy since Araragi is always chitchatting with little girls, but only has important conversations with her. Smooch!

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 15

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 15

Nadeko becomes the new snake god by the power of delusion. Senjougahara is so powerful, she can stop a rampaging newborn god with a phone call.

Reminder: never piss off Senjougahara by messing with her man. Never.

The twist in this Decoy Story is on the level of Sixth Sense. How it gets explained after Nadeko eats the body of the sealed snake god, thereby resurrecting it, is very similar to Memento. Flashing all the way back to when her delusions and selective memory began with seeing Araragi with his girlfriend Senjougahara, and using her knowledge of snake gods from her previous problem and the hint from Ougi about where a sealed snake spirit might be. Everything else was a delusion. All the conversations with the little snake, trying to find the pieces of the snake spirit body as a way to maneuver herself into the Araragi's house to grab the key so she could enter later. Which brings us to the utter defeat of Shinobu and Araragi at the shrine.

Only a well-timed phone call by Senjougahara stopped the destruction of the world. Literally. Depending on whom Nadeko killed first, as explained by Senjougahara, a full-powered Heart-under-Blade would fill the world with zombies, as we saw in Route X, or the entire world population would be destroyed by a rampaging Senjougahara. And as she warns Nadeko, killing her first might not be as easy as she thinks. So, Senjougahara bargains for an armistice of six months, to end the day after she and Araragi graduate from high school. A neo-god thwarted by a phone call.

Some questions that are unresolved are what is Ougi's real deal here? Her strange conversation with Nadeko got this all going, but what was the motive? Another mysterious oddity for our Monogatari Series. And Nadeko had a strange delusional vignette where she imagines all of Araragi's harem join him in some final showdown after graduation. We already know she has a vivid imagination, so will it work out that way? We can only look forward to the next story.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 14

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 14

You're cute! Cute, cute, cute, cute! But let's change your hairstyle and radically change your personality anyway. Tell the teacher off, tell the class off, kick some stuff around, but it's not the snake's fault. Oh no, no sir.

It appears that liking cute, young girls runs in the family. Araragi just can't help it, and neither can his younger sister Tsukihi. You know, if I were Nadeko, I might be getting a complex being told by the women closest to my crush that "she's the cutest thing next to me!" Shinobu told her that very thing last episode, and now Tsukihi. Hmm, we may be seeing the root of her madness forming. Shinobu said that it was good for her that Nadeko just happened to be cute, Tsukihi dragged it out of her that she took that to mean that she was cute and nothing else, and feels guilty when people are affected by her cuteness. Tsukihi pronounces this nonsense. Now, the word for cute in Japanese is kawaii (可愛い), which also means precious or tiny. It's meant to evoke a feeling of needing to protect the cute thing, which is what Nadeko is feeling guilty about. Tied again to the title of this arc: bait, lure, trap. She had also grown out her bangs to hide her pretty face and wore baggy clothing to avoid this, but the unsure and unconfident mannerisms that accompanied this avoidance also added another dimension to her preciousness. She was cute no matter what she did. Tsukihi takes drastic measures to end Nadeko's cuteness torment. Snip!

Drastic haircut leads to drastic personality change. She finally tells off her homeroom teacher for trying to make her do his job in addressing the students' broken relationships after the fake charms episode earlier in the year. Then she storms off, kicks down a door and a podium telling off her classmates to suck it up. Yeah, you were all being fake and hypocrites to each other before, but now it's out in the open, deal with it. As she leaves school early (what else can you do after that kind of display?), the snake spirit claims that it's not his fault she acted like that. He just happened to be there. Hmm. Snakes lie in eastern and western culture, so who knows if he's telling the truth here, but he needs to placate Nadeko so she'll keep helping him find his corpse, and he offers more wishes to sweeten the deal. He now knows where it is: somewhere in the Araragi house. While sifting through Araragi's stash of lad magazines (all glasses themed, huh?), she finds a paper seal with the snake spirit's body in it. Nadeko asks if her wish that Araragi can return her love can come true, but Araragi suddenly appears and plainly tells her, "no, it won't." Cliffhanger!

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 13

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 13

The snake tells Nadeko that he wants her to find his scattered corpse. She's got other problems related to her personality and what the class has been through. And Araragi comes to the rescue, of course.

We start to get more information on what this snake spirit wants, and how it has latched onto Nadeko. Firstly, it wants Nadeko to find its scattered corpse from the fight they had earlier at the abandoned temple. He claims that he could have done this without her help, but the energy there was used up in some foolish thing done by the vampire, but she ended up fixing it in the end, but still, the energy's gone. Nice reference to the Route X time travel adventure there.

Nadeko's quiet personality also makes people think she's helpless, or always a victim. It also kept her out of trouble with the fake, but real, but fake magician last year that sold these special charms to middle schoolers that ended up letting people know all sorts of terrible things about their supposed friends. Because she was not involved with the charms, people didn't know anything bad about her, and she was chosen to be the class representative, and help the homeroom teacher fix the bad atmosphere among her classmates. She has no idea how to do this, but the teacher pressures her all the same.

Nadeko bargains with the snake to let her do her corpse finding at night, but even with the snake acting as a detector, her first lead goes nowhere, and Araragi goes looking for her when her parents find her missing. Under the cover of her sleeping over night at the Araragi house because she's friends with the youngest sister, Araragi tries to get some answers from her, like if she's gotten involved with an oddity. Again, Nadeko's personality doesn't allow her to ask for help, and even the snake stays quiet. Shinobu pops out to calm down Araragi from excessively teasing her, and she lets her know she's watching, and proudly proclaims Nadeko to be "the next cutest thing to me." Humble brag, much? But Shinobu also lets Nadeko know she has the measure of her unintended victimhood personality trait. Now we see that Nadeko is definitely to be used as "bait, a decoy, a lure," but to what purpose? Shinobu also let the snake know she's watching with this little visit too. "Ka ka ka." What a charming, and to those intending evil, frightening laugh.

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.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 10

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 10

Araragi and Shinobu meet 21 year old Mayoi who gives them a letter from Oshino on how to save the world. They do.

Well, that was an interesting take on the many universes view of quantum mechanics to explain time travel to the past. Basically, you can't travel backwards in time in your own universe, but keeping your time vector stationary, you can cross over to another universe's past, and then time travel forward from there. That's what Oshino's letter, passed on by an adult Mayoi, said anyway. But couldn't you pass over to your original universe's past from some other parallel universe? The answer is no, because the only other worlds you could enter are the ones where you can keep your time vector zero and cross over. Nice syllogism there, but that's math, not physics. In their rules of time travel, you can only stop time or go forward in the universe you're currently in; the other universes keep their own time. And, using this construct, reentering your original world from some other world is easy, because it's the one that's exactly that much time in the future or past that's different than your original. Cross-eyed sentence there, but it's logically sound. If you've travelled 11 years in the future while in some other world, just keep your time vector stationary again, and cross over to your original world, which had progressed 11 years naturally during that time. This works even if you've gone to the future of some other world. When you stop time and cross back over to your original world, it's always at the same time you left it. Pretty consistent.

I think it was all such a neatly tied up story, that Araragi and Shinobu saving this world from zombies was also the solution to going back to their own world. Getting enough power to cross worlds meant draining the blood of this world's version of Shinobu, who had failed in her attempted suicide, which killing her, would revert the zombies, which were failed minions because in her heartache over Araragi, she couldn't make a proper vampiric minion. Some nice scenes there with a full powered Heart-under-Blade (part of Shinobu's name in full vampire glory) still attached to Araragi, and needing just a simple pat on the head.

Seeing how their separation has global implications, Araragi and Shinobu don't seem to sweat it that much. A couple months of bonding was enough to seal their partnership. But I found it hilarious that the Oshino in the other world was incredulous that his Araragi started dating Senjougahara too. Unexpected and destined love in all the parallel worlds?

10 Second Anime: Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 9

Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 9

One little ghost can save the world from zombies, simply by pointing which way a sad little blonde girl went.

The circumstances that turned the entire world into zombies aren't even convoluted, they're merely a cascade of events that prevented Araragi from finding Shinobu when she was depressed and felt like lashing out. Without the ghost of Mayoi to point out which way a little blonde girl went, Araragi would not have become a vampire, would have died when he was attacked by the Black Cat Hanekawa, the exponential progression of vampires would have taken over the world, and they all would have turned into zombies when the master vampire killed herself.

So now, Araragi and Shinobu need to go about saving the world. First, they'll set off some fireworks to see if anyone alive comes to join them. They'll have to get through a zombie horde first, though.

10 Second Anime: Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 8

Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 8

Shota Araragi, loli Hanekawa, and Mayoi gets saved from being run over by a truck, ironically caused by running away from Araragi who had just flipped her skirt. Well, the past has been changed, but what about the future?

I think it's hilarious that Araragi knew exactly how to head-tilt even 11 years ago. More hilarious: how crazy Shinobu got over a younger, cuter version of Araragi. Most hilarious: how sublimely insane Araragi got over a younger, cuter Hanekawa. Some things with Hanekawa have always been the same. Like how level-headed she is, and how she doesn't know everything, she just knows what she knows. Combine those two with giving directions for Mayoi's mother's house and it ends up being a police station. Heh. At least the policewoman stationed there knew where the mother's house was. Araragi and Shinobu just had to make sure Mayoi got there safely.

Araragi, having two younger sisters, just can't help himself with teasing a young girl, and sets Mayoi running away, and into the path of a truck. But he still saves the day, and Mayoi makes it to her mother's house. Now, remember all those sci-fi admonitions about changing things in the past? Yeah, some things are going to be pretty different when Shinobu and Araragi come back to the present time.

10 Second Anime - Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 7

Monogatari Series Second Season - Episode 7

Monogatari does what it does best: rapid cuts, head tilts, and Araragi talks philosophy with cute girls. Shinobu decides she can time travel, just because, and takes Araragi with her near the time Mayoi was run over and became a lost ghost.

So here we are at a new arc in the Monogatari Series, so that means Araragi has to have random conversations with cute girls, in which the random back and forth actually introduces the context of the next monster story. Talking with Ougi about an urban myth that red lights in the city periodically synchronize for 3 seconds, the topic is actually about how warning signs encourage caution, and green lights encourage recklessness. That leads to thoughts of boundaries and freedom and their interplay.

Then, talking with the resurrected construct Ononoki, the conversation is about being lost, and how that is different than just asking for directions. Again, all just setting up for the focus of this arc, Mayoi. And Araragi being Araragi, he wants to help a cute little girl.

But Araragi is in real trouble because he hasn't done any of his summer homework and school starts the next day. Enter Shinobu, his Master Vampire and source of his powers. "Let's go back to yesterday." Just like that, yeah, she decides she can time travel. Well, they do end up time traveling, but way overshoot, going 11 years in the past, and almost to the day Mayoi died and became a wandering ghost. Hey, it's fiction. Of course everything is tied together.

10 Second Anime: Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 6

Monogatari Series Second Season Episode 6

Monogatari Series gives us a recap episode of last year's special of Nekomonogatari starring the class representative Hanekawa, so let's have a recap of Hanekawa's sexy underwear.

One might think having a lingering shot of Hanekawa's panties after Araragi flipped her skirt was gratuitous, but it was necessary! Really! Because that's how we knew the new monster attacking the town, a cat, was Hanekawa. See? Clues, hints, pantsu! Also, it was nice to see how Hanekawa's external appearance of a polite, reserved young lady, was only part of her mask, as we can judge by her choice in lingerie. Nyaa!