The instalment begins following Hanekawa in the most forgettable arc of this season. The Hanekawa arc is a continuation of Nekomonogatari Black and is completely unceccrasy as it is the third Monogatari arc that follows Black Hanekawa as the main focal point. The following arc follows Hachikuji as the main focal point as Araragi tries to time travel back in time at the Shrine of the Polar Snake with Shinobu to eleven years ago in a desperate attempt to save Hachikuji from being hit by a car. The results are disastrous as since Hachikuji was never a ghost, Shinobu was never found back in Bakemonogatari meaning Black Hanekawa killed Araragi breaking their bond and turning her back into Kiss Shot resulting in the whole world being converted to vampires. In this new world Araragi and Shinobu are able to track down future Hachikuji by firing rockets into the air which attract her attention. She gives them a letter provided to her by Oshino Meme which directs Araragi to track down Kiss Shot. They are able to locate her at the Shrine of the Polar Snake in which she sacrifices herself to Shinobu allowing them to gather enough energy to reopen the portal to their dimension. As this arc ends, another one begins. This time following Nadeko who fell victim to the Polar Snake, an oddity using Nadeko as a vessel to regain control of the Shrine of the Polar Snake. Nadeko runs away from home searching for the snake’s body in hopes that it will leave her alone, but instead she finds a talisman inside Araragi’s drawer and she eats it, becoming possessed by the Polar Snake who tries to murder him and Shinobu before making a deal with Senjougahara to murder them on graduation day to allow them to have more time together. The arc following this is yet another forgettable arc, this time following Shinobu, despite her being essentially the main character of the last arc. In this arc Araragi and Hachikuji are attacked by a swarm of darkness. They are able to make it to safety for a short time with the assistance of Ononoki. While they are in hiding, the darkness discovers their location and the group flee in a desperate escape effort. This time Araragi wakes up after a twelve hour nap finding himself on an abandoned mountain. Ononoki and Hachikuji find out that the reason Araragi was passed out for so long was that his bond with Shinobu was damaged by the darkness. They also discover that the darkness was not actually going for Shinobu like it was four-hundred years ago, but instead was going for Hachikuji as she refuses to move on to the afterlife. While trying to make it back to civilization, the group runs across Izuko Gaen marking the end of the arc. The show then ends out the season with the best arc yet, this one following Kaiki and Senjougahara as they try to find a way to defeat Nadeko. Kaiki is able to get 3,000,000 Yen from Gaen in exchange to stay out of town, but he collects the money and breaks his promise, opting to help Senjougahara instead. Kaiki visits the shrine every single day to build a relationship with Nadeko in hopes of convincing her not to kill Araragi on the arranged date. On the day of graduation Kaiki tells Nadeko that Araragi and Senjougahara died the previous night in a car accident, but Nadeko does not fall for it and threatens to kill Kaiki, Araragi’s sisters, Hanekawa, and Kanbaru, the last of which triggers Kaiki and he begins to use everything he has to convince Nadeko not to kill them, stop being a god, and revert back to a human instead. In the end Kaiki is able to utilize a slug he secretly gave Nadeko to make her pass out, allowing him to remove the talisman from her throat. As Kaiki is leaving town and finishing a conversation with Senjougahara over the phone, he is shot and left for dead, presumably by the middle schooler from Bakemonogatari who fell victim to Nadeko’s counter curse.
This season did nearly everything right, so much in this season was incredible. Both the Hachikuji arc and the Senjougahara/Kaiki arcs were perfect with nearly every single detail. These arcs alone are a perfect ten-out-of-ten. Both arcs, as well as the Nadeko arc, featured the best theme songs in the show, at least since Bakemonogatari, as well as the piano versions of the openings being some of the best and most fitting background songs in animation as a whole, with the most amazing being at the end of the season while Kaiki is on the phone. Among all the details in these arcs my favorite by far had to be the references back to Bakemonogatari which leaves fans of the show feeling rewarded for watching and remembering details from older episodes. The best example of this is in the Hachikuji arc which shows what would have happened if Shinobu didn’t come out of the shadow to save Araragi, which was my biggest complaint for Bakemonogatari as it made the ending feel lazy and like a copout, but this new spin off of what could have been makes the ending feel like a work of genius. As well as this the relationship between Kaiki and Senjougahara is by far the best in the show, and possibly among the best tv relationships ever. Their conversations feel extremely natural and the viewer can relate and feel for Senjougahara falling for Kaiki’s childish scams while also being able to relate to Kaiki’s wisdom and persuasion to help him in nearly any circumstance, it really feels like an adult-kid relationship that many shows try to aim for and fail, while Monogatarti is able to do it flawlessly without it being in your face, more so as a background feature one will only notice if they really pay attention. To prevent this review from going on for hours, it is best to end the good and get onto the bad.
Although there are many good things about this season, there are many terrible inclusions that hold it back. The worst thing about this season are the three forgettable arcs in comparison to the two best arcs. The first arc, Hanekawa’s arc, should have been included in Nekomonogatari and not the Second Season as it makes the first five episodes or so drag on for way longer than they have to. Continuing in this style, Shinobu’s arc has many, many flaws. The first thing one will notice is the intro song does not fit the show at all, the intro seems more similar to something I would see on The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, not Monogatari. As for the arc itself, it comes in at a terrible time - in between Nadeko’s arc and Kaiki’s arc, making the viewer just want to skip over it to see how the battle with Nadeko will conclude. The story of the arc doesn’t do much for the show itself only providing more backstory for Shinobu that was already discussed in Hachikuji while the addition of the darkness going for Hachikuji seems unnecessary as the viewer already knows she isn’t going to get killed off. While the introduction of Gaen is useful to the plot, especially in the Kaiki episode, it is the most unnatural thing to happen so far in this entire show so far with Araragi and Ononoki just so happening to find Gaen in the exact same minute they randomly decided to start talking about her. In regards to the Nadeko arc, it is very important in establishing why Nadeko wants to stay the Polar Snake and helps to create the reason for the Kaiki arc to exist, but it feels dragged out, and at times, very forgettable.
Overall this season of Monogatari was the best yet, but it is held back in many ways that prevent it from ever being able to reach its fullest potential. The arcs following Kaiki and Hachikuji are masterpieces while Shinobu’s and Hanekawa’s are some of the most boring in the show and while this season is home to the best openings yet, it also has one of the worst. For every action done well, that same thing was done badly in another episode preventing this instalment from getting an extremely high score. Even for a first time viewer, there are many episodes one could skip and still perfectly understand what is going on in the show, which is a first for Monogatari as all episodes before this were necessary to watch for proper context. One would be advised to watch all twenty three episodes, but it would also be beneficial to skip a few episodes to conserve time, especially during a rewatch of this show.
