If the intricate story of Monogatari were compressed down to a few sentences, Koyomimonogatari would be the punctuation marks littered around, marking transitions, pauses, and questions throughout the series. It compiles a series of tiny mysteries and quandaries that Araragi encounters through his discussions with all the various girls we have seen up to this point, conspicuously focusing on a new character each week, true to the order in which their arcs appeared in previous series’. Yet the mysteries themselves are trifles, illusions or wordplay that lead to brief but interesting thoughts and nothing more. And that lack of tension, that laid-back style in which these vignettes give a small taste of how our favorite Monogatari characters act when everything is smooth sailing, is a perfect side story, a spice on top of our complex meal, the punctuation in the sentences of our story.
The most enjoyable part of these stories to me is how all of them revolve around supernatural phenomena that could only be the work of oddities, and yet with just a bit of logical thinking—usually provided by our very own genius Hanekawa—they turn out to be easily explained without any bizarre or fictitious elements at all. Enshrined rocks, teleporting shrines, trees materializing out of thin air; at 13 minutes an episode not including the opening themes—all of which are borrowed from all the previous Monogatari installments—and the new ending, there is just enough time for a setup and a punch line. It’s as if they streamlined the mystery aspects of Owarimonogatari and removed all the drama. With the bizarre camerawork and snappy dialogue so characteristic of Monogatari, how could that not be fun?
This describes the first ten episodes just fine, but there is one entity completely distinct from all the rest, and it needs to be discussed. The last two episodes are a discussion between Araragi and Gaen on the nature of stability in the town, and the looming presence of an antagonistic force waiting for Araragi to slip up. When talking about Tsukimonogatari I said that the plot of his vampire powers growing out of control seemed a bit too contrived or cliché, but with this last story it finally becomes clear where this becomes a serious problem in the world. And the ending, a cliffhanger the likes of which we’ve rarely seen in Monogatari, is shocking. The first ten episodes of Koyomimonogatari are fun, lighthearted, and just as worth watching as any other installment of the series; the last two episodes are absolutely essential for us to continue on this wild ride.