See, the joke there was that Monogatari is as inconsistent as can be, and widely varies in quality from arc to arc. Got it? No? I'll wait.
…OK? Let's move on.
While technically a four-arc series, there are three distinct arcs in this season's offerings: Ougi Formula, the one-hour premiere, Sodachi Riddle/Lost, and Shinobu Mail. Part of what makes this season strange to review is that each and every one can be summarized with a single sentence, but I am generous enough to provide you with multiple sentences. I will do my best to go over them all without spoiling anything, because Monogatari is serious business.
Ougi Formula is the series' standard fare. Not only is it a locked room mystery, it's forty-some minutes of dialogue that's not exactly justified by its contents. Were there no philosophical questions and characteristically abstract classrooms, it could be concluded in ten minutes, or even a heavy twenty. Instead, you will spend roughly five percent of your day watching Ougi and Araragi solve a seemingly unimportant puzzle. You almost reach a point where you think all this time spent will be inconsequential, yet that is saved by a graceful transition into the second arc.
Thus ensues Sodachi Lost and its conjoined twin, Sodachi Riddle, which go above and beyond the series' standard fare. It's maybe the most straightforward, mature story the Monogatari series has given us, which concerns a classmate's displacement and the unknown circumstances of her family. Marina Inoue's fantastic (or shall I say phantasmic) portrayal of Oikura may send a chill or two down your spine, and there's no lack of interrogation or detective work on Araragi's part. Unlike the previous arc, there is a feeling of consequence to every word muttered or yelled, which helps portray the shattered mental state of Oikura rather sympathetically. It's an approach most artists wouldn't dare to take, so I wholeheartedly appreciate the effort and delicacy put into handling it. There are still the rough points along the way, like a few boob jokes and some off-topic discussion, yet they're minor enough to be promptly excusable. The whole thing is best summed up by the words of the show's official subtitles (which are garbage that you shouldn't use): "I'm terribly sorry. I had underestimated you, to be honest."
To round it all out, Shinobu Mail is well below the series' standard fare. After how much I was impressed by the Sodachi stories, I was hoping for the best. All of that hope left my body after watching the first episode of Shinobu Mail. There are some parallels to be drawn to your typical superhero movies—there's a big bad which everyone works together to defeat, yet nobody thinks they'll be able to. It wouldn't be such a major issue if any of the major action was shown, WHICH IT IS NOT. NOTHING IS SACRED. We instead follow Araragi and a piggybacking Kanbaru, who continues her trend of making annoying sexual jokes and innuendos toward him wherever possible. It's like being alone in a room with a 12-year-old, which is something that Araragi would probably like. Later on is a twenty-minute infodump which concludes with Kanbaru and Shinobu sharing an unnecessary and crude sexual pose, a cake that is topped by the most anticlimactic of endings. I don't want to ruin that, but it's definitely an open-ended conclusion you've seen before.
I'm not going to say much about the directing, other than that I think it uses artistic value as a crutch. There is no attempt made to portray things as-is, so everything is abstract. Maybe the director and I just value different things.
Unless you're telling an overarching story, variety is the spice of life. Then it gets questionable. Unlike other shows in the same supernatural episodic vein (Mushishi, Cardcaptor Sakura), there's no consistent tone or guideline for the Monogatari series' plot. It's a bit all over the place. Maybe you, unlike me, are a fan of these random variables, and therefore may like Owarimonogatari a lot more than I did. If you do like this more than I did, good job. If you dislike this more than I did, good job. Having an opinion is the first step, and you are fantastic for that. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
Unless you're using the official subtitles. Then you're wrong.
