Tsukimonogatari

I was excited to start this chapter of the Monogatari series because Araragi was once again the protagonist, but unfortunately, my interest wasn't kept quite as much as I would've liked. I think what put the nail in that coffin was that these four episodes seem to only exist to provide a new plot point for Araragi. Of course, going forward, I'm sure these episodes are going to matter a lot and make a big difference, but just watching the development of this one plot point wasn't all that interesting.

The tone of these four episodes was nice, though, because of Araragi leading the narration once ... again. It wasn't anything as special as some of the other stories he's told, but it was still nice to get back into it with Araragi as the main character. I will say that, while I was disappointed with the odd lack of significant character development during these episodes (because, as I mentioned, these episodes seem to be focused more on plot development), I did enjoy learning about the major changes that will now be happening in the series because of what was revealed in Tsukimonogatari. Unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of the rest of the cast for this season, so in this case, Monogatari limiting itself to a few characters per arc hurt my personal opinion of Tsukimonogatari, as well as the fact that the pacing of this arc did what Araragi arcs normally do, which is ramp up right at the end but nowhere else. All in all, Tsukimonogatari isn't my favorite, but if you're a fan of Araragi-led storylines, you may end up liking it more than I did.

8.5/10. Classic puns, smooth conversation and underlying plot of seriousness with all the wild hijinks chucked in like usual. An all-round very enjoyable experience with good story structure and a very satisfying resolution. I really enjoyed all the same idiosyncrasies that I so fell in love with: Araragi’s unforgiveable but so entertaining and somehow tasteful plot-relevant perversion, the humanization and more/reinforced development of characters, and just a generally hooking plot.

The use of peculiar imagery is the usual – that is the usual odd, bizarre stuff – and the classic Shaft animation and art style are always a treat to watch. Vey glad that they ... put in a certain waifu at the end, I don’t know how and why I fell in love with her character so much, but I’m half glad at my number one waifu represent.

This franchise used to have between eleven and twenty six episodes at some point but the previous entry had five and this one has four, is it running out of content or what? Oh well, at least this means that I can finish them faster, and for an IP that I’m enjoying less and less each season, that’s a good thing.

Visually, it’s surprisingly a step back from the previous series, because the artwork is not as polished at points, and due to the use of some very clear places as backgrounds and very bright special effects, sometimes things seem unfinished or lacking lining or ... details. At least it’s the season with more movement when people talk, there are almost no still moments in it. There are also some interesting visual bits here and there such as Pac-Man references, or the change of the way the light novel passages are integrated, this time mostly shown as what looks like letters that were torn apart.

In terms of sound, the ending has cool visuals but it is the most basic and typical so far, as is the opening, both are just very generic jpop songs, though I like Saori Hayami’s singing voice, way more than her acting voice, even though her performance as Ononoki might be my favourite from her for feeling a bit different than her usual roles. There’s, however, an improvement on the background music, as this entry has the most intense one, filled with themes that seem like they belong in a horror anime instead of this series.

Anyways, the name of the arc and the cover made me think that this season was going to be about Ononoki, a character I kind of wanted to see more of since she was given some of the best dialogues in the franchise, although they are usually next to some of the worst as well. And to be fair, more information about her is revealed, which is in turn related to the past of the four big exorcists within the setting, while there are still some interesting conversations about her or between her and Araragi here and there, so I guess Tsukimonogatari more or less gives me what I wanted, albeit in very small doses and with a not very good presentation, since it is told instead of shown. It’s understandable though, since despite having an important role in the entry, it doesn’t really revolve around her.

Instead, it’s supposed to mean a big deal and change for Araragi, but it doesn’t really feel like it, since he takes it straight pretty much right away, and the tone is for the most part very lighthearted, thus the viewer doesn’t really buy the supposed urgency of the whole thing. Also, whatever tension it tries to build lacks any possible impact, result of releasing Hanamonogatari before it. That’s the big issue of doing that, whatever big or suspenseful event might take place from here on won’t have much of an effect on me, since I already know the outcome and that everyone is fine because of that season.

At least, I’m willing to accept that it’s a series that escalates in quality from less to more, as it has a plain horrible beginning full of all of the cancer from the previous worst moments in the franchise. Lots of meandering, pointless conversations, attempting to have dialogues about serious things while simultaneously presenting the most stupid imagery along with them, and the biggest amount of incestuous ecchi and comedy yet, which in turn feels out of character from what was shown on Nisemonogatari. Remember how Tsukihi reacted to Karen and Koyomi back then? Well, the roles are reversed now for fanservice sake.

At the very least, as it goes on, it shows Araragi the consequences of abusing his power and acting rashly, so it makes everything he did before feel important for him by giving him shortcomings or even some kind of ultimatum for using his abilities. Too bad Hanamonogatari was released right before it.

There is a newly introduced guy that goes away just as quickly as he appeared before even being flesh out and for the short amount of screen time he had, he was pretty uninteresting. How do you make a character voiced by Takehito Koyasu boring? Tsukimonogatari shows how. He is not giving much to do, because as he himself points out, he is a pawn in the big picture.

So at least the show ends with a message of not letting you be played around by someone else, as two characters do the exact opposite as some previous arcs while doing the same thing as the best ones, by having them being proactive and going against what seems to be the predetermined course of action, while also setting up what everyone plans to do about it, as well as having them realize who is the real main antagonist that was pulling the strings from behind the scenes the whole time. Oh, and there’s also a very cute second to last scene with Araragi and Senjougahara, the last scene is whatever, it even ruins what seemed to be a breaking point for the two protagonists of the arc.

As a whole, it begins being the worst arc in the franchise by far, but as it goes on it increases its quality considerably, though just like Nekomonogatari: Kuro, it feels more like a buildup for things to come, a transition entry from Second Season to Owarimonogatari, instead of its own thing. I didn’t find it to be straight up bad, but to me it was just another passable anime like Hanamonogatari, and a step back in quality from the best point in the series just like that show.