Nisemonogatari
a review by glpg35
a review by glpg35
Disclaimer: This review has spoilers for the whole Nisemonogatari anime, Kizumonogatari III movie and the short story "Tsubasa Song" from Mijikanamonogatari. It also includes some lewd scenes.
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This part was excellent in every meaningful way possible. I don't really know what I was expecting exactly, after coming from Bakemonogatari and Kizumonogatari, but I can say that I wasn't expecting any of the things that happened here for sure.
Nisemonogatari is weird, lewd, fun and deep. I knew this season was going to be all about Koyomi's family though, or to be more precise, about his little sisters, but I didn't expect it to be that good and interesting honestly.
Obviously this anime is a continuation of Bakemonogatari, so it cuts straight to the chase.
We know that after Bakemonogatari, Tsubasa and Hitagi started tutoring Koyomi, so after a lot of lessons, something urgent comes up that makes Tsubasa take a day off. That's when Koyomi considers that he's a free man for the day. A short while after that, we met his youngest sister:
Araragi Tsukihi (阿良々木 月火)
Her character is quite peculiar. She speaks with a kind tone most of the time, but she gets mad very quickly (platinum mad), specifically when Koyomi's the one to blame. She really cares about her older sister, even though sometimes she doesn't really act like she does.
After some time fighting, Koyomi notices that his other sister, Karen, is not in the house for some reason. While he wonders about where she could be, he suddenly remembers that Nadeko said that he should go to her house more often. That's why he decides to give her a call and ask if he could go over to her place to hang out. Obviously Nadeko accepts enthusiastically, she wouldn't want to miss an opportunity like that.
To be honest, even though we obviously know about Nadeko from Bakemonogatari, I didn't expect her to be that... seductive with Koyomi. Even so, just the fact of Koyomi being that unaware of it makes the whole situation a lot funnier.
On his way to Nadeko's house, Koyomi comes across Mayoi like always, sexually harassing her as well as usual. I must admit that the entire conversation with Mayoi was really funny, but it also introduced some character development for both characters as well. I'm talking specifically about the part where Koyomi says:
You aren't going to disappear, are you?
Referencing the disappearance of Oshino Meme obviously. That really shows how Koyomi is really attached to the friends he's made over these last months, and even though he can't consider himself to be one hundred percent human, things like this really show his human side and how much he's willing to sacrifice for everyone.
Moving on, Koyomi finally reaches Nadeko's house and when he sees her, she's quite... different.
She's using a different hairstyle and different clothes as well, and as I said before, she's acting really seductively towards Koyomi.
The whole interaction between the two is really funny, the twister thing as well. I'm glad Nadeko's arrived at their home because otherwise who knows what Koyomi would've done for being that clueless and naive.
After leaving Nadeko's place, Koyomi receives a phone call from Suruga, and after a little chat, he decides to go over to her house. The phone call itself was really weird though, most of Suruga's jokes consisting of her talking about how she'll strip (something that I find really disturbing considering that they're friends and that Koyomi is dating Hitagi but anyways, I see it all as a joke in the end).
On the way to Suruga's place, he finds someone else:
Araragi Karen (阿良々木 火憐)
Koyomi's older sister. She's very strong, athletic and independent (most of the time). She's one of my favorite characters (probably because her seiyuu is Kitamura Eri), and I find her attitude quite charming and amusing.
After that random encounter with his sister, Koyomi finally arrives to Suruga's place, and when we thought everything would be normal, well... he finds her lying on the floor completely nude (I don't know what I was expecting honestly). She doesn't really care about Koyomi seeing her in that state (concerning), but at least Koyomi cares a little more about it (as he has a girlfriend and all). As I said before, I don't really care that much about these kind of scenes because I know Koyomi doesn't mean any harm and I know that he would never betray Hitagi in any way, so I just brush it off with a laugh for the time being.
Just a little while after this, Suruga tells Koyomi something that we've all been thinking of:
It's easy for girls to take advantage of your kindness, so be careful.
I appreciate that even though she acts weird with Koyomi, she doesn't mean any harm to him. Her advice is absolutely correct as well, we just saw Nadeko abusing his kindness in her favor, without him even noticing, but anyways, I hope Koyomi starts to see through people's intentions a little better from now on.
After talking for a while, Koyomi decides to leave, but when he gets outside, he sees an ominous man at the entrance, with his eyes fixated on Kanbaru's house. Later on, we learn that this man is none other than:
Kaiki Deishuu (貝木 泥舟)
With all of this information I can start explaining a couple of things about the whole Karen Bee arc.
Basically, this man right here is a liar, an impostor (偽物), one that tricks kids selling them "solutions" to their problems, that most of the time cause even more problems to those kids asking for help.
Also, he's the first man that offered to help Hitagi (but obviously that was a lie and he was only after her money). That's why right after Koyomi tells Hitagi about him, she literally kidnaps him to protect him from Deishuu. This only shows us more of Hitagi's protective and obsessed personality. Obviously even though she has that tsundere attitude, she really cares about her boyfriend, and would do anything to protect him. Anyways, that doesn't last very long because after a while, Koyomi receives a message from Tsukihi asking for help.
Koyomi rushes over to his house to understand what's going on. There he finds his two sisters and a Tsubasa with a new haircut (obviously Koyomi doesn't react to it because if you've read the "Tsubasa Song" short story, you'll know that he himself is the one responsible for cutting her hair). There he tries to understand what's going on with his siters, but no one would give him an answer, not even Tsubasa. After a little while talking to Tsubasa, he learns about all of Deishuu's doings at his sisters' school, and how they want to stop him (because they're the Fire Sisters and all). He also learns that Tsubasa's been contacting his sisters for some time now, but she's hiding a lot of information so Koyomi decides to take a bath.
This bath might be one of the most important moments of Nisemonogatari unironically. Not because of the fact that Shinobu took a bath with Koyomi as well (even though that was peak), but because she reveals a lot of information in the process. She tells Koyomi that his bigger sister, Karen, was inflicted by an oddity called the "Flame Wreath Bee". This oddity causes a giant fever to people affected by it.
Also, there was another thing that catched my eye in the interchange between Koyomi and Shinobu. She says that she'll never forgive Koyomi for what she did to her, and that he'll never forget her for what she did while being Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. Up until now, after watching Kizumonogatari, I thought Shinobu didn't remember anything about her previous life, I thought she didn't have any of her memories because of Meme saying:
She'd lose everything she is—even her name
Obviously that only meant that she would be so insignificant as a vampire, that she wouldn't even be worth of her original name. But leaving that aside, I really love the dynamic between Shinobu and Koyomi, they don't like each other but they need each other, they help each other. In a way I think that it's horrible but beautiful at the same time.
After that very long bath, he goes to where his younger sister, Tsukihi, is. That's because he wants to understand what happened to Karen and why she got inflicted by the oddity. After hesitating for a long time, Tsukihi finally starts talking, along with Tsubasa (as she's in it as well):
Karen (being one of the Fire Sisters) with her great sense of justice, knows that she must do something about Deishuu. She finds where he's hiding thanks to Tsubasa and confronts him, but that plan doesn't go very well. Deishuu explains that he's a con man and that he wants to get as much money as possible from middle school kids. After all of his explanation, he starts to approach Karen and, with just a singletouch in her forehead, she becomes paralized. On his way out, he takes the little money Karen has left on her wallet and leaves.
With Tuskihi and Tsubasa's explanation now we understand more about Deishuu's motives while also understanding more about Karen's situation. Tsubasa also mentions that in some way, her sisters act just like him, trying to help others just like he did with all of his friends before. It seems that being selfless runs in the family.
I think that's enough explanation of the events of the anime (given that this review is for people that have already watched it before), so I'll start to give my opinion on key moments of it:
We already know that Koyomi gives Karen a kiss to pass the fever to himself, and even though he wasn't able to get rid of it entirely, he takes most of it to himself. This is when things start to get weird, but I'll talk more about it later when we reach Tsukihi's arc. For the time being, I just think that it's a little weird how he starts to feel attraction to his younger sister, but I know that most of the time he just wants to help her to be a good brother.
This has to be one of the best moments of the whole arc (well mostly because it's the culmination of it), and it's one that gives us a lot of explanations about Hitagi's past as well.
We already know that he was the first person that offered Hitagi help to get rid of her crab, and they also confirm that probably because of him, all of the tragedies that happened afterwards, were because of him as well.
One thing really sticked with me though, was him saying that Hitagi's abuser died in a car accident. Even though we can't really trust him because he's a con artist, I want to trust him on this one, mostly for Hitagi's sake. Another thing that's worth mentioning is Hitagi explaining how, in the past, she always treated every person that tried to help her like a "knight in shining armor", and that if someone else would've helped her instead of Koyomi, she would've probably date them instead. That's why she's glad Koyomi was the one instead of another person, because she thinks he was really the best choice.
Her declarations are really sweet, and even though it's kinda sad how desperate she was to fix her problems, I'm also glad of how things turned out in the end. With all of that taken care of, it seems that Hitagi was finally able to move on, dropping this famous quote:
This arc is shorter but it's really interesting as well, and I'd say that it has a bigger impact on the whole series.
Following the events from Karen Bee, we have some weird stuff happening as well this time around, and that would be... the toothbrush scene.
I'm gonna be honest, I liked that scene, and even though it might be a little uncomfortable to watch, in the end it's really funny to watch, but I think it also serves some kind of purpose as well. Not only we see Karen using a very different outfit (she's using tighter clothes this time and a skirt), but we see her acting different towards her brother. Obviously all of this is out of character coming from her, she would never act like that in the past, but that's because she has some ulterior motives (her wanting to meet Suruga because she sees her as the ideal athlete).
Following comes the famous toothbrush scene, and even though it is weird, I understand that it's meant to show how Koyomi and Karen cross boundaries to understand each other better, as brother and sister. NISIOISIN didn't have to go that far on this one but I'll let it pass because as I said before, it's quite funny.
Moving on, I'll start talking about some of the key aspects of the Tsukihi Phoenix arc.
First we get the introduction of two new characters. The first one is a woman that is supposed to remind us of Meme, even though she's quite the opposite of him:
Kagenui Yozuru (影縫 余弦)
She's a weird character with a mysterious aura surrounding her. She starts asking about the school that Meme was using as his base of operations, which gives us an idea of what she's plotting. Not only that, but she refers to Koyomi as "Devil Boy" and to Karen as "Hornet Sister", meaning that she already knows about the oddities, because otherwise she wouldn't have used that terminology with them in the first place.
Later on, she mentions that a certain girl will ask them for directions as well in the future, because she's looking for the same place as her. The girl in question would be:
Ononoki Yotsugi (斧乃木 余接)
She's even weirder than Yozuru, her way of speaking is very robotic, not only because of her tone, but because of her pronunciation as well. At the moment of their encounter, Koyomi was talking with Mayoi, and she also refers to Koyomi as "Devil Boy", but in this case she refers to Mayoi as "Snail Girl". This also means that not only she can see Mayoi, but she can see their oddities as well.
I said with a posed look
Then we start learning interesting stuff about Koyomi's younger sister, Tsukihi, when Koyomi notices that old scars that were supposed to be permanent, weren't present on his sister's body. In that moment I immediatly thought about the posibility of Tsukihi being a vampire as well, but it wouldn't make sense, so I discarded the idea.
After that awkward situation between Koyomi and his nude sister, he and Shinobu go out for donuts at Mister Donut (as they were holding a one hundred-yen sale), and it might be another one of my favorite moments of the anime.
We were able to see Shinobu using a very cute hat so she wouldn't be struck by the burning sunlight, and we also learn that as she's not a full vampire anymore, she won't be able to get burned by sunlight like before.
Right after that, Koyomi decides to ask Shinobu about the two persons he just met before, and Shinobu reveals that the similarity in their name (Yozuru and Yotsugi) is not a coincidence. That's because Yotsugi is in fact an oddity, and just like her, she's bounded to Yozuru by name, because she's a familiar or shikigami (式神). That explains Yotsugi's weird behavior from earlier in some way.
In the store, besides from the donuts, they also find Deishuu eating peacefully. Aside from the awful surprise of finding him there, they start asking him about Yozuru and Yotsugi. For the price of ten thousand yen, he reveals that those two are a team that specializes in oddities, but in this case, immortal ones.
We all know how everything goes after this, with Koyomi arriving home and all, but right at that time, something clicked inside of me and I realized that the oddity they were looking for was the one and only Tuskihi.
I did not expect them "killing" her right at that instant, kinda agressive, but it certainly confirms the point of Tsukihi being immortal, an immortal "phoenix".
This "phoenix" is actually another oddity called the "Dying Bird", which dies and reincarnates as a child in the womb of a mother, in this case, Koyomi's mother. Tsukihi has no idea about this "phoenix" that gave her the power to heal all of her wounds, and Koyomi plans to keep it that way.
Following that we have another questionable scene of Koyomi kissing his younger sister, but I'll also let it slide just because it was to show that even though Tsukihi might not be his real sister, Koyomi didn't feel a single thing kissing her, which means that she'll always be his little sister no matter what. Quite wholesome in my opinion.
To close this anime we have one of the most epic moments ever.
First with Shinobu transforming into the version of herself that looks like a 17-year-old (Teenobu) thanks to Koyomi's blood (for some reason I didn't know she was still able to do that).
Cool detail her having a donut in her outfit
Second with the awesome fight that follows afterwards. Not because of the fight itself, mostly because of the meaning of it.
Yozuru certainly was against Tsukihi existing, as she was a fake, an impostor, but Koyomi thought that even though his sister might be an impostor, he loves her anyway, it doesn't matter if he has to lie to his older sister or to his parents, he'll still do that because he loves her a lot. She's his little sister after all.
Even though Yozuru and Koyomi's opinions clash, she has no reason to keep fighting after all of that.
One thing that also really sticked to me was one thing Yozuru mentions. Not only the fact that she, Meme and Deishuu were all part of the occult club in the past, but the fact that back then Deishuu asked a single question:
Given the real thing and an indistinguishable fake, which is worth more?
Based on everyone's answers we can see how different and similar they are to each other. First with Yozuru saying that she thinks the real thing is worth more, then Meme (with his sense of balance) saying that they're equally valuable and finally Deishuu saying that the fake one is worth more, because even though it's a fake, in the efforts of become real, it became more real than the real thing.
I think this anime was amazing. Filled with information and great analogies based on real life philosophy. Can't wait to see how everything evolves with these newly introduced characters, because they certainly are really interesting.
Monogatari really is an amazing journey.
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