Monogatari Series Second Season

Overview

The collection known as the Monogatari Series Second Season officially includes Nekomonogatari White through Koimonogatari. However, since we went over Nekomonogatari White with Nekomonogatari Black that one will be excluded from this post.

Another thing to note is that while Hanamonogatari is considered part of the second season, it is not a part of this collective and so will have its own post next time I do a Monogatari series review.

This means that in this post we’ll be taking a look at Kabukimonogatari, Otorimonogatari, Onimonogatari, and Koimonogatari which each only have one arc.

Kabukimonogatari

Kabukimonogatari includes the arc Mayoi Jiangshi in which Koyomi and Shinobu travel back in time and end up saving Mayoi Hachikuji from being killed by a truck 11 years before the start of the series.

While this originally seems like a good thing, it turns out that changing the past isn’t something you should do. Who could have guessed?

Because of their decision to save Mayoi, the current world is now overrun by vampires due to the vampire Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade (Shinobu). As it turns out, Mayoi is a pretty important character as an apparition so her removal changes the whole story.

One day Shinobu went missing and it was none other than Mayoi who first realized she was gone. Because of this, Koyomi was able to find Shinobu in time before she decided to destroy the world and make everyone into vampires.

Without Mayoi as an apparition, however, the world is dying, zombie-like vampires are everywhere, and Koyomi and Shinobu seemingly have no way to return to their normal timeline. However, a hero appears: Mayoi.

Mayoi, now an adult, has managed to survive the apocalypse and carries a message for Koyomi explaining to him how to get back to his own timeline. All he has to do is defeat the vampire Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade.

However, Koyomi never actually defeats her, and instead, she allows him and Shinobu to use her power to return to their own timeline. This is the first time we see the vampire Kiss-Shot recognize Koyomi’s relationship with her.

Otorimonogatari

The arc for Otorimonogatari is the Nadeko Medusa arc. As I mentioned in my review of Bakemonogatari, I actually like Nadeko’s character development over the course of this series despite most people finding her boring.

While in Nadeko Snake she was simply a boring girl in love, in Nadeko Medusa she becomes a yandere goddess.

Basically, in this arc, Nadeko believes she is making amends for killing a bunch of snakes to rid herself of the charm that was cast on her originally by finding the body of a snake god. However, what she really ends up doing is releasing the snake god which had been sealed away.

Nadeko’s body is then used by the apparition and she herself essentially becomes the goddess of the snake shrine and her hair turns into a bunch of snakes. When she’s confronted by Koyomi and Shinobu, she defeats them and plans to kill them because she’s jealous of their relationship, however, Senjougahara intervenes.

It’s then agreed that Nadeko will allow Koyomi and Senjougahara to graduate from high school before killing them both.

Onimonogatari

Onimonogatari includes the arc Shinobu Time which is about what happens when apparitions stop behaving as they should. In this arc, we are introduced to a black hole-like entity which, as it turns out, is a force that corrects the natural order of the world by destroying apparitions that no longer comply.

However, it doesn’t just destroy apparitions, but any living thing in its path. After seeing the entity, Shinobu recognizes it as something she saw 400 years earlier when she first came to Japan.

At this time, She was being revered as a goddess rather than feared as a vampire which is why the black hole appeared. In the end, it went away after Shinobu returned to being a vampire after all of the citizens who worshiped her were killed by it.

This time around, however, Shinobu is not the apparition who has strayed from her path; it’s Mayoi.

As you may recall from the Mayoi Snail arc of Bakemonogatari, Mayoi became a lost cow apparition who leads people astray due to her never making it to her mother’s house before she died. However, at the end of that arc, she made it to her destination and therefore is no longer lost.

Further, since that point, she has no longer led anyone astray which means she isn’t fulfilling her duty as a lost cow apparition.

In the end, Mayoi decides that the only way to save everyone else is for her to disappear. Rather than being destroyed by the black hole, however, she chooses to pass on to the afterlife and thereby cease being an apparition wandering the Earth.

Basically, this arc is why we can’t have nice things. Mayoi becomes a dependable character who we’re used to seeing around, and then the next thing you know she has to disappear forever otherwise everyone else will die.

Koimonogatari

The arc for Koimonogatari is Hitagi End. Despite the names of the arcs not matching up, Hitagi end is actually the continuation of the Nadeko Medusa arc in the same way that the Shinobu Time arc was the continuation of Mayoi Jiangshi.

This arc takes place after Senjougahara convinces Nadeko to wait until after graduation to kill Koyomi, Shinobu, and Senjougahara herself.

Senjougahara contacts best girl Kaiki and hires him to work his magic as a con man and deceive Nadeko into believing that both Koyomi and Senjougahara died in an accident. In the end, Nadeko sees right through Kaiki, but as a master con man, he has a backup plan.

During the Nadeko Snake arc from Bakemonogatari, you may recall there was a closet in Nadeko’s room which she refuses to let Koyomi look inside. It turns out that inside the closet is a bunch of manga that Nadeko drew and doesn’t want anyone to know about.

Kaiki learns of this and uses it to his advantage by telling Nadeko that if she doesn’t return home and stop being a goddess, her parents will eventually open her closet and discover her secret of wanting to be a manga artist.

While most of us realize that her parents discovering she wanted to be a manga artist isn’t really a big deal (especially since she’s a goddess now), we have to remember that Nadeko is still only about 14 years old. And, like many children, she doesn’t quite understand the severity of various things.

In her mind, having her parents, or anyone for that matter, see the manga she drew is so embarrassing that she would rather give up being a goddess than allow that to happen. It’s kind of like how the girls in Mitsuboshi Colors see a dog getting loose in school as a more important case than murder.

Due to the end of this arc, I think many people still believe that Nadeko is a boring character, but I don’t see her that way even once she goes back to being a normal girl. Instead, I see a character who’s actually believable.

The priorities of teenagers don’t make sense; they think being embarrassed is the end of the world. Nadeko acts her age and that’s exactly why I like her as a character.

Conclusion

Overall the Monogatari Series Second Season is a 10/10 even if I include Nekomonogatari White into it. The arcs are mostly about Mayoi and Nadeko, two characters who I love and so why wouldn’t it be perfect?

The Mayoi arcs “hit me right in the feels” as the kids would say and the Nadeko arcs were just enjoyable to watch because of yandere snake goddess Nadeko.

Next time I write about the Monogatari series we’ll be looking at Hanamonogatari which will probably be shorter because it only has one arc.