They did it.
Nisio and Shaft managed to give a proper ending to a series in which one misstep could bring forth its doom.
As I wasn't particularly a fan of Tsuki (in this case, just some aspects of it, as I enjoyed it overall) Koyomi and the first part of Owarimonogatari, I was genuinely mindful that this could end as a screw up, even if I had all my hopes up for it.
The recurring problem with the Monogatari series, in my view, comes precisely from its
strength. The obvious enemy of a good series that focuses on delivering its story by a lot of dialogue is the lack of something worthwhile to say. Many times, it relied way too much on repetitive overexpository dialogue of things the viewer had already understood like they were retarded or something, way too much uninteresting idle chatter (this can come off as subjective, but the casual plot unrelated chit chat of the series kinda died for me after Second Season) and, yes, stupid fan service.
I don't think it is the case that Shaft's producers noticed that. Even though it's still a frequent complaint by (western, at least) fans of the series, the general acclaim each new season usually receives implies that they are still doing something right.
However, maybe it's the fact that this season lacked virtually all of the flaws I listed before that made it so special and and ending fitting of the sprawling story of Monogatari, together with the excellent plot.
Instead of spending overtime with meaningless froth and silly fan service, they focused on interesting conversations concerning the story, its character and the development of both, which this series conveyed in a way that, honestly, is only comparable with Season Season, and even then I couldn't say which of them had the most interesting and important character developments of the series. All episodes and all moments were importants before finally leading to the conclusion of the first Monogatari "mega arc" comprising all the tales told until that moment, and how Araragi's future was and would be affected by it.
My inspiration to write this has just extinguished right now, but I am just glad that, in the end, this series didn't disappoint me. It's way to easy to end predictively or coarsely whenever a story sprawls to the point when some of its parts may be better if forsaken from the whole, but at the same time refreshing when a series prove your worries wrong and lets you out of it with a smile on your face.
I could not ask for a better sense of closure.
It was all worth it. Thank you.
