Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are returning to Monogatari’s Monster Season, as Araragi and his companions greet the newly revived Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicide-Master. Having journeyed across heaven and hell for an antidote to Deathtopia’s decrepitude, the party now prepares for a combined reunion and interrogation, with the vampire who gave Acerola her very identity now on trial for the attacks on Kanbaru’s old basketball team.
This arc has certainly offered Isin plenty of opportunities to indulge his love of ciphers and mysteries, while also serving as both a thematic reprise of Kizumonogatari and a referendum regarding Araragi and Shinobu’s growth over the past year. The prior sturdiness of their partnership was exemplified through how easily they’d banter about disowning each other; now, with Araragi facing aspects of Shinobu’s past he had never previously considered, it is an open question as to whether this single year of solidarity can measure up to a half-millennium of austere isolation.
Can a teenager just past the crest of adolescent identity-forming truly relate to an ageless vampire? Is their current happy collaboration a mere quirk of circumstance, or a reflection of how they have truly come to find consolation and community in each others’ presence? In truth, even their current fears speak to how well they understand each other, and it’s frankly gratifying to see them indulge in that most rare and precious of practices: honestly communicating their anxieties, that they might come to better understand and support each other. Now let’s see what Deathtopia makes of all this emotional growth as we get back to the Suruga estate!