MAL just casually decided to unlog me while I was typing so it erased everything I wrote, okay, that's cool, I'm not salty, I'm fine.
So, what was I saying... Yeah, firstly, the streaming site I'm using combined the Mayoi Hell arc into one episode, since I just watched the first one that means I might not have stopped at the right moment. I stopped at the puppeteer's arrival, I hope I didn't miss anything.
(Warning : I once again wrote a lot. I really mean a lot. I'm sincerely sorry about that, I'm just too invested in this show.)
Now, as I was also saying, this episode had a lot, and I really mean A LOT of content, this is both mindblowing and an absolute paradise for my analytic and theorist heart, so needless to say I have a lot to say, and I'm gonna say it. Everything. You've been warned.
Let's start with the puppeteer's return. I was suprised at first but when I think about it, it makes sense for him to be there. He is dead after all, and I can definitely imagine that a guy like him would find himself in hell. It doesn't explain what he is planning to tell Araragi, but considering all the info we've got about Yotsugi, I guess it will have something to do with that, or at least some reveals about what has been going on in this world that led for the specialists to put Araragi in Yotsugi's care.
Now, let's go a little earlier in the episode and talk about Ougi (I always talk a lot about her but firstly : she's one of the most fascinating characters I've seen so of course I'll talk about her, and secondly : it is obvious she is very, very, veeery important to the plot and I want to find out why before it is revealed.) Araragi said two very important things. The first one, is that Ougi has been the most important person to him these last six months. That means he's actually been putting her above Shinobu, Hanekawa and Senjougahara. I knew she managed to make herself be of a great importance to him, but to such degree ? That's crazy.
And the other one, is that he forgot about her. Considering what happened with Oikura, I don't think it'd be that stupid to believe that he simply has a very bad memory, but that'd be very underwhelming so let's take a more supernatural approach. First, there's something important to remember, which has that before waking up Araragi did think about Ougi, he saw her calling him a fool and agreed with that statement. That means he only forgot once he woke up in hell. Another thing is that back in Nadeko Medusa, we saw Nadeko forgot a rather big part of her conversation with Ougi, and considering which part it was and all the clues we have about Ougi, I think it's safe to assume she is the one who made her forget. So with that in mind, should we consider she purposely made herself be forgotten ? It could be that, but I don't see why she'd do this, I doubt it'd be useful to her, especially since Araragi remembered after a while.
So I'm keeping that in mind but I'll be going for another theory, this one being that it isn't Ougi's doing, but that Araragi's consciouness purposely erased her, as if she never existed to start with. And to explain that, I have something else to point out which is that it's been a while that I have this theory that Ougi is directly connected to Araragi. I won't go into details, first because listing every clue I gathered would be way too long and also because while completely possible once you have all the clues, my theory still sounds pretty crazy so you know, I'm keeping it to myself just so that if I'm wrong I won't feel too stupid (and if I'm right, I'll celebrate).
But I have this theory. So what if the reason he forgot about her is actually because her very existence depends on his own, or something like that ? I also noticed something, which is that each girl he remembered is a girl he met because of a choice he made. But when you think about it, that's not the case with Ougi. He didn't choose to help her or anything like that, she just came to him one day, put a schema on his desk, and before he knew it he was locked in a room trying to solve a mystery about his past. That makes her very different from the rest of the "harem".
Well, of course something also important to take in account is the fact that it is almost certain she is the "someone" that has been mentionned in the last episode of Koyomimonogatari. But that's another thing, if that really is her, wouldn't that give even more weight to my theory about her being bond to Koyokoyo ?
There is something else, which not only gives more weight to the Ougi theory but is also very interesting in terms of message and character development for Araragi.
There are two important themes that have been adressed in this episode : choices and balance. About the balance, we already know Ougi's related to that, and that's definitely very interesting to know that Araragi has been looking for this.
And about the choices, it isn't directly related to Ougi at first glance, however it is definitely related to the final message of the Sodachi arc, a message that has been brought by Ougi, through the work she made Araragi do. The message was about facing the truth and stop being in denial, but in the end, what she made him do to realize that is a succession of choices : he had to confront he had to choose to confront his past with Oikura, he had to choose between Ougi and Hanekawa (though in this case that's not really Ougi's doing, but it still works), he had to choose to face the truth, he had to choose to go and tell Oikura said truth. All of that, literally all of them, were choices. If he didn't choose for himself, no matter what Ougi would have said to him, nothing would have happened. And through all these choices, he dealt with his past, with himself.
And to go along with that, there is something very interesting that has been said in this episode which is about how even if you make the right choice and you take the right path, if you do that in a rushed attempt to correct your mistakes, the so-called "right path" will be a very dirty one. I loved that part both because the message is great, and also because it immediately reminded me of one of my favorite Ougi lines : "You are planning to redeem yourself through making her suffer ?" (In case anyone forgot, she said that to Araragi when he decided to go and tell Oikura the truth.) I loved this line, because I interpreted it that way : dealing with your past is good, but you can't just do that simply because you want to feel better about yourself, if your actions aren't thoughtful and heartfelt then nothing good will come out of it (and as we've seen, Araragi did think about what he was doing and consequently Oikura reacted pretty well, because he talked to her and took her feelings in account instead of rushing in her apartment to scream at her face everything he has to say).
This is even more interesting if you take a look at Decent Black's (Ougi Formula's op) lyrics : this message can be found here too.
So what we can take from it is that recently, there has been three very important messages :
-Face the truth and don't lie to others and yourself
-Make the right choice but do not feel bad about yourself if you fail (something brought up not by Ougi but Hachikuji, and I can't say how good this message makes me feel)
-Deal with your past mistakes whenever you can, but do that carefully or else the path you'll take will be a dirty one and you won't be at peace with yourself
And even if they haven't been directly adressed in this episode, I can also mention two other messages :
-Do it yourself (which goes along with the choices)
-You are the one who ultimately saves yourself since no one but you can decide if you want to be saved, but that doesn't mean you cannot rely on others as long as it isn't dependency. Accepting help, accepting to be saved, is important (something that has actually been brought very early, back in Tsubasa Cat).
All these messages say a lot about Araragi. Every single one of them can be applied to other characters, but above all, they can be applied to him. That's very interesting.
And now that I think about all those messages, I realize how beautiful they are. I don't think I've ever related this much to a show's messages. That makes me so happy.
Now this is has been a very long post, much longer than I expected, so I'll have to summarize my thoughts about the rest.
So, the rest. I find that pretty great that Hachikuji is the one who guides Araragi, considering her story and the reason why the Darkness took her, this is very heartwarming, though, I'll admit, in a rather twisted way.
Also, there is some mystery behind Gaen's actions. Initially I suspected her of not being honest and I still kind of do (and I recently realized that one of the reasons why she always felt suspicious to me is because she reminds me a lot of Haruno from Oregairu, that's a useless fact but another thing Monogatari taught me is that I'd rather say the truth if I don't want for a dark weird entity to come and drag me into hell), but I didn't at all expect that she was planning on reviving Araragi. Not only does that makes me feel bad for having seen her as some psychotic murderer (even if she's still not innocent in my eyes), but that's also very intriguing since it makes me wonder in what way would killing then reviving Araragi would solve the problem, and also might explain how and why Kaiki came back to life.
Another thing, I still don't understand what happened to Shinobu if she's been separated from Araragi, but then again I'm pretty confused when it comes to how their bond works so I won't talk too much about that.
Finally, I just want to aknowledge that this episode started with lolicon jokes and I ended up in tears, so I'm starting to think this show is corrupting me. I'm no longer a pure soul... That's tragic.
There is probably a lot more I could've said but at this rate I'm gonna write an entire novel so let's stop before it's too late. |