Tag Archives: Monogatari

Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re diving back into Monogatari’s Off Season, as we explore Nadeko’s continuing efforts to pull herself back together. Having embraced Yotsugi’s brilliant idea of dividing her manga labors between four shikigami doppelgangers, Nadeko swiftly discovered that her old selves are an unruly bunch, and none of them have any interest in practicing drafting. Instead, they’re now rampaging all about the town, causing all manner of havoc for our unfortunate Current Nadeko to clean up.

It’s a pretty classic Monogatari problem: you hide the disliked aspects of yourself for long enough, and eventually they break free and run wild, demanding you acknowledge your full, unflattering identity for what it is. Nadeko’s numerous doppelgangers reflect her tendency to dramatically reinvent herself, to fully reject an old persona and embrace one she believes will make her happier. Given this tendency, it’s little wonder she has trouble truly believing in her current identity either, and was thus so shaken by her parents’ ultimatum. Like so many of Monogatari’s heroes, she must learn to embrace and forgive herself – to acknowledge that all these fragmentary selves are indeed sincere aspects of her identity, and that she should not be ashamed of either previously embodying them or now hoping to move beyond them. With Ougi’s needling “if you were happy, you wouldn’t seek such lofty dreams” and Sodachi’s well-intentioned “the world won’t end if you’re not sure what to do” both ringing in her mind, let’s return to the trials of Sengoku Nadeko!

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Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 3

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Monogatari’s rambling Off Season, as Nadeko does her best to hunt down her unruly past selves. Having embraced Yotsugi’s dubious suggestion of enlisting her own former identities to jumpstart her manga production, she is now in the unenviable position having to wrangle four rebellious Nadekos, each of them representing some version of herself she had hoped to leave behind her.

This is an unfortunate situation for certain, but as far as Monogatari goes, it’s not exactly an unusual one. Here, apparitions are not monsters to be defeated in glorious combat, but aspects of the self that prompt anxiety or self-loathing, emotions and personas that we’d rather deny or forget. You cannot defeat such phantoms by ignoring them – you must embrace the truth within them, accept that they are in some way a part of you, and thereby move past them, equipped with a fuller and more forgiving understanding of your own identity. Just as Hanekawa embraced her “sisters” and Araragi saved Ougi, Nadeko must accept the truth that personal reinvention is a slow, aspirational process, and that there is still something to love and learn from in her wayward past selves. And to start that process, we’re going to have to go right back to the beginning, to the meek Nadeko we first met and the school that was her nemesis!

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Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 2

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning to Monogatari’s Off Season, as Isin continues to explore the wandering lives of Araragi’s various associates. Isin has clearly found an effective way to have his cake and eat it too, as Monogatari already arrived at a thematically cohesive conclusion back during Final Season, yet charting these continuing adventures nonetheless also fits within the show’s general philosophy. After all, one of the major points of Monogatari is that people are not fixed points, and our psychological development does not comprise clean, conclusive emotional arcs. We are all works in progress, liable to backslide or be stymied by new challenges, and exploring these Hanamonogatari-esque further hurdles has given the franchise life beyond its original protagonist.

With Yotsugi’s self-inflicted crisis now presumably handled, it seems we are turning to Nadeko, who has become something of a shut-in now that she’s found a passion worth pursuing, a source of pride that embodies her chosen identity, rather than the persona initially foisted upon her. Though Kaiki did a magnificent job back in Hitagi End, one push in the right direction does not a self-actualized person make, so I’m guessing we’ll still be grappling with Nadeko’s relatively unmoored sense of self. Let’s see how our passionate young mangaka is faring!

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Monogatari Off/Monster Season – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to announce we’re returning to the Monogatari franchise, the series that more or less began my journey as an anime critic. I’ve written about Monogatari for reddit, twitter, Crunchyroll, Anime News Network, and you folks here, and yet the series still manages to surprise me, offering fresh psychological insights and aesthetic flourishes after all these years.

It’s little surprise this series means so much to me. Monogatari embodies anime’s unique capacity to project our internal lives as ecstatic visual theater, combining a thorough exploration of human psychology with playful visual storytelling and Nisio Isin’s profound talents for thematically resonant drama and character voice. Monogatari’s characters feel both alive and compelling in a way few works of animation can match, and his insights regarding our ability to understand ourselves, each other, and the nature of a “life well lived” inspire me to seek such thematic richness and humanism in my own work.

Monogatari’s central narrative regarding the self-actualization of Koyomi Araragi has at this point concluded – though of course, as Nisio Isin is quick to assure us, everyone is a work in progress, everyone is “learning how to be happy” at their own pace. Nonetheless, Araragi’s resolution of his immediate psychological block, his long-time refusal to engage with his own self-destructive nature, has left the stage clear for Monogatari’s many other compelling characters to take the lead, and demonstrate the playfulness, compassion, and insight with which all of them have been brought to life. Let’s see what rambling adventures await in the off season!

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Zoku Owarimonogatari – Episode 6

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Alright Araragi, it’s time to figure this shit out. As I’ve suspected and Hanekawa seemed to confirm, this world we’ve been exploring is less of an alternate reality than an internal one; a product of Araragi’s mind, as he desperately seeks an answer to that fundamental question of “who am I, now that my childhood and pre-scripted path are behind me?” In search of that truth, he has held discussions with disparate versions of many of his companions, but avoided the one person who might truly know him well enough to answer: Oshino Ougi, his own Other Self.

As with all of this world’s Oddities, Ougi has served as a container for all the feelings Araragi refuses to acknowledge, a shadow that is as authentically him as his surface personality. His self-hatred and obsession with his own destruction, his lingering regrets regarding the possibilities of his vampiric nature, even his inability to visualize himself as an authentic and consistent person are all realized through Ougi’s mercurial presence. Araragi has come to accept Ougi’s authenticity as a part of him, but has nonetheless avoided their input in this crucial moment. As Sodachi said, what we see in the mirror is only a partial reproduction – Araragi is incomplete without Ougi, so it’s no wonder he’s only been able to produce incomplete answers. With his two sides united at last, let’s see how this strange mirror tale ends!

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Zoku Owarimonogatari – Episode 5

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Alright alright folks, settle down, let’s get to the business at hand. So far, Zoku Owarimonogatari has done a predictably solid job of justifying its own existence, applying Isin’s perpetually skeptical gaze to the very idea of Monogatari having an “ending” in the first place. Our lives don’t resolve into neat little Happily Ever Afters once we’ve tackled our immediate emotional problems; each ending is actually a new beginning, and writing the first page of a new story is often the hardest part. Through challenging the insubstantial relationship between narrative drama and human existence, and making the paralyzing diversity of potential futures literal through the mirror world device, Isin has successfully written a coda that feels both inessential and natural. There’s no new villain to face, just the stark reality of deciding your life’s path.

All that intermingling of personal psychology, life philosophy, and supernatural metaphor is what we’ve come to expect from Monogatari. But beyond that, incidental thought experiment arcs like this also serve a different purpose: introducing us to all the cool characters and potential characters that have touched this world, including imposing yet heretofore unseen figures like Kanbaru’s mother. Mombaru’s unseen presence cast an imposing shadow over Hanamonogatari, and I’m eager to finally get acquainted. Let’s get to it!

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Zoku Owarimonogatari – Episode 4

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d check back in on Araragi’s progress in Zoku Owarimonogatari, wherein he most recently stumbled across an unexpectedly human Kiss-Shot. Aside from that, Zoku’s last episode was mostly consumed by Yotsugi wandering around and repeatedly mocking Araragi, i.e. your classic mid-arc Monogatari nonsense. Also, Nadeko did the Misato Big Gulp, so that was also some essential content right there.

As far as Zoku’s themes are concerned, the most impactful sequence of the episode was undoubtedly Sodachi’s reflection on the nature of mirrors. As she pointed out, mirrors are not perfectly reflective: they only reflect around eighty percent of the light they take in, meaning some portion of what they reflect is always lost in the balance. Beyond their literal meaning, her words can be interpreted in two ways that are both relevant to this story. First, in a “fantasy mechanics” sense, it is likely that this loss of essence is the reason all of mirror-world’s characters seem so diminished, only expressing one partial aspect of the original people they represent. And secondly, in a more philosophy-of-Monogatari sense, her words speak to the impossibility of fully knowing ourselves, as our impressions of our own identities will always be blurred and incomplete.

Nisio Isin is wise enough to understand that the clarion call of Monogatari – “you must come to know and love yourself, for only then can you truly connect with others” – is more of a hope or prayer than a truly achievable goal. It is what is most difficult and also what is most essential; in a world of chaos and disappointment, self-love is the only route to harmony or contentment. This path towards accepting the self has taken many forms over Monogatari’s various adventures, and in Zoku, this directive is further complicated through the admission that our “selves” are also variable, and impossible to draw fully into focus. But all that’s basically why I love Monogatari; it’s smart enough to understand that true self-actualization is likely impossible, yet optimistic enough to still hope for happiness for all its muddled-up heroes. Let’s get back to the action!

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Zoku Owarimonogatari – Episode 3

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Alright Araragi, what the fuck are we doing here. When last we left off, Nadeko had just offered the team a succinct explanation of what this mirror world represents. Rather than simply “reversing” characters in the manner of a traditional mirror, this reality is presenting the “other side” of the characters we know. In effect, what this means is we’re being introduced to other personal and psychological paths that all of our heroes could have taken, whether it’s Kanbaru being totally consumed by the Rainy Devil, or Sodachi enjoying a healthy adolescence as Araragi’s houseguest.

In true Nisio Isin fashion, this revelation also serves as a rejoinder to the entire thematic trajectory of Monogatari. Where the original Monogatari emphasized that self-knowledge and self-love were the route to happiness and connection with others, Zoku is quick to reply that the “self” is a mutable and contextual organism, not an ironclad set of personal attributes. It’s a thematic expansion appropriate to Zoku’s general broadening of this story’s scope; while our experiences and opportunities throughout adolescence are limited enough to support some fantasy of a “true self,” the open canvas of adult life presents myriad opportunities, and thus myriad possible future identities.

In the face of such broad opportunities for defining the self, it’s understandable that Araragi is suffering a little decision paralysis. Ultimately, what Araragi needs to realize is that it’s okay to be scared or uncertain. Though we all wish we could identify the most fruitful possible path forward, the truth of it is that life is brimming with crossroads and opportunities, and it’s impossible to min-max all of them. Though Zoku’s additions complicate Monogatari’s message, they do not alter its ultimate takeaway: whatever path you choose, the important thing is to find peace with your decisions, and to love the person you’ve become. Let’s see if Araragi can inch closer to that peace, as we return to Zoku Owarimonogatari!

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Zoku Owarimonogari – Episode 2

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Alright folks, let’s get right back into it. Araragi’s stuck in a mirror world, Shinobu’s nowhere to be found, and Hachikuji is having altogether too much fun being Araragi’s big sister. Monogatari’s victory lap has so far been just as self-aware and indulgent as I expected, and I’m eager to see which mirror-shifted companion we run into next. Nisio Isin can’t help but embrace his goofy idiosyncrasies as a writer even at the most serious of times, so I imagine we’re in for at least another episode or two of shenanigans before he brings the hammer down.

As far as themes go, this mirror world is providing a clear externalization of Araragi’s internal discord, as he seeks to solidify both his own identity and his relationship with others now that he’s no longer a high schooler. Araragi is no longer certain of his place in the world, and in classic Monogatari tradition, that uncertainty is now defining his external reality. Let’s see if Araragi gets any closer to figuring his shit out, as we dive back into Zoku Owarimonogatari!

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Zoku Owarimonogatari – Episode 1

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to one of the series that actually started my anime writing career, way back when I was just making rambling reddit posts. That’s right, it’s time to check out Zoku Owarimonogatari, the as-of-now final piece in the vast Monogatari tapestry.

Monogatari has been one of my favorite series ever since 2013’s Second Season blew my mind, offering a richness of characterization and purposefulness of visual storytelling that basically no other series can match. In fact, as far as character writing goes, I consider it and Evangelion to be the peak works of the medium, exploring the nuances of identity formation and interpersonal relations with a subtlety, sharpness, and compassion that puts them in the running with the great works of film and literature. Frankly, if Monogatari weren’t so good, I’m not sure I’d be writing about anime right now – it was the brilliance of this show’s characters that provoked in me a need to write about these stories, and it was the positive response to that writing that gave me the encouragement to keep going.

This franchise embodies that particular alchemy that is most resonant to me in anime, that combination of deep-dive character studies, doggedly humanist themes, and visual synthesis of both that first electrified me as a teenager, back when Evangelion became my favorite work of art. It is a rare and beautiful thing, a harnessing of animation’s infinite aesthetic potential, as well as anime’s often deeply personal priorities, in order to make the raw clay of human nature viscerally felt and transcendently visualized. Though I can certainly appreciate visual splendor, I will always be a writer at heart, and Isin is one of the greatest authors to lend his pen to animation. His work has had a profound impact on my aesthetic sensibilities and life more generally, and it all started with Bakemonogatari.

All that said, in my view, the greater arc of the Monogatari franchise was essentially concluded by Owarimonogatari Second Season. As such, I’m expecting this to be more of a victory lap than an essential addition to the canon, and have preemptively forgiven it for its presumably extraneous nature. Of course, “extraneous Monogatari” is still one of the best writers to touch anime riffing on his masterpiece, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty to savor in this encore performance. For perhaps the very last time, let’s dive into the world of Monogatari!

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