We're reaching the end of the Monogatari series, although if the continuous flow of new characters, situations, and altogether crazy ideas streaming directly from Nisio Isin’s brain onto the screen is any indicator of things the “end” of Monogatari is simply the tying up of all the loose ends opened in previous seasons, and from here on out we will still be having oddities and high school angst for years to come. How he continues to generate plotlines is beyond me, but my suspicions are that it involves a dartboard. But at least for Owarimonogatari he had the framework of Araragi’s past and a conspicuous gap in his presence in the first arc of Monogatari: Second Season. What he chose to do with that framework, strangely enough, feels like some of his least structured work, riffing off unestablished character traits to create two backstories that could compact into half the space were it not for new character introductions and overdrawn speeches.
If the first season is themed around oddities and the second season is based on adolescent psychology, then Owarimonogatari is a mystery story, or rather three mystery stories held together by the glue that is Oshino Ougi. She has seen very little play in the Monogatari series thus far, but her appearances have carried hefty weight, from putting Nadeko on the path to becoming a vengeful goddess to leading Kanbaru to the Devil of Hanamonogatari. She also goes by the name Oshino when it is already established that Oshino Meme has no family, so her existence is entirely suspicious from the get-go. Her image is not helped much here; at the start of Owarimonogatari, Ougi gets herself locked in a room with Araragi and forces him to solve an incident of classroom disobedience with her to escape. Her speech is cleverly constructed to be both deferential and provocative, to coax Araragi’s secrets from him only to solve their underlying mysteries in a flash.
The locked room mystery centers on the classroom trial and conviction of his classmate Oikura Sodachi for assisting the class in cheating during a test three years prior, a crime she did not commit. Soon afterwards Araragi confronts a new mystery about a girl who taught him math in her attic during middle school before disappearing without a trace. Strangely this girl is also Sodachi, and a third mystery appears when Sodachi comes back to school with a bitter hatred for Araragi and Araragi alone, even though he apparently committed no particular sins himself. For a character added as a foil to Araragi as a means to give him a depth of personality—something he has been sorely lacking in for a long time—Sodachi is convincing and intriguing. Seeing Araragi unravel their story together piece by piece is fun. It is a rare fun that Araragi has never given us as a character, other than illustrating similar struggles in his friends.
A simple nod three seasons ago to his aptitude for mathematics, the summers spent in that attic years before, or even to a force behind his white knight and guilt complexes other than lazy character writing would have made this a natural way for this to fill in the gaps in his character. We did not have that, so instead we are given gaps that had not existed before, or rather gaps that had previously been oversights, and then they are filled in on site. A shame; Sodachi would have been a good counterpoint to follow throughout the rest of the show.
Ditto with the second arc, where Araragi details the events he experienced during his absence in Nekomonogatari: Shiro. His absence, along with the existence of the central force acting against him during that time, are given ample references in Onimonogatari, and yet actually seeing him tell the story feels like an exercise in Nisio Isin putting mismatched pieces together in a way that technically fits and turns out a completed puzzle, only for the picture to turn out discolored around the edges. Despite ostensibly being about Shinobu, her involvement in the story only appears after three episodes and a nine minute monologue by Izuko Gaen, the exposition fairy who knows everything, and appears just in time to crack the mystery. It all comes down to magic, history, an epic duel, and the other elements that constitute an action fantasy story, something Monogatari can no longer pretend to be since its brilliant deconstruction in Monogatari: Second Season. If Tsukimonogatari was the chapter of the series that ended up being too straightforward, investing too little in its characters and too much in the fantasy elements, then the second arc of Owarimonogatari veers much too close.
Still, I haven't watched an unenjoyable season of Monogatari to date, and Owarimonogatari offers all the amenities the series does best, from physics-defying architecture to a high contrast color palate, with natural flowing dialogues and the ability to tell crazy jokes without batting an eye. Ougi in particular brings out the worst in all the characters, challenging their boundaries and limits while keeping a straight face and playing innocent, despite having a smile less innocent than Anthony Hopkins wearing the skin of the cop he murdered two minutes prior. In one scene while purporting to have Araragi’s best interests at heart, she pushes Hanekawa so far that Hanekawa actually offers to let Araragi touch her breasts of her own volition. For a character as composed as Hanekawa, that's a new personal low.
I leave Owarimonogatari not so much with a sense of fulfillment for the characters and the story, but a dull reaffirmation that Monogatari series is a joy to watch, yet a pressing apprehension about the other major hole to fill, namely Kizumonogatari, easily the most anticipated story in the franchise. We now have a story centered around Araragi and his history with Shinobu, and it played less to the strengths of the series than I would have liked. Will his first contact with Shinobu reveal depths to his character that give us a more complete picture of the Araragi we have seen for years? Or will it be a completely new Araragi, fabricated out of necessity? Will it play to Monogatari’s strong sense of narrative and subversion of the fantasy, or will it play to the action and fantasy itself? And goddammit will he ever grab Hanekawa’s breasts?