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Mar 26 2012

Categories: episodic review, nisemonogatari
Tagged: nisemonogatari

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“I was just thinking that I felt nothing when I kissed you.”

The Fire Sisters sleep in an empty bedroom except for a cage-like bunk bed. I think Shinbo’s life long goals were to make furniture for pr0n, but he settled on anime directing instead.

(The narration by Maaya Sakamoto is A+ stuff. I feel like Maaya Sakamoto would make any voice-over work or narration better. Planet Earth narrated by Maaya Sakamoto? The Price is Right announced by Maaya Sakamoto? The New York subway voiced by Maaya Sakamoto? Yes, please.)

Oh Shaft being Shaft. I’ll forgive them since they haven’t done this type of visuals in a while, and it’s hard to actually animate something that happened in a womb without being either too literal, too disturbing, or too poetic. This bird in wooden doll womb thing I can accept.

(And if this is a Venus of Willendorf knock-off, score another point for Shinbo’s Shaft.)

(Sorry, years of reading X-Men has me wondering, “Jean Grey!?” whenever phoenixes are brought up. Gai Tsutsugami is the poor man’s Jean Grey. I’m sure it’ll take another year or two before I start thinking, “Mmm, better start that +2 range upgrade once the starport finishes. And, yeah, I got distracted from writing this post because I was wondering if this is Korea’s golden age. They are dominating two essential categories of my YouTube watching: girl pop groups and StarCraft… my suggested playlist is pretty much all miss A and MarineKingPrime. I can’t think of two better random strengths for a country…)

“Maybe a dump truck hit the house before driving off.”

The way Karen felt when she saw the house… same way I felt when I realized this episode was the final episode of Nisemonogatari. Wait, what? Felt like the series was ending way too soon. I am feeling not enough has happened to warrant an ending… it’s like if Clannad ended after Fuko’s arc. Fuko’s sister gets married, starfish are everywhere, and… well… that’s the end. That’s kinda what it feels like for Nisemonogatari. It feels more like character intros than moving forward Araragi’s story.

“I will be Cerberus, Guardian of Hell. So go back to your room and study.”

I like how we’re at the end of the series yet for a series that is supposed built on Koyomi’s need to study, he hasn’t really studied. I feel like this ending should transition into either Hanekawa punishing poor Koyomi for not studying or turn into a Love Hina-esque raunch comedy with poor Araragi in the Keitaro role. I’m fine with either. Also like how their front door is totaled, yet no one calls the parents for police.

The Araragi family does not shop at Ikea. How exactly is this possible in something that looks like a suburban colonial on the outside? More importantly, why is the moon there when it’s clearly daybreak outside? Ahhh… thes things drive me crazy. I like the idea of a VP of Common Sense (something Bill Simmons have long proposed for NFL coaches and NBA general managers). If Shaft had a VP of Common Sense (VP-CS), they would definitely question the architecture style of the house.

(Who else could use some serious common sense? Production IG and Guilty Crown. Just an abomination of a series that made shit up as it goes along. Nothing made sense even within its own backstory, especially bringing Gai back to life and then Voids that became exponentially more powerful the closer the ending got. And wasn’t the whole menacing crystal thing already done in that Gundam 00 movie? Da’at? Daarth? WTF? Oh, let’s not forgot how characters manage to jump 15 stories or take 3 minutes to fall down… gah, that show gives me headaches. )

The only kiss animated so far in this franchise is Araragi scoring his youngest sister. (Despite having smooched Senjougahara and Karen already.) To be fair, if Tsukihi is a reborn phoenix, she isn’t his blood sister… so carry on…

“USO DA!”

Emo facial distortions are always awesome– they’re like a fine wine. Ah, I still remember the prime Higurashi vintage of 2006. That was a very complex and earthen taste. The future harvests of Higurashi never captured the flavors of the original.

It doesn’t matter if you are real or fake. All that matters if that you are my sister, and I love you. That pretty much sums up Tsukihi Phoenix. There’s not a lot of deep meanings or philosophical debate. I think more people will agree that it doesn’t matter that she’s not real family but family nonetheless… more people will agree to this than percentage of people agreeing that pepperoni and olives are an unbeatable pizza combo.

“I would have married you both.”

“I’m platinum mad…”

Score all the imouto ending is related to the score all the heroines ending.

(Andohbytheway, I’m not a fan of Tsukihi’s “platinum” catchphrase as it is hardly used prior to this episode. I felt all the catchphrases in Nisemonogatari felt forced as I said with a posed look. You want to know how to properly do catchphrases with just the right amount of ridiculousness and appropriateness? Beat on the Penguindrum. Fabulous max.)

“Karen-chan does whatever her brother says.”

Poor Nadeko. She now has yet another underaged haremette to compete with for Koyomi’s affections. I think right now, in Koyomi’s head, his current haremette rankings: 1. Mayoi. 2. Hanekawa. 3. Karen. 4. Senjougahara. 5. Shinobu. 15,532. Nadeko.

The lens flare followed by the close-up of an eye spiral… why the hell wasn’t “rah rah fight the powah!” playing in the background?! Grrr.

Traffic cones… or spiral drills. Rah rah right the powah!

I am beginning to think having a donut-addicted loli vampire is the best non-human summon one could have. Much rather have Shinobu than a robotic cat without ears or a goddess who keeps you waiting 47 manga volumes (and counting) for sex or some doll that can’t get over her junk status complex or Kyubey.

For some reason, I expected this scene to be a lot more sensual than it turned out to be. Still, the past three arcs are all going to conclude the same way: Shinobu bailing out Arararararagi. She stopped Kittykawa cold with her bloodsucking, then she helped Araragi reduce Karen’s fever with light incest play, and now she’s gearing up for war as the Pikachu to his Ash.

Holy shit sidetail. I’m so excited, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m like a puppy having sniffed some Pupperoni. I’m not even going to comment on the ridiculous amount of art deco desks and chairs. Yet.

I like this random tree in the school. I never thought too much about it at first, but if you think about it, it’s weird. The tree is huge and old; it was probably there long before people arrived in this part of Japan. Did they build the school around the tree? Why? And isn’t it weird to build a school with a tree through the middle of it? If they were going to incorporate a tree into a school’s design, why have it randomly pierce through a classroom instead of having it as a centerpiece of a lobby or courtyard? Gah. The architecture choices of Shaft for this franchise makes as much sense as Shu suddenly being able to summon Voids by just calling out names.

“I’ll show you the difference that years of experience makes.”

… in bed. Seriously, how did Shinobu’s outfit go from a white summer dress to a pink hoodie with black dress underneath and tights by just sucking blood? And how did she get so much donut bling? Nonetheless, it’s a fantastic look for her. Highly functional and donut hipstery.

Yotsugi pulls out some bad manners against Shinobu. I love this familiar-on-familiar trash talking. That’s something sorely missing from anime. Though I don’t think Yotsugi should have gone with a crack about Shinobu’s age– she’s a vampire. I doubt it’ll get under her skin and affect her performance. Maybe instead tease her about how she ate everything inside Mr. Donut and how Shinobu can have her sloppy seconds for donuts. Now that would get under blonde-vampire-loli-sidetail-donut-addict’s skin.

Unlimited desk works?!

(She kinda looks like Margery Daw with that pose.)

They look like they are monkeys, at least Meme and Yozuru. And I am beginning to think Nisemonogatari is really about Meme’s broken university classmates rather than the Fire Sisters. The fact that Kaiki tipped her off… well… that’s about as surprising as finding out Lindsay Lohan has relapsed again.

(They have a fourth person in their clique that has yet to be introduced? He’s probably yet another villain waiting to happen. One thing about Monogatari is that it’s really at its best when the “villain” is the demon the character is trying to overcome, much like the original five arcs– Hitagi’s broken family, Mayoi’s trauma, Kanbaru’s lust, Nadeko’s friend, and Hanekawa’s wild side. That is what is interesting and provides actual character growth and development rather than generic villain X appearing a la Yozuru and Kaiki. If you think about, Monogatari is structured like Mass Effect 2 where there’s some sinister generic villain “Harbringer” yet the best parts of the game is assembling the motley crew. And each crew member has two main storylines: acquisition and loyalty. Right now, Araragi has gone through everyone once, so he has completed everyone’s acquisition mission. He’s going to go through everyone again for their loyalty mission. And, then, finally he’ll face Monogatari‘s version of Harbringer.)

(I hope Meme isn’t the final boss. That’s just too predictable. I would like the final battle to be a Ben-to-type smackdown with Senjougahara fighting against Hanekawa as a half-priced sticker gets put on Koyomi’s forehead. Of course, Nadeko sneaks off with the win. What a sly snake.)

This school is 1000% sparkling.

It’s like Suguru Monkey only 1000% more gruesome. Again, it goes back to the one requirement in being a male harem lead: indestructibility. Whatever would have killed a man many, many times over, Keitaro Urashima, Taro Sado, Tenchi Muyo, Saito Hiraga, Tomoki Sakurai, Tadakuni, Eikichi Onizuka, Keima Katsuragi, Nakahito Kagura, Chitose Hitotose, Tomoya Okazaki, Rito Yuuki, Yuki Amano, and Koyomi Araragi get up, dust off, and walk away from.

Still not clear to me why Yozuru wants to kill Tsukihi so badly. Also not clear how someone who is immortal can die. It is never explained what was their plan for killing Tsukihi when blowing up 60% of her body didn’t work. Maybe they need to get Duncan MacLeod’s katana. More importantly, how exactly does one go around making money as someone who specializes in killing immortal phoenixes? I can’t imagine that there’s a lot of them to hunt nor does it pay well. Doing a quick scan on Craigslist, no one was offering more than $50 to solve their phoenix problem. At least in the Bay Area… maybe they pay more for this type of thing in New York.

More importantly, as Ararararagi correctly pointed out, who the fuck cares if Tsukihi’s a phoenix? It doesn’t change a thing about who she is or how she is perceived by her love ones. Why is Yozuru so hung up on this? Does she have some past trauma concerning phoenixes? Did a phoenix beat her in DDR? Why the hate?

Yotsugi talks big and can’t deliver. It’s more fun if you picture her earlier trash talking in front of a bookshelf full of Vitamin Water and Jim Gray sitting across from her.

(Great. Did I just reverse jinx the Miami Heat to win the NBA championship? Time to call up Vegas and place some bets…)

Donut Mafia! I need to get one of these hoodies…

“I haven’t lost yet. Not to your fists. Not to your words.”

Classic hero harem lead move. Gets up. One more time. It’s like the end of Rocky 4 after Drago knocked out Rocky 15,532 times yet Rocky keeps getting up to the point of absurdity. And, then, in a probably the most improbably movie moment ever, the Soviet communists start rooting against their homegrown Soviet killing machine and instead for the bastard American Rocky. Bar none, that’s the biggest stretch in movie history, even more improbable than Keanu making a bus jump 100ft or Robin Williams successfully pulling off Mrs. Doubtfire.

(Nevermind Araragi looks like a zombie from Highschool of the Dead.)

“Onii-chan!”

“As long as she calls me that, it’s enough for me.”

How sweet. What a realistic depiction of an anime older brother protecting his cute little sister. Who really doesn’t need to be protected because she’s like immortal bird thingie… but let’s skip over those details.

(The discussions about Mencius and Xun Zi are lost on me. They just sounded like if Nishio Ishin went to Wikipedia and copied out lines… oh well, I’ll let the bloggers majoring in philosophy get off on this discussion. I rather discuss donuts and sidetails, but I’ll just say this… if it sounds like it’s from Wikipedia, it’s probably from Wikipedia.)

“We lost.”

A victorious and uplifting ending!

She stops because she is bored. What an exciting ending.

“Unlimited Rulebook.”

I feel like this should be prissy Saber’s Noble Phantasm. Gosh, why is she such a goody two-shoe? She’s the biggest impediment to Kiritsugu. She should act more like a Kardashian and scheme, scheme, and scheme some more… more Mugilicious, less Mio.

(Yes warming up my Fate/zero blogging. Let’s just say I would die and go to donut heaven if Irisviel wore Shinobu’s donut hoodie.)

“We all have a monster and a human.”

Not sure what this means. Humans are not perfect, so the part we want to hide from others our monstrous side? Or is it because we feel like we have to conceal parts of ourselves from others… so we think of it as a monstrous side… but it’s this side that makes us human? To be human is to be afraid of our own monsters, but without those monsters, we won’t be human. Gah. Brain hurt.

“I just went out and fought a human like a monster.”

Wait, what? He fought like a monster? That’s like bragging about wild animal sex when all one did was lie there like a frigid fish.

Senjougahara fascination.

(Damn you Shaft for teasing us Senjougahara with short hair during the Nisemonogatari previews… and then not really doing anything about it until this gratuitous but highly appreciative fanservice shot. Love that look on her. That’s the opposite of frumpy.)

(Hard to believe that the Fire Sisters are masters of middle school and somehow know all the gossip to the point Karen tracked down Kaiki that they don’t know Senjougahara and Koyomi are dating. Shouldn’t they have heard some gossip about this by now, especially from Nadeko? Wouldn’t you expect “YAHOO!” status updates on Koyomi’s Facebook page after the two boned? Oh wait, this is anime… social media doesn’t exist. But giant robots, loli vampires, and gay espers do.)

“It’s time for this monster to bow out.”

Wait, it’s over? That’s the season?! Nooooooooooo! Let’s not queue Naisho no Hanashi… 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4… nooooooooooo!

(I kinda understand why they ended the season as this is the end of the Nisemonogatari arc, but Bakemonogatari is the same length source material-wise, and that stretched to 15 episodes. I wonder what was cut from Nisemonogatari to make it 11.)

So many questions. How did the Normandy end up on a jungle planet Araragi end up on a beach with Senjougahara?! Need Nekomonogatari.