hontou ni Stripey Insists Sisters Cry Oniichan Now

Bakemonogatari 06

Summary:

On his way to Hitagi's for a study session, Koyomi and Mayoi have a friendly bickering. Until one of his juniors, Suruga Kanbaru, the star of the basketball team, leaps over them. Whereupon Mayoi promptly vanishes. Suruga starts to chat up Koyomi about current affairs but retreats after he says he has an appointment to be tutored. Right on cue, Mayoi reappears and speculates that Suruga may have fallen for Koyomi and that he should expect a confession soon.

At Hitagi's home, the two discuss their futures, individually and together. Until the topic of Suruga turns up the flame of Hitagi's jealousy with Koyomi's eyeball seeing her pencil really up close. It turns out that she had a crush on Hitagi in middle school, discovered her secret in her first year of high school and was forcefully turned away when she offered to help. It appears that Hitagi has yet to close her account with Suruga. After leaving Hitagi's, Koyomi calls up Tsubasa who tells him more about the history of the Baruhara combo and advises him not to dig too deep too quickly. He then is violently attacked by an oddity with a red left arm which causes him to recall Suruga's bandaged arm. Hitagi appears in a nick of time, to hand over the envelope, for Oshino's payment, that he had forgotten.

Reaction:

Sweet crazy yuri jealousy, fuck yeah. I had half-assumed that Mayoi had avoided Suruga because she had been harrassed by her before. But it seems that Suruga has eminently good taste in senpais; my Senjougahara Fascination has just gone up another big notch - any beautiful and cool girl becomes even more so, to me, when I learn that she's got a yuri admirer. I'm slightly disappointed that Koyomi wasn't attacked with basketball-related weaponry but on the other hand, I'm glad she didn't use the Monkey Steals Peaches move.

Other than the very engaging and endearing characters, the other big draw of this series for me is how each of their stories get interwoven as it progress. Too often many series, especially the galge-based series that Koyomi mentions, each girl rises to prominence in her thread only to recede into the background afterwards. I love the way the series continues to build up Koyomi and Hitagi's very odd but very firm relationship as conveyed by their 'after high school' and 'who should murder Koyomi' conversations. Others in the web of friendships like a very very cute Mayoi and an increasingly sexy Tsubasa (very rare for me to find a meganekko sexy - call it the Tanaka Rie x Baroness Effect) who also doles out excellent love advice - what's the catch here? Koyomi really needs to level up on his combat skills, as we've seen from FMAB, regeneration is handy but, ultimately, doesn't win battles.

Related posts:

1. Bakemonogatari 05
2. Bakemonogatari 07
3. Bakemonogatari 11