As the monogatari series had made itself known to me, in the beginning of time, my first impression of this series wasn't bright, I had to, almost as if, coerced myself to continue watching it given the exudes of its sense of pretense and sophistry; which I had decided to assume about the series first that I have no great first impression off, since it's only natural to doubt a philosophically deep dialogue from an anime right? That being said, that's only when my mind and thinking process are struck in the subjective sense, due to sentimentality and all of the other factor that made up subjective view. After I've mature abit more, I started to look at things more objectively, whilst discarding the subjective ground of thinking like appealing more to sentimentality or enforcing few parts of the show I hate about to irrationally hate the show itself , listening to others to build my own ideas, trying to pander myself to the social constructed common thinking, and such. This is when I became a hardcore monogatari fan, rewatching the show like 9 times already for the past years.
Then it had become my no.1 anime of all time.
Digression aside, mayoi hell, hitagi renvendous and such, marked the end of the tale of Koyomi, the main lead of the story, in this great adventure of learning about the oblivion, entering into the realm of the supernatural, and adapting himself, using his own irrationality and resignation of not knowing obscured truth, to saves all the presented girls in the story. But this simply marked an end to Araragi's adolescence life, as he did in fact graduated and became, quasi, a new person entirely with the enlightened knowledge bestow by other characters, whom to which held great and unique wisdom given their differences in characters and perspectives that builds Araragi's character. Araragi started off as a pain the ass character, it changes though, and this is the quintessential growth, to that of a strong and greatly developed character through a person's adolescence, though from the perspective of an especial or an exceptional one.
This arc could be named the "Magnum Opus" of all the monogatari series combined, I would even go as far as to say that it's prolly one of the finest, and incredibly well executed, wrapped up of all arc of the life of Koyomi before his graduation and the foreboding tales, entailing the yet to come experiences, that had yet to be known to the anime watchers (that's a different story if you are a light novel reader of the monogatari series). Incidentally, the life of those that held a great relevance to Araragi's adolescence, all of them have grown as well. The rather monotonous speech pattern, and the ever so repetitious, static personality had been abolish almost credulously; this signifies the their growth, namely, Nadeko, Senjougahara, Hanekawa and some of the character in the show (aka, Ougi).
Whilst some people maybe confused about the scene that had been replayed in Kizumonogatari in a much different setting from the movie; this second season remained true to its primal source material. Meanwhile, the movie version of kizumonogatari greatly differs from the light novel given the extensive hyperbolic visuals, differing setting, metaphors and of the lack of a more deep and plenty dialogues; though that doesn't dwindled the credibility of how Araragi and kiss shot was built, honed, or came to be.
Another confusion in the this anime as well, would be the fact that in the monogatari universe, all supernatural entities that are straying from its own role, pretending to be a human/other deity or oddity, or if the observer see them doing so or realizes it (this can effect the darkness if you've seen ep 3 of Owari second season, and back in time with kiss shot and her first minion) or acknowledge them, they get swallowed up by the darkness as its existence lives solely to rectifies abnormality.
As I've fleetingly digress, let's talk about this arc of the monogatari in particular shall we? Or let me just change that to I instead if we were to think about it logically. But, we finally got to learn about Ougi's actual identity in this second season of Owari. It had been hinted directly and even indirectly like the exuding air of her ominous aura or appearances , but it literally flew past by our heads given that we had already, instinctively even, enclosed the possibility of that to be true. The very great thing about this though, the show manages to creates this brim of articulate connections, from the facts that are not known, or left to be obscured to us but is slightly told throughout the series (like Kiss-shot's past from 400 years ago when she became a new god there), and the very obvious ones consisting of Araragi's interactions with all characters, basically, his entire adolescence as a whole.
Since spoiling here is imminent and almost inevitable if I were to lay out bare the great level of intricacy structure of the display of the connections, I'll just left some part of the show's revelation left untouched, lest you're already spoiled by some reviewers here, in which I will not be doing.
All in all, the greatness of the music production and its great segue for each scene never made me questioned the inappropriateness of the director's selections, the extraneous scenes and playful background movement amidst the dialogue always makes it alot more bearable, but in this case, very entertaining to both appreciating the dialogue, the voice acting, and the visuals. Never had I got bored watching the intensive hour of the first episode, Mayoi Hell, the second episode, Hitagi rendezvous, the third episode, Ougi Dark; all thanks to the great production of music and such, that the director and the staffs gave in each episodes. The revelation, or the main plot that builds itself since and of the entire monogatari series, had ended with a very good and meaningful plot twist (a plot twist for you if you're not Gaen Izuko lmao) that left me with a feeling of awe, an elated one. It's very rare for an anime, or even a story, that had solely rely its dialogue, to move the plot forward to be this fun to watch. The simplicity of a fighting show, harem show or any other story hold no chance against this piece of work that we called, the monogatari series. That maybe an exaggeration, but I have yet to see any show that wrapped the entirety of its show as good as this.
The disturbing scenes that encroached the norms of our century, the pedophilia like interactions or thoughts, the incest, the first ever scene of someone getting aroused from having their teeth being brushed by another person, the perversion, all of it are not a complete representation of what the show has to offers. As far as it stands, it don't negates the intellectualism that the dialogues has which includes many of the fundamental core message or purpose of a life lessons, the wisdom, the perspective, idealism or convictions crashing with another person's, and so forth. And ofc, not all dialogue from this show are that serious all the time, most of the time though, they are relevant to honing Araragi's character and of the other ones (like Kaiki for instance).
That being said, this anime is prolly one of the best anime out there yet, and the most unique amongst all, and it's a must watch if you haven't finish watching the show yet.
